Page 56 - BSAM 2015 Q3

Bougainvillea
RE-BORN
By Lew Buller, USA
This San Diego Red was alive after being transplanted in a hot month and continued to live another 13 years. Look carefully and you can see the rotten spot at the bottom of the trunk and the dead trunk on the left side. Its ultimate death was caused by fertilizer. I fertil-
ized it in the spring of 2014, not expecting a second rainy season. The fertilizer I used was inorganic, in the form of pellets, meant to be released slowly during daily watering. Four days of heavy rain released an enormous amount of fertilizer and that triggered reverse osmosis, literally drawing all of the water out of the plant in spite of the rain.
I looked up tanuki or Phoenix Graft on the Internet and found a number of articles, some well written with no photos and some with exceptional trees for sale but no text. I wanted a combination of photos and commentary so we, Eitan Hagler and I, decided to create one using a bougainvillea.
There is a rule of thumb with bougainvillea. Quite literally, if the trunk is less than the size of your thumb, there is a risk in trans- planting it. The one used here is an Orange King with a somewhat larger trunk of a size that I have transplanted before. It will be paired with the dead trunk of the San Diego Red.
Here are the steps necessary and the photos showing each step.
A. Clean the dead tree and treat it with wood hardener, using two coats of hardener. The brush proved totally inadequate for applying the wood hardener to the dry old porous semi-woody stump. I wound up pouring the hardener directly on the stump for both coats.
54 | BCI | July/August/September 2015
Phoenix Graft
“The technique of attaching young live plants to weath- ered wood is arguably the most controversial of all bonsai techniques. The Japanese call the practice tanuki, implying deception or cheat. As you can imagine, this is frowned upon in Japanese bonsai. American bonsai artist Dan Robinson coined the memorable phrase “Phoenix Graft”, which views the process from an entirely different perspective. It is based on a legend about a bird that flew into the sun, died and was reborn. The terms tanuki and phoenix graft clearly illustrate the difference in attitude that can and does exist, not only between east and west, but also between individual artists.
If you set out to make a tanuki, a deception, you will have no respect for your work. But if you set out to create a phoenix graft, the implication is that you are embarking on a more noble quest. What could possibility be wrong with combining a magnificent piece of driftwood, nature’s art, with a healthy young plant, to create an object of great dignity and beauty? If you do it, do it well and above all, don’t lie about it. It’s only a deception if it is your intention to deceive. In England this technique is called wraparound.”
— Buffalo Bonsai Society