Special Techniques:

Many bonsai specimens owe their charming especially to the dried wood that furrows them with a lively shari or exalted the foliage through many elegant jins.
Pale dead wood emphasizes the movement of dark trunk and of the branches and gives it an old aspect. The twisted jins and the bark breaking sharis remind of storms, during which the lightning strikes the bark, breaks it and sets it on fire.
Yamadoris, that is the trees found in nature, often seem like that to the watcher. More difficult are the environmental conditions, more is the dead wood that, with the twisted trunk and branches, gives a dramatic aspect to the whole.
It is actually this dramatic power the bonsaists try to recreate in their nursery trees. Who feels attraction for trees growing in the flat country, will not probably appreciate these technique, which deeply modify the tree aspect. But many complex and tormented people find harmony and beauty in the alternation of tortuous vessels to jins and sharis.

SHARI

They are parts of dried wood that interest the trunk or the main branches, separating the sap vessels. They can be natural or artificial. The natural ones are frequent in specimens found in nature, even if it is possible to find them also in nursery plants. In Asia they design future bonsai-plants, making cuts in the bark and guiding the vessels path. If you buy such a tree, you will have some advantages: you will have to better define living and dead parts, without any great risks. As a matter of fact, DIY and improvisations are dangerous: cutting an important sap vessel can cause the death of the tree. The location of the vessel path is very complex and for experts. The beginners would better follow the already traced lines or ask to a master. The shari on the tree will be cleaned with a brush or, if it is very delicate and friable, with the help of a little paintbrush or some compressed air. In this way you will remove fragments, soil, leaves or dried needles. Then you can enlarge it, turning it towards a cut and transforming it into a jin branch. If necessary you will strip the portion with a cutter. Then, after cleaning it, you will apply some calcium sulphate that protects the wood from rottenness and from the attack of microorganisms.
This protection action must be carried out twice a year.

SABAMIKI

This Japanese word indicates the hollow in a tree. It applies to conifers and deciduous trees, giving them great dramatic power. The effect is amplified when the residual part of the trunk is reduced to a thin layer covered by corky bark.
This expedient is often useful to the bonsaists, when they want to hide a grave imperfection of the trunk, like a knot, a cavity or a big cut.
You must carefully locate the part you want to hollow, paying attention to the sap vessels and the foliage to keep; then you start striping the bark with the proper cutter, always above the ground level: if you stripped the buried part, you would cause the wood rottenness for its contact with microorganisms.
The following hollow will be executed with the help of chisels and milling cutters. After removing the fragments, you will protect the wounded part with some calcium sulphate.

JIN

They are wrecked branches that tell about bad weather and adversities. The absence of the bark and of the vital layer shows the dried wood, which become whiter and whiter as the years pass. Bonsaists reproduce this effect by striping the branch stumps and applying a sulphure-based liquid.
In order to obtain that, you will make a cut to the base of the chosen branch, reaching the change. You can also strip a little portion of the trunk, where the branch starts, drawing a diamond. Then you will start working the dead wood with some tools, such as the milling cutter, to give it more truthfulness and movement.
This kind of work can be carried out on living or already dried branches (in this case the operation can be more tiring, because of the wood hardness), as well as on the top.
This stratagem will allow you to hide an evident poll and will give personality to the tree. Even the removal of big branches or of a secondary trunk will not leave any trace after the transformation of their stumps into little and elegant jins.

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