Olive carving

Our bonsai club has access to some areas with lots of feral olives so we have had several ‘digs’ to obtain advanced material. One of the paddocks is quite steep and rocky so I suppose these are literally ‘yamadori’ (Japanese word meaning from the mountain).

club members at an olive dig

Here’s one a couple of years ago. You can see that the original middle trunk was converted to dead wood to leave room for the better trunk to develop. A small stub was also left on the smaller left trunk.

A couple of years ago

Last year I felt that the branches had developed enough structure to merit a proper bonsai pot.

I also decided the jin was just a bit boring. Looking at images of ancient olives I saw impressive old trunks with hollows and dead wood. A little carving on the trunk below the jin adds a whole new dimension to this tree.

I can see an opportunity to add some more texture and character to the jinned branch itself but that will have to wait for another day.

While checking another of these developing olives I noticed a dead patch on the trunk

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