Nov 6 2011

First Frost & Sunday Walk

I woke up this morning to the first frost I’ve seen in a long time, I may have slept through one earlier in the week 🙂

It was a beautiful clear morning with blue skies, not a breath of wind and a perfect day for my Sunday walk. Here are the usual photos taken whilst walking from Hollywood to Bangor along the shore of Belfast Lough.

Hard to tell where the sea finishes and the sky begins.

Some Trees to inspire

Some Wildlife

Everyone looking towards Belfast hoping to spot a star or two. The MTV European Music Awards is on in Belfast tonight and the City is buzzing!

“I see Bieber!” “Who’s the Blonde he’s with?” 🙂This guy was walking a horse on the Beach! Well, it was the size of a horse. My dogs gave it a wide berth. Pink lead made me laugh.

Maggie and Smudge at full tilt as usual! Notice some frost on the ground.

Crawforsburn

 Just makes you want to sit down for a while.

end game, Bangor Marina.

Nov 6 2011

Trees from Friday Night

Here are a few of the trees worked on on Friday night. Some were styled some were discussed.

Phils Scots Pine before old needle removal.

 and after…

Hugh’s Scots Pine after needle removal, shown from a few angles.

One of Ian B’s Mugo Pines grown from seed.

and after styling

and another one before.

and after

Michael’s Juniper

A little Yew I worked on.

and after, still work to do but ran out of time 😦

Nov 5 2011

Before and after

Glad to get this done.

Corner of Garden Before

and After

Nov 5 2011

Does Anybody Irish still do bonsai??

I’m posing this question to try and scare up some bonsai interest in the Republic of Ireland.

We have members a plenty in our club north of the border but, to the best of my knowledge there isn’t a bonsai club, study group or similar in the ROI.

Of the 2 guys who have made contact with me from Ireland, one was Polish and the other Romanian!  So, are you reading this from Ireland?  Are you interested in getting together with other bonsai enthusiasts in your area? If you are, drop me a few lines and I will endeavour to get you in touch with like minded people.

Last night I had a few mates around to play with trees. Ovidiu, who lives in Dublin, came up to visit me for the first time. [First of many I hope] I met Ovidiu through the Wee Trees Bonsai Forum. He’s keen to work with others to progress his love of bonsai. This is the main reason for this, ‘Calling all Irish!’ post.

After meeting the chaps last night he was keen to get stuck in. As he stayed over night, we got stuck into a Cypress today that he had brought with him. He had done a little bit of wiring previously and wanted help with making a few decisions. Usually I’m not a big lover of this species for bonsai, but this one seemed to be suited to the techniques that we carried out.

Before

We cleared away the surface soil to find about 3 inches of trunk line previously unseen. We wired the main branches and added a little deadwood.

Ovidiu at work.

The result after todays work.

Side by side before and after.

A great time had with Ovidiu last night and today, he also has a great taste in wine 😉

I await the flurry of Irish replies….

Nov 5 2011

Chuhin Maple, Colour at Last

I was starting to think that this maple had forgotten about Autumn this year but a little colour has started to creep in. Another week should see it at it’s peak colour.

Nov 4 2011

New Tunnel Step by Step Part 2

Yesterday we had a ‘dry’ window of opportunity for a few hours in the afternoon. Stephen came over to give me a hand. Before he arrived I did a little prep on the ground to allow the tunnel frame to sit flat. I then staked the frame to the ground with tree stakes and plastic ties. This isn’t essential but it makes me feel better.

We then had to trench around the tunnel to allow for the burial of the cover skirt. Smudge was paying close attention to Stephens work 🙂

We popped the cover on and attached the velcro straps to the frame. It’s surprising just how effective these are at tightening the cover. The trench was back filled and packed down.

A quick soak down of the interior to wash any soil away into the gravel and we were done for the day. The rain had started!!

Today I will get the rest of the area tidied up and get a few low stands put into the tunnel. I may even start to populate it with a few trees. Tonight I have some mates coming over to play with trees which means I have a lot of clearing up to do before they arrive.

Nov 3 2011

Week by Week Maple Colour

This little Shohin is a pleasure to watch in the Autumn.

October 15th

October 22nd

October 30th

November 2nd

Nov 3 2011

New Tunnel Step by Step

Over the last few days I’ve been getting ready for the arrival of my new tunnel.

This is the area where it’s going to be. The bench you can see is falling apart and this is the time to make better use of the garden.

Bench cleared ready for destruction!

Timber!!

Now the problem is the overly tall Hawthorn hedge to the back of the garden. This will shade out a lot of the tunnel.

The frame of the tunnel was put together yesterday by my son and I. Pretty straight forward and the heavier frame on the Pro version seems to be worth a little extra.

3m x 2m x 2m.

A quick lift over the fence into it’s new home. I haven’t made my mind up what angle to place it at as yet. The wind was strong yesterday so I wasn’t going to chance putting on the cover. That is a job for today.

Nov 2 2011

El Tim Blog speaking out

I thought I would mention this Spanish Bonsai Blog that I’ve been following for a while. I’ve just added it to My Favourite Blogs sidebar.

I understand that reading translated Spanish can be a bit of a chore, Google Translate is far from perfect! But sometimes its worth the effort.

If you click on the image link below you will be taken to a recent post about the collection of yamadori in Spain. It is an honest look at the devastation, dare I say rape, of collecting sites in Spain. I have collected yamadori myself, always in manageable numbers with permission. I understand the temptations to go mad and take risks with trees, I’m not blameless in this either. However, the wanton destruction of top quality yamadori as described here is totally unacceptable! Non-collectable trees should be left for everyone to enjoy in-situ.

This isn’t just a Spanish thing either, it’s happens everywhere when there’s money to be made. In my view, it’s bonsai’s dirty little secret. I have no doubt that some day, some news reporter on a slow news day will twig on to this and it will make National News. ‘Bonsai Butchers ruining the environment’, or words to that effect.  What a sad day for bonsai that will be! 😦

Nov 2 2011

Bonsai Disaster!!

 After posting about the Common Juniper yesterday were I mentioned briefly about a major disaster in my Bonsai journey, I thought I would share the full story.

Back in 2005 I was busy dealing with other things in my life and bonsai took a back seat. This lasted for roughly 3 years. My one big regret in bonsai is wasting these years. My trees got water, if they were lucky, and every now and again they got feed.

In 05/06 disaster struck! I spotted  fertilizer for sale specifically for Conifers, not conifer bonsai, just conifers.. I decided to buy it. It was cheap, I had no other fertilizer left at home and I liked the idea of sprinkling a little on the pots and walking away. I followed the correct dosage, or less that recommended and fed the conifers in my collection. I have since learned from someone who used to work in a similar fertilizer factory that it’s pot luck what’s in the box.  Chemicals are added in a hap-hazard manor and rarely in the correct dosage. It would appear that what I got was a very high Nitrogen feed, not what was on the box. A few days later I looked out the window and noticed that a few of my trees where looking a little dull in foliage colour. I didn’t do anything as I was going out to work. Idiot!! The following day I was devastated to see that about 15 of my trees where suffering badly from what I can only assume was fertilizer burn on the roots. I flushed out the pots with running water. Took me most of the day.

It was then a waiting game. I managed to save 6 of the trees. Some of these lost branches but over the years I have worked around this and made the best I can from them. The other 9, I lost. By way of a memorial to them, here they are:

Japanese White Pine ‘Zushio’

Japanese White Pine ‘Zushio’ Common JuniperRoot Over Rock LarchScots PineMugo PineCommon JuniperJapanese Larch

Japanese Larch

I’m sure others out there have experienced loses during their time doing bonsai. However, I bet not many add them on their blog! I do this to show that we all have our disasters and hope that others might learn from my mistake. Be 100% confident about what you feed your trees. As you can see I lost some rather nice trees and it nearly made me quit bonsai.

Thank God I didn’t 🙂

To end on a brighter note, here are a few of the ones that suffered but survived. All photographed this year.