October program notes:

Valerie Monroe came to our October General meeting bearing gifts in a trail of colorful ribbons. The ribbons it turns out were a brilliant aid for teaching the art and technique of wiring trees. Wiring if you haven?t figured it out yet is an essential skill for anyone who hopes to get a handle on the art of bonsai. It is the only sure way to style a tree and place branches into set composition. Left on their own most branches will grow straight and up. While this may be natural it is not bonsai. Wiring however seems to be one of the more daunting challenges facing the emerging bonsai artist and for many it seems to be the deal breaker. Valerie?s goal on Thursday night was to demystify this technique for our members.
The format of the meeting was a workshop. Members brought in trees to wire with Valerie?s guidance. While watching can inform doing is the only real way to learn this essential skill. Valerie spent time with each member working on a tree. She used the ribbons to simulate the wire showing how it must be anchored to another branch or the trunk to be effective. The ribbon flows easily in the hand not presenting the resistance of copper or aluminum wire. The importance of this is as a visual aid showing the path wire could take before committing the wire and risking doing it wrong. As more and more wires are applied to a tree the challenge becomes placing it in an esthetic way so that they all flow together without crossing at any point. So knowing how to wire is important before you even begin. This will save you time, money and the continued health of your tree.
Speaking of that the first topic Valerie tackled was preparing the tree to be wired. It should be in good health and well watered. While we do wire trees all year they tend to be more pliable during the growing seasons of spring and early summer. During fall take precautions, especially with dormancy bound deciduous trees, by massaging the branches to be bent. That is gradually and repeatedly bend in your hands the branches to be wired and styled. This has the effect of stretching the rigid wood and eventually making it more flexable. This is particularly important with older thicker branches. Wire is then placed on the branch in a corkscrew fashion, either clockwise or counter clockwise, depending on the direction you will be moving the branch. Cracking in branches during the wiring process is inevitable even for the most experienced among us. When this happens the crack can be filled with a sealing compound or covered with a tourniquet of cotton cloth which can be kept moist. The idea is to protect any exposed cambium from sun burn or drying until it can heal over.
The essential tools for wiring are a good, comfortable to hold pair of pliers and a round tipped wire cutter for removing wires from branches without cutting the tree.
Anodized aluminum and annealed copper are the preferred types of wire use commonly in bonsai. Each has it?s use. Aluminum is softer and is mainly used on trees with soft or easily scarred bark such as satsuki azaleas or Monterey cyprus. Aluminum is more flexible, easier to bend and can be reused. In choosing the proper size of aluminum wire you can test the ability of the wire by pressing it against the thickest area of the branch to be wired. You can also use a wire that is approximately one half the thickness of the branch to be wired.
With copper it is really experience that teaches appropriate wire size. This is important to know so watch other experienced people wire to get a sense of what is effective. Copper is soft before bending but becomes hard as it is moved and bent. Copper is the wire of choice for most conifers especially pine and juniper because of its strength and holding ability.
When wiring Valerie advises you begin with the largest branch, Usually the trunk or the lowest branches on a tree and work up and out to the finest branches.
When asked what constituters a top notch wiring job Valerie replied that the best wiring job allows all branches to be bent as needed and that the overall appearance be esthetic and unobtrusive to viewing the tree. Keep practicing and you will get better at this and your trees will get better in their overall appearance.

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