On October 23, 2018, our club enjoyed an outstanding demonstration by Ivan Lukrich for styling a Hornbeam (Carpinus). Ivan is a senior club bonsai instructor. There are 30–40 species occurring across much of the temperate of the Northern Hemisphere.
The demonstration tree was won by the club in a past “Ironman” competition between the Marin Bonsai Club and REBS a number of years ago. Ivan has been caring for the tree ever since.
The demonstration Hornbeam tree was not showing much fall colors, but the leaves were in the process of drying out and falling off. Ivan proceeded with removing a majority of the leaves to show more of the movement in the trunk and branches. The demonstration tree was in an informal upright style with nice movement of the trunk and slight tapering.
There were several branches removed earlier and wounds required some follow-on treatment to heal over. This required scrapping the sides of the wound with a knife to expose some of the green cambium and sealing with a cut paste.
Ivan said the previous wiring and work on primary branches were complete. And so, he would be wiring the branch tips at this point. Ivan used copper wire on the demonstration tree because he is most comfortable using copper wire on his bonsai. The copper wire has more strength and holding power with smaller gauges than aluminum wire.
Upon completion of the demonstration, a raffle was held and club member Diane Matzen won the Hornbeam bonsai.