A new URL for the European Bonsai Forum. I really must find more time to keep up with the posts, some excellent stuff on there.
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Ben’s Maple Repot
After we potted up the collected trees last weekend, I gave Ben a hand repotting his Maple. The pot didn’t really do anything for the tree and Peter Snart had suggested removing a branch to the right side that was always going to look plain ugly. It looks ok in the photo, but trust me, it had to go! It’s not a typical maple, with a hollow trunk and the variety is known to produce a larger leaf. That said, Ben has done a great job of reducing the leaf size and also the inter-nodal length.
The old look
The new look. The little branch to the right will be grown out to add some balance after the removal of the ugly branch.
Jamie’s Berberis
Young Jamie had this tree with him last weekend, just dug out from his Gran’s garden I think. We gave it a haircut to get new growth in the right places and got it into a new pot for him. The before image looks rather nice but the amount of foliage for the weight of the trunk was too much. Better to take it back and regrow in a more convincing proportion.
Starting to bud nicely after a week in the tunnel.
Mercy Mission
I was contacted last week by a lady who was panicking about her husbands bonsai. He had 5 trees but has been working abroad and the trees had been neglected for the last few years. She brought all 5 trees to my house during the week and I have offered to help her out. Yesterday I had a closer look at the trees and decided that they all needed repotting. I had been given a free hand with regards to pruning and a little styling too.
This was the first one to get attention, A twin trunk Larch on a slab, over grown and with many dead branches.
This is it after a repot and a haircut. A few obvious branches were wired to bring a little shape back. Some moss added to keep the mix in place.
This was the other larch, same issues as the first one. Some major branches dead and wire badly cut in in a few places.
After I got through with it. Still light of green on the right side but a back branch is being brought around to that side to visually fill the space.
I just loved this little English Elm, and I loved the pot even more! No before shot, hands were to dirty to hold the camera 🙂
Probably a cheap one, but I really liked it.
Again a few dead branches in the tree especially to the right side but I adjusted the potting angle to fill the front image a little more.
Obviously been an air layer at some point.
Potted up
The last two were not as good and had even worse health problems. This False Larch had a lot of dead branches and had obviously dried out badly at some point. When I repotted it, there was hardly any viable roots. It was in a really bad clay, probably there from it’s Chinese origin days. Some buds swelling, so fingers crossed for the owner.
The last tree was a Chinese Juniper. Sorry no before shot again. It was 4/5 brown foliage 1/5 green. I removed all the dead branches taking it back to the remaining green bits. There is signs of regrowth and after a repot and some TLC it should make a come back.
All of these are now in Ward 1 [ Also known as Poly Tunnel 1 🙂
The owner returns to N Ireland later in the month. Hope he’s happy.
Neil over at Shibui Bonsai has just posted some very interesting results of taking cuttings from Japanese Black pine seedlings.
He essentially is getting two plants from every seedling as opposed to the standard method where the original roots are thrown away. His strike rate has been excellent and with seed in Australia often being scarce doubling your stock shortly after germination is a great thing!
Anyway, have a look, it is well worth a read.
http://shibuibonsai.com.au/japanese-black-pine-cuttings/
Oh and Neil also grows some excellent stock in a range of species which can also be found on his site, http://shibuibonsai.com.au/.
Four Pot Up
Yes, Stephen managed to find his way to my house, so we had four for the potting up session. 🙂
We had to do some major shuffling of trees in and out of protective cover before we started but space was found for everything. The spruce were potted first and put into a tunnel with last years spruce. Sphagnum moss only seems to be the way to go with Sitka Spruce. Last years trees loved it producing a lot of fresh roots.
We then moved on to the Hawthorn. The first one Stephen lifted bit him on the forehead, opps! We experimented a little with mixes to try out different options, time will tell.
Ben also brought a few trees of his own to get potted and we both finished these off before calling it a day. I didn’t take many photos to be honest, it was a very busy session and dirty hands and cameras don’t mix. You will see a triple trunk in the gallery that I lifted. Bark not very mature compared to some of the others but a nice tree for the future all the same.
Stephen was quick to point out that he was the oldest there yesterday but with all of us mumbling about aches and pains, he said he was the fittest of the four of us!! I would like to point out that he took Friday off by virtue of senile dementia setting in and his failure to find the collecting site when he was half a mile away at one point. Fittest my arse 🙂
Today I plan to catch up with some of my regular repotting on my own. I’m actually looking forward to a little time on my own in the garage with the radio on and wee trees for company. Spring must be in the air 🙂
Smaller Spruce for potting
Think he’s happy?
Spruce from last year and this year together
Potted in situ
Some of the Hawthorn
more
fittest of the four
Last year’s Scots Pine out of the tunnel
What’s this one like
root pruning
potting up
Rufus on the sniff
It fits
How the hell am I getting a pot to fit this!
Triple trunk
Nice future
scale
beauty and the beast
angle?
Smaller Spruce for potting
Think he’s happy?
Spruce from last year and this year together
Potted in situ
Some of the Hawthorn
more
fittest of the four
Last year’s Scots Pine out of the tunnel
What’s this one like
root pruning
potting up
Rufus on the sniff
It fits
How the hell am I getting a pot to fit this!
Triple trunk
Nice future
scale
beauty and the beast
angle?
Two and a Half Men
Yesterday we were supposed to be four but we ended up as three, well two and a half as Ben is the baby/new boy in the group 🙂 Stephen was coming late and was last seen throwing his satnav from the car window and returning home 😛
We ploughed on without the baker and managed to get the ‘all important’ permission from the land owner. Not easy to track down as everyone who seemed to own the land was either dead, moved, or was a millionaire recluse!! After a chat with the owner about, cattle, pigs, money grabbing sisters and how to tell the difference between spruce and fir, we managed to make a start in the first of two fields.
I got off to a flyer by ripping my hand on barbed wire fencing! The Hawthorn we were after were hard to collect. Rocky ground and deep roots meant that many were not worth the effort. We did however collect 7 before lunch. We had to stop as Ben’s stomach was making noises that were scaring the local wildlife!
After lunch we moved to the other field which proved to be better. There is even scope for a return visit for further collecting. At this point we knew Stephen had given up and buggered off back south to Belfast. We wanted to make a return visit to our old Spruce site to see what we had missed. When we got there, we found 3 spruce worth the effort, 2 of which are rather special, for us any way. We had great success with these last year only losing 1 of the 5 collected and it was rather short of viable roots. These three root wise are looking good. Part of the site had been bulldozed and if we hadn’t lifted the ones last year, they would have been destroyed. Lucky break!
Anyway, here’s the day in photos. Might even do a trip video for a laugh 🙂 Potting up tomorrow.
On route, collecting Ben
Driver for the Day
Misty Mountains
Misty mountains
Not how you are meant to recycle!! Some people!!!
Morning session begins
Phil straight in
boulder mover
and out she comes
Ben’s first, popped his cherry 😉
and he looks happy
Hurry up Phil
My first of the day
old grass and moss cleared
and out she comes
plenty of root
loppers out
Keep at it Ben
the first 7
don’t think he likes the camera!
now that’s just not nice!
dual carriageway?
Afternoon session
rock splitter
our work bench
typical hawthorn
the fingers from a distance!
setting the table
a closer look
but not collectable
an amazing shohin once chopped
moving on to the first spruce
checking roots
second spruce
height reduced after collection
a great day
and a full van.
Four Go Collecting
This morning Phil, Stephen, Ben and I go collecting Hawthorn, we hope! It’s a new site, and we hope the quality is good but we still have to get permission. We have a good track record with permission getting so fingers crossed for tomorrow. We do have a plan ‘B’ just in case. No, it’s not just steal them!! We have another site nearby. This is the field we hope to be wandering around at about 10am 🙂
Bonsai Eejit 