A few years ago in the dutch/flemish bonsai empire forum we had a "contest" to see who could create the best tree within a year, starting from a garden centre plant that costed less than 50€. It was an interesting contest, and i learned a lot. This is the progression of my entry till now.

Bought it as such (17/06/2016)




3 months later: during the repot i found roots that shouted " windstreamed" so i planted it at an angle. Because the yew wasnt healthy ( yellowish foliage) i didnt prune too hard because that might have killed it. Placed the branches a bit like i thought they had to be with the help of a contraption-didnt look like much but it did what it had to..




After the repot and with the help of Rhizotonic i got good new growth, so i left it untouched during the rest of the year and fertilised heavily to gain strength.

After the winter came the time to decide when and how to do the work for the "final" image.

Came up with this as final result







I ended up fifth in that contest, which made me very happy, certainly because i only started with bonsai 2 years previous to the contest, and never took any lessons ( still havent btw).

The next year i didnt touch the tree, just left it to grow and fed it.
After which i gave it a firm haircut, still with the windswept style in mind





So i left it untouched again for a year, during which it grew very hard. I was never really happy with the way it looked: mainly the bottom branches were too rigid and pointing in the wrong direction to be convincing as being windswept. One day i passed it and suddenly saw another option: if i turned the branches pointing the wrong direction to the other side i could make it a slanted style tree. Took me some time to rewire everything, and will again take some time to be convincing ( needs some backbudding on the botom branches and more foliage) but i finally feel this is the right thing for this tree. I am looking for a nice rock to place between the roots on the side to complete the picture and next year it will get a bigger non glazed pot.