Studies in Ivy

Finally, down to the first set of heretofore unpublished photos from the show at Humbees of Marwell last weekend.

I'm surprised at the number of pictures I actually managed to take, testament to the quality of the light that day. As all I take with me for photo opps is still my Sony Ericsson mobile phone, if either the background or lighting don't cooperate, then I don't push the issue. Experience over the past months has shown that the end result isn't worth the effort of trying to compensate. Still, I feel the need to break things down into chunks and avoid a conga line of a post.

Looks like a lot of ivy in pots came out that weekend. Here we go with a sample, in decreasing order of size.

This first one was one of the 3 trees put forward by Eastleigh Bonsai Society for the Jack Bellinger Cup. The marvelous thing I found out from Robert is that his bonsai only has a single - and very long- root which has been wrapped around itself over a period of years. Here is the rootwork detail:


And here is the entire composition (well, I didn't really want to include the accent plant in the pic, however I couldn't find a way of cropping it without losing the balance of the branchwork). From the base of the pot, I'd figure it's around 22in / 56cm high :


Down to shohin level, this 8-year old Ivy was grown from a cutting and is in a pot about 4.5in/11cm in diameter:


Even smaller is Robert's mame ivy in a John Pitt pot. The whole planting looks very delicate, thereby calling for steady nerves and patience to set on its base. Giving an idea of scale is a bit difficult, as the pot is a modified crescent and the ivy cascades out of it by about 4.5in / 11.5 cm. So take the width of the pot as a reference point, being about 3in / 8cm:


Although I said I took a lot of photos, I really only managed to take about 10% of what was on display. Space limitations at club shows can constrain the display to tiered staging, which in turn often means photographing trees with other trees encroaching from behind. I balk like crazy at taking photos where the background is too busy and detracts attention from the tree. Taking the compositions that you see here off the club stands, bringing them to the photo area and then putting them back on their respective stands took most of the day, so I guess you'll have to catch the show next time to see the length and breadth of the clubs' offerings!