Southern Area Round 1997

Held at Bonsai at Broadlands, my first attempt and I won, so on to the UK final near Coventry.

The final result

April 1998

The UK final.
 Another bloody yew!, and one of the most difficult pieces of raw material I have ever worked on, just what you want for a competition, but that's the luck of the draw.
I lost!
The winner, James Ransome went on to the European final at Stratford upon Avon.

August 1999

The Southern area round
I was persuaded to go for it again.
This is the raw material, a San Jose Juniper for a pleasant change.

I decided this would make a splendid full cascade. I applied raffia all the way up the trunk, then 3 strands of 3 mm wire along the length of it, raffia again and then another strand of 3 mm wire coiled around the trunk. I started to bend the trunk down and then, disaster, about 2 feet of the trunk decided it did not want to play this game and it cracked clean through.
Whoops!! Plan 'B'.
Luckily there was enough left to make  a nice semi cascade.

The end result

I came second, so I am through to the UK final again in April 2000, and with lots of luck I might get to the European final in Arco, Italy.

 Unfortunately I did not get to the UK final due to illness and so my New Talent efforts come to a an end  :(

Congratulations to all who took part.