From: Andy Rutledge

One must first learn the craft, then one can create the art. What you're
observing here in the States is the constant need to revisit the basics (the
dogma, the rules, whatever) because few learn them well enough the first 2
or 3 or 6 times around. That's all.

That's true almost everywhere, Andy. The point I was trying to make is that
here an inordinate umber of people WANT things formularised. They want to
know the axact date to put trees away for winter or bring them out in
spring; they want to knoe the precise proportions for soil to first branch
to apex; they want to know how to pronounce bonsai...

During the last year I have spent a lot of my time trying to get people to
understand that you need to let the plant you are dealing with "speak" to
you. You need to allow things like gut reaction, emotion, visual pleasure
etc. influence design decisions. You need to look at the state of the
vegetation to know when it is time to hibernate a plant. You need to forget
about "left branch, right branch. back branch" when dealing with collected
trees that don't have them.

Now, who the heck was it who got me into this mess in the first place? Some
darn Brit I think?

Colin

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