Bonsaikapilaas : Drift wood Bonsai, Tanuki Bonsai style making in simple step by step

Drift-wood style Bonsai is a beautiful one. usually, Bonsai artists feel like having a Matured Bonsai. It's challenging for everyone to collect plants from the wild. Driftwood Bonsai style gives a good mature look to our Bonsai plants.

It is also called the Bonsai dead wood technique. In Nature when a tree becomes old it falls off. All soft things like leaves and small branches will decay and the Main trunk line stays if the tree has the character of hardwood. Hardwood stays as it is when any seeds fall on it in the rainy season, they develop into plants. As they grow big they look like these plants are a part of that driftwood.

Driftwood formation on plants in nature takes because of many natural effects like cyclones and storms. Age makes lots of changes on the trunk line of the trees. Mostly On coniferous, we can observe lots of changes on the trunk line and branches, they become dry with snow storms and stay on the tree because of hardwood. Only mature plants survive during this snowstorm, giving an advanced look at the Jin and Shari tree. Dead wood gives a personality to the plant depending on the area where it is formed. Depending on it each type of Deadwood formation has its own name. Before going to make driftwood Bonsai let us know the different styles.

Uro

Most tropical plants' deciduous trees have soft wood. because the softness of wood decays with the weather on these ficus plants. In Driftwood style, if decay takes place at the base of the trunk of a tree, there will be a hallow and it is called Uro. These hollows are desirable shelters for many animals in forests.

This Uro is formed naturally and gives a great look to the trees. we can create on our Bonsai plants to give a mature look to Bonsai. To create a hollow on Bonsai first we can a mark on the base and with a sharp knife remove bark and some softwood and leave it. Slowly becomes hollow and gives a natural cave look to Bonsai.

Naturally formed Uro Uro in formation on a Bonsai plant

As we discussed If Driftwood is in the form of a hollow on the trunk, it is called an Uro. Usually, it happens on broad-leaf plants like banian and peepal-like species.

Shari

Shari happens on the trees when the bark was damaged and peeled off by natural calamities like storms and snow storms or lightning. Shari naturally won't happen on softwood plants. When the bark was peeled off, there can be damage to the trunk line and the entire plant can die back.

Naturally formed Shari Shari On a Bonsai plant

Jin

Jin is the formation dried branch on a tree. Jin Naturally happens when thunder drops on the plant and the thunder burns out branches but some branches stand tall on the plant because of their hard wood, Hard wood is formed in Angiosperm plants because it contains plenty of woody fibers called trochoids which are dead long tubular Xylem cells provide mechanical support to the plant in water transportation in the entire plant.

Jin making from the Chinese boxwood plant, it is also called Boxus. one of the good plants for making shari and Jin. Jin is the one when the bark is removed from the branch it is called Jin. Here you can see white-colored branches, these are the Jin formations.

Step by step making of Making Jin and Shari on Boxus Bonsai Tree

Video of making Jin on a Bonsai plant

Sharamiki

Plants are growing on driftwood. It will be sharamiki. this type of ancient wood we will find near oceans , a large amount of wood is weathered and died but it has some veins that encourage growth and life starts plant starts giving new leaves.

Sabamiki

These lines on ancient tree were developed by lighting. and called Sabamiki. In Bonsai Art sabamiki is created by carving the main trunk line of a Bonsai tree with wood carving tools.

Sabamiki can be created on a Bonsai tree by a Bonsai artist. The Bonsai plant gets a beautiful look with these curves made on the main trunk line and the age of the plant advances and it enhancing the Bonsai with an ancient look.

Natural Formation Bonsai artist's creation of Sabamiki

Creating Sabamiki shown step by step

Tanuki style of Bonsai. In Japan drift style is Tanuki, In the west, it is called phoenix graft and in Europe, it is called wrap-around. usually, some Bonsai artists say it is cheating Bonsai because The actual front view is not real it belongs to driftwood, the driftwood is enhancing the entire Bonsai as a fully grown Bonsai.

In Tanuki style Plant is Placed along with drift wood, Some times a channel is carved on wood with a drilling machine or Dremel.

When we observe here on the back side of the drift there was a canal or channel made by carving tools and drilling machines. and the plant is fixed into the channel. From the front side, it looks like the plant and the branches appear as if they are originating from driftwood.

Here one can see clearly, how the plant is fully merged with driftwood. This is also called Driftwood or tanuki Style.

Creating shari, jin, Uro or tanuki needs some experience. otherwise, damage can happen to Bonsai which cant be irreversible. We need different mining tools drilling machines or Dremel and wood carving tools.

Another style driftwood style is Tanuki . Here Dead wood is added to a live Bonsai plant. Tanuki is also one of the creations of Bonsai, most of the Bonsai masters are creating wonderful Tanuki style.

Here I am giving step by step to create a Driftwood style Bonsai.

Original Driftwood. This was bought from an aquarium shop. Best driftwood is chola wood, Malaysian wood, Manzanita wood, Azalea wood, Mesquite wood etc.. all these are hardwood. there won't be any damage to the wood when they come in contact with water. This wood will be with the plant for many years. after selecting wood clean and remove unwanted and disturbing dried branches, Then we apply sulfur lime to protect the wood.