On mountaintops the snow can be deep and last into the summer. If branches on trees are brought down they may stay there for months, buried in snow, next to the trunks like bird wings. Some may even be pinned to the ground. Over time, year after year with repeated downward flexing, the wood sets this way. Just like it does when wired. Photo by Jonna Saari.
In bonsai tradition there is an assumption made with conifers. That they are mountain trees, with a snow load. The branch angles on this Mountain Hemlock mirror that snow assumption, work by Carmen Leskoviansky.
Blue Atlas Cedar, exquisite work by Matt Reel. The flexibility of conifer branches is an adaptation to the weight of snow buildup on evergreen foliage. They need to bend, or they will break. Here branches are wired downwards in an echo of that natural flexibility, close to the trunk.
But then many species are not under the influence of snow.
Beautiful work on a Hackberry at the 2017 BCI / Asia-Pacific show in Taiwan. In nature, when there is no snow load, branches can remain high. Even in snowy climates, deciduous trees tend to have rising and spreading branches, as this tree mimics.
Trees like this maple that are styled as a snow-laden pine do look cool, but they are a construct. A vision of something that doesn’t exist outside of bonsai. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play in this field, only that it is more part of bonsai history than of natural history. Self-referential.
A ficus, defoliated, the work of Mr. Min Hsuan Lo in Taiwan. This is an extraordinary styling. It falls well within the “frame” of bonsai, yet the details of it are of a tree without a snow load—like a tropical tree or a deciduous temperate tree. The upper branches rise, the lower branches fall, and not because of snow but because of the imagined weight of the low branch. And then the ends of the branches rise, as Mr. Lo witnessed on old, naturally-growing ficus.
Same tree by Mr. Min Hsuan Lo, detail of lower branch. Not only do the branchlets rise, but the crown of the branch pad is broken, not clean, which lends naturalness.
Environment influences tree shape. Snow is one of those forces, and it’s fun to imagine its absence or presence when styling our trees. Over time, the tree itself may become part of the physics of shape, where large branches bend because of their own weight. Another one that is fun to imagine, and perhaps input into our bonsai styling.