Bonsai Gallery of Walter Pall: Japanese Maple nr. 3

◄ Back

Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) #3

50 cm high
About 35 years old
Pot by Derek Aspinall
From nursery tree

In the early 80ies I was just as innocent as most bonsai enthusiasts. I went to a normal tree nursery and found this Japanese maple. it cost me 25 DM, which is around 10 US$. And I was proud to have made such a bargain. In hindsight it was a great experience to get something decent out of this crap in 25 years. But it would have been much better to have searched for much better material and with the same efforts had created a much better bonsai in that time. Well, I did not know what good material really was , just as most bonsai practitioners. Now I know, but it took this tree to learn this. So the lesson is: DON'T WASTE 25 YEARS! DO NOT REPEAT WHAT I DID HERE! GO FROM MUCH BETTER QUALITY AT THE OUTSET. BONSAI IS NOT THE ART TO FIND VERY INEXPENSIVE MATERIAL AND MAKE A MASTERPIECE FROM IT!
If you look at the oldest picture and then go through the sequence and think that one just has to wait long enough and a bonsai will be great you have not much of a clue about bonsai development. Many are confusing the aim with the means. The aim is to present a bonsai in the end that looks like it grew like this by itslelf. Mother nature did it - this is what the viewer should believe. But this is not reached by letting mother nature work. It is reached by working mostly against the wish of mother nature and partially with it. On this particular maple in the end nothing grew by itslef. Every single bit is made. But one can only work with what one has. If the material is lousy the result will most probably not be good. Or it will take extremely long. The maple in question could have been made from much better material in maybe five years. Or in the same time a world class tree could have been made from better material. This is what I am trying to get through here.