MASSIMO BANDERA

Massimo Bandera lives near Turin to Sant'Antonino (Susa Valley) a small village always  windy and attends a big bonsai nursery . His vision of bonsai is affected by Chinese style even if he keeps always his sensibility typically Mediterranean .

Here above you can see him with a Chinese Elm ( Ulmus Chinensis of North China with smaller leaves) .

(  larch                   beech               larch                    larch                wild olive(Majorca)  Apples wood).

You can observe the pine-cones on first larch , Massimo told us it isn't easy to obtain them ; if you need to have them , it is necessary to keep larch always a lot dry provided it has the best weather's conditions ( hot the day -fresh the night ) .

No words are necessary to explain the difference between the garden seen before and this , the philosophical approach is totally different , each grower has his  own opinions , sensitiveness and taste and construes bonsai in according to his feelings and interpretations .

(from left to right:pomegranate,black japanese pine yamadori,pinus sylvestris yamadori,taxus baccata,sageretia theezans,larch).

( cedrus atlantica,birch,pinus sylvestris,taxus wood,beech wood ).

( gingko,olive tree,mame,birch,garden views ).

We end this visit with a last look to pots :

Before to leave this page i would like to share with you what our master Giovanni Genotti showed us in occasion of visits to Gianotti and Bandera . He brought us near the "Sacra di San Michele" (1,000 meters) in a pinus sylvestris wood and underlined how are branches growths  in nature ; bonsaists apply only what nature does from centuries .

Look how are fine branches' ramifications , here nobody wired them only the natural weather .

This other picture shows a genetical mutation on sylvestris pine : those small branches are much useful for graftings .

Still some pictures to show you the yamadori material we have :