Hi, everybody,
a few day’s ago I made some pictures of the fresh brightly green new foliage on my big Larch (XL). The new foliage is still immature and short and that makes the ramification look really special.
Below: View of the lower right side branches.
Below: Bird’s eye view of the tree.
That’s why I like Larch Bonsai so much, they change their appearance all year round and that makes them quite unique! But it took me almost two day’s to wire this baby! And that was mostly to blame because of my bad timing and freakishly warm Spring weather! Most of my trees were still in my (now open) winter shelter because I was repainting all of my outdoor tables and fences! That took a bit longer than I expected and while I was struggling to paint the undersides of all those tables, Summer started! A week of short trousers painting followed and I even suffered my first sunburn, on one side of my face! Looked funny, but was quite painful! 
And then the buds on my Larch started to swell way earlier than last 3 years, and that meant trouble! When I finally finished painting my tables, I brought my Larch outdoor and started to carefully wire, without breaking off too many new buds! Well that was very tedious and time-consuming work, and on top of that, winter had returned as soon as I started to wire, and man it can get cold when you are standing still for hours to wire! And because of the tight ramification that I created my self during the last years, it was now almost impossible to get my big hands in between those branches to wire, without rubbing off a lot of buds!
Below: This one was made just after this branch was wired. You can see how many buds there are actually on the branches all ready, that I needed to avoid as much as possible!
Below: Here I am finally positioning the branches. In the background my freshly painted tables and fens!
It is a calculated risk to wire this tree completely just before the growing season starts! I wired it pretty loose on purpose because I need the branches to grow as much as possible in this fixed position. The wire will be monitored constantly and will be cut as soon as it starts to dig in the bark! Then at the end of this growing season, all aluminium wire will be cut off (that’s another full day of work) and then the tree will be wired with copper wire again, but not the thick branches that are already pretty fixed in their positions. This is all in preparation for the next Noelanders trophy in January 2013. The day before that show all wire except the tiny ones on the small branches are cut off as well! And than hopefully all stay nicely in possition!
I tryed a full day to make a posh video of the work that I did on my Larch, with music, picture in picture and other fancy stuff! Like any 6 year old can do these day’s! 
But having to remake it all over again for the second time and than to loos it all again…I “###FUZZER RAZZER, RAZZZER FRAZZZER ## …managed to post two, on worked on short bits off video’s, straight on to YOUTUBE. I have to admit that at first I did not even knottiest that it was actually already uploading 2 of my 4 video’s! By the time I did, I only managed to add some info about who or what, but I did not managed or did not know how to change the titles that my new automatic friends at YouTube had come up with! So my first and most likely….last moving pictures of my work in progress that I ever posted for the world to see, are from now on known as……….wait for it……….114-0264.MOV and 114-0271.MOV! AKA “the sequel” of 114-0264.MOV! Ain’t it great, top of the world ma, TOP of the world…114 ##FUZZER RAZZRR##! 
It is so funny to now be able to see just how happy I am after finishing a tree like this one! There is just no other feeling like it in the world! Collected in 2004, with not much more left on it than two long and tin branches! And than look at it now, this tree is starting to look huge! At the end of this growing season I hope to have lots of new fourth and fifth year growth on my already established first, second and, third year branches. Those tiny branches will be wired more upwards to fill out the winter silhouette of this proud tree!
Part II
PS: I discovered, YES all by my self, how to change the title of my video’s! The first one now is named: 115- instead of 114!
Has a better ring to it don’t you think? 
No seriously, this is what they are named now: “MY RESTYLED OLD YAMADORI LARCH BONSAI PART I”. And “MY RESTYLED OLD YAMADORI LARCH BONSAI PART II”. Catchy dont you think?
And part III is HERE!! This one is a close up of the ramification on the tree. And still the birds can fly trough! 
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.
Info: karamottobonsai@hotmail.com
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The Bonsai Blog of Hans van Meer 