Today saw me waking up to a light dusting of snow. Nice to see a cold snap for a few days, the trees could do with it, just let it be short lived. I took a few quick snaps before the thaw.
Could it be that we could now bring bonsai into the last clubless Provence in Ireland?!
Nearly 3 years ago I, on behalf of the Northern Ireland Bonsai Society, helped start the Munster Bonsai Club and a year year the Leinster Bonsai Club. Both are still going strong. Cork and Dublin are the main anchor cities for these clubs and therefore offer a good population in which to recruit new members.
The hard part of bringing coverage to all of Ireland was always going to be the wild west! Connaught lacks the population density of the rest of Ireland but what a place to go hunting yamadori 🙂 I have contact with a few bonsai enthusiasts over that way in Galway and Sligo but never anyone willing to give setting up a club or study group a go…… until now 🙂
I’ve been contacted via my blog by Tim, who not only wants to try and start a club but also has 40 years experience in bonsai. A great starting point for any club.
So my question is, do you live in Connaught and want to join Tim in starting a Club? Perhaps a study group would be a more accurate description of it to begin with, but from small acorns and all that. Tim is based in Ballaghaderreen in County Roscommon.
As before, I’m more than happy to support Tim in setting up as are the NIBS. All joining the club will be entitled to attend NIBS events as a sister club member.
Interested: Please contact me by replying to this post below or via the CONTACT ME page. I’ll not add a direct contact for Tim here as I don’t want to make his email address visible on the net.
Come on people, this is your chance bonsai in the West of Ireland.
I’ve had this little Yew since 2002 when I bought it as raw material. That said, it was in this pot even then. I love the pot, Ian Baillie only makes good ones but after all this time I felt either the tree had outgrown the pot or I just needed a change.
This is it in the old pot.
And this is it’s new home for the next few years. A nice Japanese pot I picked up with a bit of age about it.. It’s perhaps a little big but the tree could do with a few years of freer root growth as I will now spend a little more time on improving the overall image of the tree.
This was it back in 2003 as raw yamadori material. It’s come a long way but probably has as far to go again!
We are have pleasure to welcome all bonsai interested to our first workshop in 2016 with Ian Young and Phil Donnelly from NIBS. The event is going to take place 06/02/2016 10.00-17.00 as usually in Mark’s place.
Lovely atmosphere, and lots of knowledge, snacks and tea…
All interested are very welcome and pleas contact me at 0867705560 or twinsrat.bonsai@gmail.com
A couple years back I wrote a post which became one of most viewed posts I’ve ever written. It was about Turface and similar soil ingredients like Oil-Dri and Profile, and my skepticism about their qualities as a bonsai soil ingredient, following 30 years of experience with many different soil types. The post was meant to call into question the belief that Turface is the best soil ingredient. I don’t believe it is, having witnessed its performance for years, but that doesn’t mean you can’t grow a tree in it, or that it may be one of the few options in your area due to availability issues.
In rough strokes, there have been three main evolutions in our soil usage in North America. Earliest was the potting soil/sharp sand period, decades ago. Then came the Turface era, which was definitely an improvement on the earlier mixes. Then came the volcanic mixes…
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I got this little Chinese Juniper in 2010 from a great chap called Bob Snaith.He was clearing out his collection and I got this one at a great price. He supplied me with the first photo below. He’d bought the tree from a chap called Micky Paice who had bought it from Windybank Bonsai back in 1999. Always nice to know the provenance of a tree.
This was it in 2010 as I bought it.
I repotted it and let it sit for a year to gain strength. I then explored the idea of chopping it back to the first branch as I didn’t particularly like the contrived trunk line.
Decision made.
This was it repotted into a smaller pot the following Spring 2012 I think.
It’s been tweaked a few times since then but a few weeks ago I decided to fine wire it and transfer it into a new pot I picked up at Bonsai Europa. This is it prior to wiring.
And afterwards
The new pot and chop mark, Yamaaki.
and now after repotting and a new coat of jin seal applied.
I’ve had this Korean Hornbeam for 5 years now. This was how it looked back in July 2010. It was weak and had suffered for a few years and lost a lot of branches. It took 2 seasons to get it on track and build up some ramification.
This was it in 2013
And here in December 2014.
At this point I decided to make a few changes. Both trunks were parallel to each other in the pot creating a very flat image. The main trunk lacked taper along the last portion of the trunk line and about 2 inches from the top is a swelling that looked ugly and was only going to get worse with age. I opted to layer the top off the main trunk to create a little multi-trunk shohin tree for the future. I also decided that I’d change the front of the tree to offset the two trunk creating more depth.
Below is the tree in December 2015 after the layer was removed. I had give the tree free growth for the year to give me a few more options when thinning out the branches.
This was to be the new angle for the front. I’d lose a little of the width of the base but give the tree a little more character and depth, hard to see that in a photo of course!
I trimmed back unwanted branches and pruned out a few area that had become too heavy.
I then wired out the branch structure creating the basics of two new apexes and got rid of a lot of clutter and crossing branches.
If we are making changes to the front, I might as well repot it. I had a Sylvia Webber pot on the shelf that I love and was itching to use again. I think that’s who the potter is anyway, perhaps someone can confirm from the chop mark below. Is she still making pots? I got this back in 2003.
I transferred the tree over adjusting for the new angle. The pot is perhaps a little shallow looking for such a heavy trunk, but I like it. I was also able to remove an ugly root at the back as a bonus. It’s hard to tell just how much better the image is in a photo, especially as the old front looked good in a photo and this photo isn’t great but trust me, I’m a lot happier with where this tree is going in the years to come. Double the current ramification and I think we have a nice tree in the making. That’s what I love about working on Deciduous trees, there’s no quick image to be had like a conifer, the work has to be done year on year to create a descent bonsai.
Looking at the branch structure of these two Trident Maples I decided to make a few adjustment especially in the lower branches.
A hidden adjustment on the Root over rock is a branch that was previously lying on the top of the rock to the left. This has now been dropped to the back and when in leaf will help add to the depth of the image. With a little work this year and a new pot, perhaps this is an option for Europa 2017 😉
As you can see I have gone through a major Walsall Ceramics faze in recent years 🙂
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