Bench Reshuffle

I spent Friday morning with my son reshuffling my benches in my display area. I acquired a few extra railway sleepers and was going to do this in a few weeks time. However, my son has to make a promotional video for his Creative Media course at Tech and he’s making one for the club. He has to video me talking about the NIBS and I wanted to do it among my benches. One thing lead to another and well, see for yourself 🙂

 

Bonsai @ Chelsea Flower Show 2013

One of this blog’s roving reporters, (or should that be raving 😉 )  Ben F, was at Chelsea Flower Show today and I asked him to snap a few photos of the bonsai on display. True to his word he has emailed me some nice shots of a few of the stands.

Bonsai Art of Japan Episode 36

Spring Pruning Alternate leaf deciduous Bonsai

Elm 2011 to 2013

This is a stump from a Cork Bark Elm after I layered the top off back in September 2011

And this was it earlier in the week.

After a little trim. Progressing nicely

Wilkie’s Photo Gallery

Thought it was time to share this blog with you. The owner is a club member who as well as having bonsai and started getting quite serious about photography. I offered to help get him up and running on a photo blog to help showcase his work.

As well as seeing the odd bonsai portrait of one of his trees, you will see some great action, landscape and wildlife images. Give him a wee hello to encourage him to share and make sure you check out some of his work on the page tabs at the top.

As usual, just click on the photo below to visit, one of my favourite photos from him.

Old Air Layer

This little Shohin Maple was a layering from two years ago. Still very early days but this is it’s strongest year so far and is developing nicely.

Tridents…..

After first trim. Both have grown strongly this Spring and some extension shoots and larger leaves have already required removal. Both have been in a greenhouse up until now but will shortly be placed out on the benches. I find keeping them under glass until the leaves are fully hardened is a safer bet. Over the last few years I have experimented a little with defoliation, partial defoliation and just extension pruning to see how Tridents react. This is part of bonsai, constantly looking to see how trees respond at different times of the year to different techniques, feeding regimes and weather. No two years are the same and it can be hard to reach any concrete conclusions. But if this was easy, we’d all be doing it 🙂

Spring Macro

Malus in Flower

My Crab Apple has been in flower this week and the scent has been amazing too. I’ve been trying to capture a bee in a snap shot visiting the blooms but they either fly off or it’s been raining. Running out of time as the flowers will soon be over.