Post 56 Sunny Sunday

It can only be about 8 weeks ago that we threw a few sunflower seeds on the ground in the vege patch, it sure doesn't feel like it was any longer. They germinated in 2 days and were forming the flowers when the were 60cm high. I thought we must have had the minature ones; but they kept on going. At head height some have opened and others just keep on going.
They are SO bright they just put a smile on your face, no wonder Van Gough kept painting them.

 The bonsai have been moving fast too. This one is a Celtis that appeared in a root pruning post from back in August, with a final fan of roots about 150mm in diameter. It leapt out of the starting blocks in September and since then it's had an almost full defoliation, recovery  and yesterday another very thorough pruning. The fine branch structure is developing really well.

We have a display stand in the family room and there is always a tree in place, with a weekly rotation. I find this a very usefull way to assess what each tree may need to develop the style. You get to look at the tree critically, lots of times in the week when the only thing you have to do with it is to look at it . Having it on its own, at a particular height, without a distracting background almost always leads to some change - branch relative positioning, bulk, space, shape, movement etc etc.  The key to creating an illusion is seeing into the illusion we create.