The fastest way to develop deciduous bonsai: Walter Pall's hedge pruning method explained

After watching it, it's good to know that no leaves where harmed in the video. 🤪

This looks more like selective pruning as apposed to hedge. Is this really the WP hedge method? Sorry for my ignorance as I don't follow WP, even though I love most of his trees...
 
derek7745 said:
A little perspective is important here. I know @Rafael Najmanovich in the real world. We are both members of the Montreal bonsai association. Here is my interpretation:

Rafael is also an academic, such as myself. We were trained (culturally and formally) to align our own thoughts and actions with the lineage of the work that has come before us. Rafa clearly has a lot of respect for Mirai, Jim Doyle, and Walter Pall among others. But academic or not, a lot of us identify those we admire and try to follow them in the ways we can.

Rafael is making an effort to produce videos on youtube on topics of interest to him. It's obviously reminiscent of Mirai, but he is doing it at his own pace and he has just begun. If you look through my thread and instagram posts, they are often done in a step-by-step or tutorial-like style. This is not because I am on an ego-trip, or that I think that I can teach everybody something about bonsai! Rather, I found myself adopting this style first because it is an efficient way to document and track my procedures with a time stamp, but also because some of the threads that I enjoy most--Sergio's and Brian's--are done in this way. Moreover, I often include in my posts (especially on instagram) a picture of a tree by Valavanis, Ebihara, or Sergio to illustrate the direction i would like to take my 2 year old cutting... There is a sense in which i view myself as 'following in their footsteps', in terms of both aspirations and practices. I think that this is what Rafa is doing when he is producing videos. There is a little Ryan Neil in his video. There is a little Walter Pall in his video. But the video is still Rafael doing Rafael, and that's something to respect.

If you want to critique videos on youtube about bonsai, there are much worse videos out there! Don't rip the guy just because he happened to share it in a bonsai forum. youtube viewership is much more diverse than this forum. But he has received helpful critique here and elsewhere, and his videos are sure to get better with time!
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Maybe he needs to start a blog and build a viewership like I did , Walter did, BVF did. You can control the parameters and keep assholes like me from saying something on a public forum with no controls???

Something to think about.

Since you have brought up the subject, I will give a little background into what I think my bonsai career has been. I love bonsai. I am very analytical in the way I pursue it. When I couldn't find stands I made them. When I couldn't find pots, I tried that too. I even made my own plaster molds to pour slip into. When it comes to trees I feel a certain way about the hobby. I want to do it my way. If I fail, I failed. If you don't like them, I let you down. I wish to do the best "I" can do with what I have. Unlike you, I don't include pictures of other peoples trees. I don't aspire to be like someone else. I don't watch other peoples video's because I wish to learn it for myself. Early in my career I went to lots of workshops. The teachers dumbed down the material so much that I found myself going to learner workshops because the teachers had to dumb down everything for those less learned. I could have spent the money and went to someone like Boon, he lived close enough. Really didn't want to spend that kind of money for a hobby, and I didn't want to be a Student of Boon.

I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I just didn't want to be a, "student". I go out of my way to select pieces of material that have interesting trunks, of a good size and then cut everything off and make "my tree'. I don't want to have a yard full of trees that someone else made. You know people are just stubborn enough that even when someone has a new idea, if the idea is revolutionary enough to radically change a tree that much, why would someone want to change their tree to look like the work someone else does. That's the way I think at least. I can think of a couple on this forum that have some really great trees. They have the money to buy really great trees. But they havn't made them. If I had that kind of stuff on my bench and the club came over and told me how wonderful each tree is that I have, for me I would feel like shit. To take the credit for something I didn't even do. To be a caretaker, a collector of other peoples work. Thats the way I see it. Whatever that means to you.

You are correct about there being worse video's out there to critique. But this one was here. This one had Walter Pall's name on it. This guy was going to explain the method. I live life pretty simple. I just read titles here and decide if I want to read it. For the most part there have been only two people on this form that have advocated hedging a tree as a way to hasten development. Walter and I. I remember the first time I talked about it here, about two weeks later walter posted some stuff on how he hedged trees. We were working independently and didn't even know it. I watched the video and was really disappointed. There has been so much about the technique that to post this with the title written as it was was kinda stupid. He would have done much better by just posting that title and linking to a Walter post like many here have.
 
derek7745 said:
Maybe we will remember you for great website on tridents, and for tridents shaped like wizard hats ;)😘 I have told you before that I would love to own a Keppler trident, there just aren't enough in circulation!
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You have no idea how much I hate those wizard hats!!!!

but...thats what you get when you start with a trunk like that, a big chunk of tapered wood.
07.JPG009.JPG002.jpga2.JPG009.JPG

For the most part the wizard hats are done, and I can just keep them in check. As I get older they will be for sale and someone else can work on them. My passion for maples is in a new direction now, and finding material for that is much harder. So many "what if's" but the major one being twenty years younger. I would grow material for those seeking more maple tree like material. Personally, I think the internet ruined bonsai. You may say I am crazy, but you can't remember what it was like because you didn't experience it. The internet has taken the price of a simple clay pot to stupid prices. The internet has taken the price of a small insignificant maple tree to stupid prices, like the one Bolero purchased. I just saw a Roy Minarai pot recently listed for over 400.00. Really! There are a thousand people that will look at that and say, "are you kidding me, I'm not paying that for that." But the internet will provide 100,000 people that can't even buy a flower pot, much less a bonsai pot, and have the money to pay that no questions asked. But such is supply and demand, always been that way, always will be. Before the internet I purchased many Sara Raynor pots at really decent prices. It was hard for a potter to get exposure nationwide before the internet. Believe it or not, Matt Owinga, many years ago asked me to be the point man for him in California. I should have looked at that proposition more closely. That was back in the early stages of bonsaiTALK.

The internet has come up with the supply, while those able enough to pay the prices for lack of supply keep the prices high for everyone and have ruined supplies in that regard.

When I started collecting ancient Greek and Roman coins on ebay they were pretty darn cheap. I probably had about 2000.00 dollars invested in it when I started. When the economy started to come back in about 2013 the coins started to double and so on. When my wife died in 2017 I had it appraised and was shocked. It was now worth over 12,000.00 dollars. The internet did that. There is not a Roman or Greek coin to be seen within a hundred miles of me till maybe San Francisco. ( I already know what you are going to say about this paragraph. Lets just say that the point is, the internet inflates the price of everything)

For you, you see the internet as something marvelous, I see it and so do many other grays, as something that ruined a good hobby.
 

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Smoke said:
For you, you see the internet as something marvelous, I see it and so do many other grays, as something that ruined a good hobby.
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My grandpa used to talk about television as being the best and worst invention mankind ever came up with...and readily admitted he had said the same thing about radio. I think the internet would have finally blown his mind. Non Sequitur - you saved me some cash on a tree the other night as I thought about something you posted in one of your rants - mentioning you never buy a tree unless you can see the end result in your mind prior to purchase. So thanks for that nugget o' wisdom.
 
Cadillactaste said:
Sometimes I enjoy progression photos...sometimes I feel like one is dropping their drawers and showing theirs. And wanting others drop theirs as well. Am I the only one who feels this way!?!🤔
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I'm not hoping anybody drops their drawers. Thank you very much.
 
Maybe someone could explain if this thread is a development or refinement technique ??
I have been reading 4 pages of debate and still unsure. Yes, I have read the blogs, but all I see are refined trees, trying to make even better trees.
Shucks, back to growing trunks, lol.
Charles
 
Tycoss said:
I began in the hobby around three years ago, and have been here for about as long. FYI for newer members here, you can learn a lot from @Smoke, as he does develop quality trees, particularly deciduous trees, from what are essentially stumps. However, if you openly disagree with him, he will always insult you and then appeal to his well documented progressions of world class trees. He will then demand you do the same. I cannot think of an instance where this wasn’t the case. You can also never say or imply that you are his equal or you will get the same response. Just some tips.
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Rafael: Sometimes things are true-------because they are true. Looking at any of the videos of Walter's, which are few, and Bjorn's which are many and Ryan's which are somewhere in-between in number, as well as a host of others, lesser and greater does not make you a student of these people. A student is one whoes teacher recognizes and can address them by first name.

As to the quality of trees you have shown they are neither good or bad unless you are trying to enter them in a display, in that case they would be disallowed because they do not meet the standards. From my point of view they are all too young by about twenty years maturity. I have been growing bonsai for 62 years now and I have doing this forum and several that have not survived this forum for over twenty years and I have come to the revelation that there are masters, bastards, bastard masters, and bull shit artists attempting to portray themselves as masters thinking they have learned all of this stuff from viewing on the INTERNET: How hard can it be? Thinking themselves to be wise they try to blue smoke the entire community that they indeed know shit from shinola.

Underdog Omono: Is it your desire that the site be flooded by inacurate and wrong information just because the poster is a FNG with a lot of ideas? When I was in Viet Nam FNG's the thougt they had it all figured out and should be listened to got a lot of people killed.
 
Vance Wood said:
Rafael: Sometimes things are true-------because they are true. Looking at any of the videos of Walter's, which are few, and Bjorn's which are many and Ryan's which are somewhere in-between in number, as well as a host of others, lesser and greater does not make you a student of these people. A student is one whoes teacher recognizes and can address them by first name.

As to the quality of trees you have shown they are neither good or bad unless you are trying to enter them in a display, in that case they would be disallowed because they do not meet the standards. From my point of view they are all too young by about twenty years maturity. I have been growing bonsai for 62 years now and I have doing this forum and several that have not survived this forum for over twenty years and I have come to the revelation that there are masters, bastards, bastard masters, and bull shit artists attempting to portray themselves as masters thinking they have learned all of this stuff from viewing on the INTERNET: How hard can it be? Thinking themselves to be wise they try to blue smoke the entire community that they indeed know shit from shinola.

Underdog Omono: Is it your desire that the site be flooded by inacurate and wrong information just because the poster is a FNG with a lot of ideas? When I was in Viet Nam FNG's the thougt they had it all figured out and should be listened to got a lot of people killed.
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wellsaid
 
Vance Wood said:
Underdog Omono: Is it your desire that the site be flooded by inacurate and wrong information just because the poster is a FNG with a lot of ideas? When I was in Viet Nam FNG's the thougt they had it all figured out and should be listened to got a lot of people killed.
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I'm new....whats FNG?
 
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