Is inverse taper a deal-breaker for you?

[penumbra]

Here's a photo of the pine I was talking about:
https://bonsaitonight.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Limber-pine.jpg

Doesn't bother me on the twisted pine as it looks natural. The mulberry does not. It looks like some sort of desert succulent.
I would wait until the appropriate time and carve it or plant it deeper and layer it. Mulberry will take it.

 

[sorce]

Even though that fern makes it seem like someone didn't think so, the "reverse taper" on that limber pine is in the category of feature.

When it's a legitimate feature, the "rules" don't apply.

When it's a flaw, for me, even if hidden successfully, the rest of the tree should make up for it, or have other qualities so worth looking at, that the hidden stays hidden, at least in the "eye of acceptance" of the viewer.

This mulberry though....

It's in the fixable category.

I don't trust the few large roots to stay aesthetically pleasing (in proportion) if you simply bury it deeper, but that could work, but I'd jump right to layering it.

But not soon, after the canopy is better ramified, I believe this aids in radial and even roots.

Sorce

 

[leatherback]

It depends.

Often you have slight reverse taper in gentle trees, where it is hardly noticable. In other cases.. It becomes a nightmare.

 

[Ohmy222]

For the Mulberry, layer it at the bulge. For gnarly trees a reverse taper is fine with me. You see it with old pines and Junipers. For deciduous, it is pretty rare but I have seen some with knots and age that can be usable. I seem to recall Mach5 having a small grey oak on a piece of deadwood that had a big knot or something.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Asked Randy about "detraction" of axe marks. He said tree has story to tell.

I think Randy is great, but in this case I think "story to tell" is another way of saying "distraction from the design". You look at what is a very good tree in other respects, and your eye is immediately drawn to a significant flaw that defines the work as a shrub in a pot. Yes it is a shrub that still bears scars from someone wacking it with an axe. How does that improve - rather than detract - from the bonsai?

Reminds me of some Craigslist ads for north LA where people were trying to get rid of California junipers and were selling them as "free firewood - you remove". If I went out into someone's ranch and found two junipers - one with axe marks and one without - which do you think I would choose? The one with the axe marks because it "gives it character"?

Inverse taper is not a deal killer for me as long as (1) it looks natural or (2) you can grow it out or fix it in some other fashion. There are plenty of examples of trees in nature with sections of inverse taper. Just don't show me a tree with inverse taper caused by an ugly graft union or a poorly executed trunk chop.

 

[canoeguide]

The rules say I should remove one of them for that reason. To me, the whole soul of the tree would be compromised.

This is a good example of the cliche "you need to understand the rules before you break them."

 

[Joe Dupre']

Even though that fern makes it seem like someone didn't think so, the "reverse taper" on that limber pine is in the category of feature.

When it's a legitimate feature, the "rules" don't apply.

When it's a flaw, for me, even if hidden successfully, the rest of the tree should make up for it, or have other qualities so worth looking at, that the hidden stays hidden, at least in the "eye of acceptance" of the viewer.

This mulberry though....

It's in the fixable category.

I don't trust the few large roots to stay aesthetically pleasing (in proportion) if you simply bury it deeper, but that could work, but I'd jump right to layering it.

But not soon, after the canopy is better ramified, I believe this aids in radial and even roots.

Sorce

Sorce, I'd agree with you on almost all of your points. Yes, IF I wanted to fix it , I could. My whole point is I like the tree the way it is, partly because it was found close to home, as a result of some of the 50 miles I walk scouting for trees every year, and for the "story" behind it....... found 6 feet from the edge of the blacktop and dug with cars wizzing by at 70. The "flaws" ARE the tree. If it had perfect nebari, perfect taper, perfect branch placement and a perfect canopy, what would I have? I'd have a tree just like the millions of perfect trees out there. Safe to say, NO one has a tree like this. LOL!!

 

[Adair M]

It depends.

 

[PA_Penjing]

Inverse taper was highly desirable in Bonsai’s archaic beginnings as “literati” style penjing. Think of smoke rising up from a stick of incense… twisting and doubling back, getting wide like a ribbon and pinching back. Unlike other characteristics, it cannot be faked or added later. Inverse taper ranks high on my list of criteria for a certain look

 

[Lorax7]

Sorce, I'd agree with you on almost all of your points. Yes, IF I wanted to fix it , I could. My whole point is I like the tree the way it is, partly because it was found close to home, as a result of some of the 50 miles I walk scouting for trees every year, and for the "story" behind it....... found 6 feet from the edge of the blacktop and dug with cars wizzing by at 70. The "flaws" ARE the tree. If it had perfect nebari, perfect taper, perfect branch placement and a perfect canopy, what would I have? I'd have a tree just like the millions of perfect trees out there. Safe to say, NO one has a tree like this. LOL!!

I fail to see how fixing the inverse taper would diminish any of those things. The story behind the tree is still the same except for the addition of “and then I fixed the inverse taper on the base of the trunk by ground layering,” to the ending of the story.

If you’re saying that this story is told in the appearance of the tree, I have to disagree that a viewer could “read” that story in the visual language of the tree’s form, line, color, texture, positive and negative space, etc. without having been explicitly told the story via another medium. I’m not saying it’s not valid to just like the tree this way. It absolutely is perfectly valid to style your tree however it pleases you. I’m just saying that intention alone is insufficient to tell a story. That requires communication and communication depends upon shared cultural interpretation of signs. Signifiers have to be present and be evocative of what is signified for the audience viewing the work in order for communication to have taken place. I just don’t see anything inherent in the form of the tree that would lead me to infer that it was close to your home or that it was found 6 feet from a busy road if you hadn’t told me any of those things through the medium of English language prose.

 

[Potawatomi13]

most evocative trees

Meaning please?

 

[Potawatomi13]

This is a good example of the cliche "you need to understand the rules before you break them."

Many times have seen and now consider to be nonsensical adage. How does knowing rules change or enhance fact of ignoring same? Or results? Gobbledegook.

 

[ShadyStump]

I was thinking about this while hiking a few weeks ago, and noticing that a natural inverse taper is a common aspect of many of the native shrubs, especially alder leaf mountain mahogany- cercocarpus montona. It tends to have allot of deadwood that often sprouts from a single node, thickening that spot over time, and trunks that can sweep and curve every which way where weight and age, or else erosion around the base, has produced incredible movement.
I would generally say that they wouldn't make good bonsai- soft brittle wood that's difficult to work- but the lines of older, battered specimens are incredible, so I can't help being inspired by them.
So, does the nature of the species change the rules? If inverse taper is common in it, does it automatically make it more acceptable?

 

[ShadyStump]

Many times have seen and now consider to be nonsensical adage. How does knowing rules change or enhance fact of ignoring same? Or results? Gobbledegook.

The same way no one makes a better criminal than a lawyer.

 

[Joe Dupre']

I fail to see how fixing the inverse taper would diminish any of those things. The story behind the tree is still the same except for the addition of “and then I fixed the inverse taper on the base of the trunk by ground layering,” to the ending of the story.

If you’re saying that this story is told in the appearance of the tree, I have to disagree that a viewer could “read” that story in the visual language of the tree’s form, line, color, texture, positive and negative space, etc. without having been explicitly told the story via another medium. I’m not saying it’s not valid to just like the tree this way. It absolutely is perfectly valid to style your tree however it pleases you. I’m just saying that intention alone is insufficient to tell a story. That requires communication and communication depends upon shared cultural interpretation of signs. Signifiers have to be present and be evocative of what is signified for the audience viewing the work in order for communication to have taken place. I just don’t see anything inherent in the form of the tree that would lead me to infer that it was close to your home or that it was found 6 feet from a busy road if you hadn’t told me any of those things through the medium of English language prose.

With all due respect , Lorax7, it does not really matter to me what other viewers think. And I don't say that to be arrogant or self-centered. I do bonsai for ME, not for some judge or casual viewer. Sure, it's nice when someone "gets it", but if they don't...........well, they don't. Actually, to be honest, "perfection" is not a positive thing for me. The extra time, effort and expense of attaining perfection is almost never worth it for me.

I don't have kids, but I'm sure those of you that do have pictures and projects that your kids have done that you cherish even though, to the casual observer, they are pretty crude. Well, my trees are like that to me. On the wild chance that Ryan Neil ever walks through my garden and critiques my trees, I'll just nod and thank him for his input.

 

[Joe Dupre']

It depends.

Yep.

 

[rockm]

Inverse taper in an old collected tree that has OTHER attributes is one thing. Inverse taper in a tree with no other attributes is another. Just because Randy Knight's massively old collected tree has it, doesn't mean the sapling or tree with inverse taper you got from the nursery or the woods will work. This is a relative thing, but mostly inverse taper is a bad thing and a flaw that is very hard to cure.

 

[Cajunrider]

Would inverse taper make you pass by a gnarly tree that is truly a great find in all other aspects? I collect much of my material on the roadsides and other disturbed areas. I get some really killer, character-laden trees that sometimes have a bit ( or a lot ) of inverse taper. It doesn't bother me in the least if I like the movement and character of the tree. To some, that "flaw" would be a glaring fault they would be turned off by every time they look at the tree. No right or wrong answer here...........just seeing how y'all feel about it.

Where I grew up there is a genre of bonsai called "Quái". Basically in a bonsai in this genre can break away from established rules of aesthetics. However, for each rule broken, there must be a compelling reason that is demonstrated clearly why the rule is broken. So typically the "glaring fault" is some what high-lighted instead of hidden. So in your case the gnarly reason for the inverse taper tree must be clearly shown like it was demonstrated in the limber pine example shown.

 

[penumbra]

I fail to see how fixing the inverse taper would diminish any of those things. The story behind the tree is still the same except for the addition of “and then I fixed the inverse taper on the base of the trunk by ground layering,” to the ending of the story.

If you’re saying that this story is told in the appearance of the tree, I have to disagree that a viewer could “read” that story in the visual language of the tree’s form, line, color, texture, positive and negative space, etc. without having been explicitly told the story via another medium. I’m not saying it’s not valid to just like the tree this way. It absolutely is perfectly valid to style your tree however it pleases you. I’m just saying that intention alone is insufficient to tell a story. That requires communication and communication depends upon shared cultural interpretation of signs. Signifiers have to be present and be evocative of what is signified for the audience viewing the work in order for communication to have taken place. I just don’t see anything inherent in the form of the tree that would lead me to infer that it was close to your home or that it was found 6 feet from a busy road if you hadn’t told me any of those things through the medium of English language prose.

Very well reasoned. I didn't know how to state it so eloquently.

With all due respect , Lorax7, it does not really matter to me what other viewers think. And I don't say that to be arrogant or self-centered. I do bonsai for ME, not for some judge or casual viewer. Sure, it's nice when someone "gets it", but if they don't...........well, they don't. Actually, to be honest, "perfection" is not a positive thing for me. The extra time, effort and expense of attaining perfection is almost never worth it for me.

I don't have kids, but I'm sure those of you that do have pictures and projects that your kids have done that you cherish even though, to the casual observer, they are pretty crude. Well, my trees are like that to me. On the wild chance that Ryan Neil ever walks through my garden and critiques my trees, I'll just nod and thank him for his input.

But this is what it truly comes down to................

 

[Lorax7]

With all due respect , Lorax7, it does not really matter to me what other viewers think. And I don't say that to be arrogant or self-centered. I do bonsai for ME, not for some judge or casual viewer. Sure, it's nice when someone "gets it", but if they don't...........well, they don't. Actually, to be honest, "perfection" is not a positive thing for me. The extra time, effort and expense of attaining perfection is almost never worth it for me.

I don't have kids, but I'm sure those of you that do have pictures and projects that your kids have done that you cherish even though, to the casual observer, they are pretty crude. Well, my trees are like that to me. On the wild chance that Ryan Neil ever walks through my garden and critiques my trees, I'll just nod and thank him for his input.

Like I said, “I’m not saying it’s not valid to just like the tree this way. It absolutely is perfectly valid to style your tree however it pleases you.” The rest is contingent on what you’re trying to achieve with your practice of bonsai.