This month has shown all the weather elements of mid-winter in Victoria, but it has been a good month for bonsai with a visit to Victoria by Hugh Grant from his home base in the Blue Mountains in NSW.
Hugh has been a long time member and friend of VNBC, and we have always welcomed any opportunity to tap into his knowledge, expertise and experience for the benefit of our members. This month we have been especially pleased to have Hugh conduct a day of workshops for members, and then a fascinating demonstration at the Tuesday evening club meeting on 8th July.
The workshops were attended by a number of club members with a variety of trees for review, discussion and suggestions for further development, and there was quite an amount of work carried out on the trees under the guidance of Hugh.
At the evening club meeting, Hugh used the opportunity to work on a Kunzea leptospermoides, or Yarra Burgan, to talk through his process of analysis of the tree, and to develop ideas and directions for turning the raw material into the makings of a good future bonsai. This tree had previously collected by a club member during one of our earlier digging events, and had no work carried out since its initial collection.
A fascinating night at the club meeting with Hugh as demonstrator, leaving us with plenty of ideas to think about as we look at our trees once again.