Apr 12 2013

Show Set Up Day Two

Last night saw up back up at the Centre finishing off the backdrop framing and getting the cloth on. What a difference cloth makes and a backdrop is so important to see the trees at their best.

I took a few snaps during the evening just to prove who was doing the work. As you will see, Phil the Fingers was in action. A few trees went up with us, dirty pots and all. They will be cleaned up tonight during staging. Tree shots aren’t great as the light was poor, better to follow over the weekend.

Monkey in a cage

Fingers again

No fingers from this angle

Ian and Ronnie looking for the ends

Is it back to front?

even more cloth

Making the most of a small space.

sea of blue!

Blank canvas

He should be behind bars

A few trees brought in.

Elm group on it’s first outing

Blue Diamond Rhododendron

Hornbeam

Trident

Taking in the view

Running about to keep warm, baltic weather expected for the weekend!!

Not the finalposition for these two but nice all the same.

Apr 11 2013

Show Set Up Day One

Last night saw us starting to get the club show set up. We had to collect the stands from one side of Belfast and transport them over to the venue at the other side. Easy? No! Not when there is a bad accident on the motorway!! This is Phil’s van loaded with the stands stuck on the motorway. Yes I used my mobile in the car, but we hadn’t moved in about 30 minutes at this point!

We did however eventually make it to Hillside Nursery Centre where some more helping hands appeared and we managed to get more done than we expected. We got there to find the space not yet cleared and we had to lend a hand to get things moved.

The chuckle Brother Graham and Adrian.

To Me, To Me 🙂

Starting to take shape.

As straight as a dog’s hind leg Adrian 🙂

Two more nights of this and we’ll be ready for the public !

Apr 10 2013

Spring – Accents

Soldanella

Soldanella

Apr 9 2013

Video Viewing

This video from the EBA Congress 2013 is well worth 11 minutes of your time.

and also this one from the green club.

Apr 9 2013

Spring Watering Tips—

Michael Hagedorn

Once again let’s wade into the deep waters of writing about the basics of bonsai. This time, watering. Of course, there are many methods of watering…

This method seems a bit erratic. Watering bonsai should be more uniform, with the timing less related to our own needs. The rule of thumb we are taught is that we want to wait until the soil dries out a bit before watering again. And in rough strokes, this is accurate.

But let’s refine that idea a bit. To start with, those trees we’ve recently repotted:

A tree you’ve repotted that has a dense root mass—such as a well-established bonsai—will likely dry out very rapidly. Keep a careful eye on the interior, that solid root mass that you put back in the pot (which should be showing a little bit on the surface, so you can see it). You may end up watering those very…

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Apr 9 2013

Floodgates Walk

Some photos taken on a recent walk at the Floodgates in my hometown of Ards.

There may be trouble ahead

Duck

Geese

Creature from the black lagoon

Scrabo Tower

Strangford Lough

sand wave

murky water

low flyer

Take off!

Apr 8 2013

Spring – Various

Fuji Cherry

Celtis

Escallonia

Hawthorn

Rhododendron Blue Diamond

Malus

Apr 7 2013

Spring – Larch

Apr 6 2013

Blogging From the Bog

I did a live post yesterday from the bog while we were collecting Scot’s Pine. It was a rare sunny day and as usual turned out to be one of the highlights of the bonsai year. Good company good craic, and good results.

Funny story, guess who forgot to put the memory card in the camera? Yep me! Luckily Stephen had his camera with him and I copied his card Phew! This means that I was actually in a few photos and there is evidence that I do actually do a little work.

Highlight of the day for me was watching Phil Fingers stepping into a hole and sinking into freezing water up to the knee. The usual abuse was given only for me to find a different hole a few minutes later. 😀

We cut back a few larger trees to collect at some point in the future. The land owner says that they’ll still be there for a while and we are the only people who he trusts to collect on the site. Therefore we can go longer term with a few of them.

We collected a few smaller ones and finished early enough to get everything potted up in the one day.

Here’s some photos courtesy of Stephen.