Ray over on Ronin Bonsai is asking for help in locating some old friends he’s lost touch with. As I seem to have a lot of American followers, according to my stats, I thought I’d help him out. See the old photo below and click on it to read Ray’s request and further details. If America was the size of Ireland you’d a bumped into them by now 🙂 Good luck with the search Ray, I think you’ll need a little luck!
These two are my favourite Kusamono at the moment. Probably because of the wild look that they portray. Now surprising as both were nearly direct lifts from a bog with collecting Pine this Spring. It’s been fun to watch them fill out and new plants appear as the season progressed. Nature really does do it best.
Fern, grass, moss, lichen
Grass, lichen, heather
I was taking another 1to1 session last week and the client brought along this ‘Mother and Child’ Field Maple. A large tree that has been neglected for a number of years after the original owner died. The new owner wanted some direction with the tree and we set about removing what was over grown aiming to leave what would make the basis of a good structure of the new
We opted to change the front slightly to bring the child trunk slightly further forward. The original front had both parallel to each other.
This it it after removal of over extended and straight branches.
A few issues remain but these can be sorted next year when we see how the tree responds to this cut back and a major repot to get it out of the peat that it’s in now.
It’s taken a while but my Astilbe has finally flowered.
Back in January I posted about trying to make my mind up about whether to keep this Yew Tall or go for a shorter tree. I talked about the sentimental value of this one and the tall character of the tree suited this.
Last night, being on my own while my wife is in America for a few weeks, I decided to drink beer and listen to 80’s music on the radio while playing with trees in my garage. DAB radio has lots of new stations available and this one is right up my street 🙂
So beer in hand, music blasting I sat this tree down in front of me and explored a chop option. No matter what I looked at, I could find a convincing image. I therefore set about thinning and wiring to improve the taller option. This is the result.
and beer bottle for scale 🙂
and sure I have older photos of this tree somewhere but for comparison, this was it 2 years ago.
As Allie is away, it might be an idea to freshen up the lime sulphur work on this one now too 🙂
Scrivi qui i tuoi pensieri… (opzionale)
I added this Video to my Youtube Channel a few days a go but thought I would also add the stills here as well.
One of the trees I’m minding for Mario while he spends his days kite surfing in Dubai is this little Satsuki Azalea. For me the tree had a few issues to begin with, namely:
the apex being as wide as the bottom branches
suffers from a floating apex
Missing a branch to the front which I feel is a little too open.
This was the tree back in June 2012
After discussing the tree with Peter Warren in October last year we adjusted a few of the upper branches with wire to try and stop that floating apex. However, it was the wrong time of year to hard prune the apex to try and narrow it. Therefore we could only do so much at that time. This was the tree in April of this year.
After flowering was finished in June I pruned the apex back quite hard in a few places to improve the overall shape. This is the tree now. Less of an appearance of a floating apex and a more overall triangular shape.
This adventurous shoot has appeared on the trunk at a point were I think it might benefit the tree if developed. I’ll let it grow and let Mario remove it if he disagrees 😉
This is one of the top branches that got a major pruning back to old wood. It took a few weeks but it is now starting to fill out nicely but in the right area.
Before and after side by side for comparison
. 
Two more, both a ways off being mature trees. First a cork bark elm. I normally only get Summer growth like this if they are kept in the poly tunnel.
and after
Birch
after
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