These three pictures were taken in the first week of November 2010 and indicate some shoot/needle die back that has occurred.

During the first week of February 2011 the tree was taken along to our Artistic Bonsai Circle group meeting where we had Lee Verhorevoort with us for the day. During the meeting the tree had some general tiding up work done on it including the removal of the few shoots/branches that had died back from November last year (see previous pictures). It was also at this meeting that Lee enquired whether the tree had ever been displayed at any shows and indicated that it was certainly in his opinion good enough to show now.
Following this meeting and with the Swindon Winter Image show coming up it was decided to display the tree as part of our group display.
The following week the tree was taken along to a Classical Bonsai Circle meeting at Dan Barton’s where any old dead needles were removed along with pruning out the older needles behind the main new shoots on some selected braches. The deadwood sections of the trunk were cleaned up using a Dremel with wire brush attachment and followed by an application of protective lime sulphur.
The day before the Swindon Winter Image show the tree was further prepared for the show by scissor cutting back all the old brown tipped needle ends, about 4mm was taken off all the needles. This is done by holding the groups of needles between the thumb and forefinger and cutting the needle tips to form a domed profile not a straight cut across the group of needles being held. This has the effect that each shoots needles have a domed top profile so in turn the foliage pads profile is more rounded looking rather than “flat topped”.
The compost surface had some fine moss applied and the remaining surface top dressed with fine sieved Akadama with some Fuji grit sprinkled in. The pot was cleaned and then tightly oiled with Camellia oil.