Bonsai Gallery of Walter Pall: Chinese Elm nr. 1

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Chinese Elm) #1

About 65 cm high
Around 50 years old
Pot by Derek Aspinall
From a tree which was imported from Taiwan in 1985

This was my first good Chinese Elm. I acquired it in 1986. In the late eighties I had no clue that a non-conifer could be styled to look like a deciduous tree. so I styled it to look like a 'bonsai'. And most thought that it looked good. It even won a number of awards, even form Japanese masters. Around 1997 I realized that this is cookie cutter styling. but I decided to not redesign the tree. In 2006 it was at it's height, but a bad accident happened in winter 2006/7. fro some reason which I am still not sure about a considerable apart of the crown did not wake up in spring. It was dead. The tree looked pathetic. Well, it is recovering by now and will shine again in a couple of years. I will style it like it was in the 'western traditional style' which is a retro of Japanese mainstream style of 1955. I decided that it is a document of it's time and I should respect this, even if I wold not dream of styling it like this today.