We invited Tom Vuong to come back in the month of February to be our in-house speaker. He gave such a great lecture the first time we wanted him to repeat the same topic but this time give us (the club members) some hands on time with the master.
Tom started with the basic discussion and demonstration of grafting on junipers and black pine.
Tom Vuong brought some of his scions to tonight. He confirms that his 2nd/3rd generation shimpaku juniper becomes more and more refined as the generation of foliage is developed over time.
You can view the discussion and lecture here:
Tom shows Big Joe where a good front will be on this juniper.
Tom prepares his knife and show Joe the difference when to use a chisel instead.
Mike did not like me taking his photo so made a face at me. Surprising both of us I got the shot! This is going down in bonsai history.
Tom walks us through the process with Joe's tree.
Tom within seconds completed the first graft and started a second graft. The ease of Tom's technique is amazing. He states that his goal was to have a technique that was safely accomplished, done with common tools and had a high success rate.
This are close up of that second grafting on the same tree.
Here is an important shot. As stated in the video link above. Tom holds the grafting knife with his right hand while his left thumb pushes the knife into the branch. This technique lets the grafter gain a whole lot of control of the blade.
Tom did not stop that night with just shimpaku juniper. He even showed us we can even graft onto any juniper. Here is Gus's foemina juniper, again same technique with a different species.
Here is a final shot of Gus grafting a branch after Tom showing him. Tom spend the rest of the night traveling between 5 people helping where he thought it was necessary. By the end of the night, I believe everybody had grafted roughly 5 to 8 tries per tree. Again, I would like to thank Tom Vuong for his effort and time this night. If you like what you see here please come down and support Baikoen Bonsai Club any way possible!