Dec 8 2012

Dec 7 2012

Did we already know this?

Jerry, a fellow forum buddy over on Wee Trees Bonsai Forum, posted a link to a BBC article ‘Stunted’ pot plants cannot reach full potential.

Worth a read through, however, didn’t most of us already have a fair idea that this was the case?

The full PDF scientific paper on the subject can be read here. Some interesting observations if you can spare the time to read it.

Dec 7 2012

Trim and Tuck

Yesterday I did a little trimming back of Summer extension growth on a few deciduous trees before tucking them away in the green house for Winter.

I’m trying to increase the overall outline of this Trident maple and have therefore allowed for more extension than normal to remain.

Dec 6 2012

Next Step

Next Step for the Escallonia was carried out today. I applied the wood hardener to the inside of the trunk with a trusty tooth brush. This was followed up by a fresh coat of lime sulphur.

An hour or so later.

Lime sulphur was applied at 3:1 ratio. It’s very white for now but will fade over the Winter and will hopefully be the right colour come flowering next year. It’s now going into some winter protection.

Dec 4 2012

Branch Grafting Video

This one is worth sharing, a video from Aarin Packard showing Ryan Neil talking through the process of branch grafting.

Dec 3 2012

Escallonia Step by Step

I did a little more work on the Escallonia in November.

Peter Warren had suggested back in October that I remove a front branch. I did this and now this stump needed added to the deadwood on the tree.

When Mr Snart was here a few weeks back we had a look at it. Peter has excellent carving skills and I wanted his advice about opening up the trunk to allow me to reach the hollow centre. It had rotted at the base and was hollow inside, but I couldn’t reach this area to add wood hardener. Peter kindly offered to do a little carving on the tree to add the extra deadwood at the front and also open up the trunk to allow me to gain access.

This was the tree before removal of the front branch.

and after branch removal

Here is Peter doing a little carving.

On Friday I spent a little time washing out the remains of the sawdust and rotted wood. I did a little more carving and cleaning of the original deadwood to remove some algae. As you can see below there are now 3 opening added by Peter into the centre of the trunk that I can now access and apply hardener. The opening are small visually but allow room for a toothbrush to enter. The remaining heartwood is all solid and rotting seemed to have been limited.

I plan to treat the wood this week and apply a fresh coat of lime sulphur to the outside, perhaps darkened down a tad. I’ll keep you posted.

Dec 2 2012

Friday Night Lights

Had a few mates around on Friday night to play with trees. Ben here found it hard to comprehend the light requirements 🙂

And the penny drops 🙂 Phil gives his salute to the greater bonsai community as per usual.

Michael was first to arrive with a Larch for wiring.

After Michael and I diligently wired the tree, Phil arrived late and jumped in to do the styling. It’s OK , I’ll fix it for Michael another day 😉

Ben brought a clump of Lonicera collected from a garden. We worked through in and removed a few unwanted trunks and left what will be the basis of it’s future image.

Remaining stumps will be carved away.

John McP brought a Spruce that he tells me has been neglected for a number of years. John’s new to the club but has been dabbling with bonsai for a few years on his own.

The tree has a few issues, leggy branches, bar branches and a few empty areas that will need work. However, this is a great tree for John to learn from. We only wanted to do a little branch selection on the night and get John wiring. We only wired the primary branches to drop them down and create an future, older image for the tree. The green was thinned out and will be left until next year as we try and promote some better inner structure to work with.

Ian B brought along a Scots Pine that he has grown from seed. Ian must be about 150 years old as the bark on this little fellow is very nice indeed. I didn’t get a before shot sadly. After everyone else had left, Ian and I worked through this tree and got it wired. We removed about 50% of the foliage. There were a few options with this one. Ian opted to keep the hanging primary branch. There remains a nice literati option for the future if required.