Well, I had great fun yesterday spending the day with a few mates working and talking about trees.

I started off on my own and made a start at defining the deadwood/live vein on my Rigeda juniper. This is as far as I got got before Stan arrived.

Stan brought his Chinese Juniper for some styling work. This is it before.

We started working outside in the sun.

Stan had to be given a special pass to be allowed into my garden wearing a Man Ure shirt! This was Stan’s first proper go at wiring and, he’s either a natural, or I’m an amazing teacher!! More than likely the former 🙂

We had to move inside as our usual Northern Ireland climate kicked in.

He even cleans up after himself which is a rarity in my garage.

This is the tree at the end of the day. To pull it further into shape it would have required further fine detailed wiring, but I felt that this was sufficient for the day. We discussed the addition of a shari in the future and another possible front.

Here’s the before and after side by side.

Stephen brought down his two satsuki for thinning and structural work. These hadn’t been touched in years and were in dire need of a major haircut.

We started on this one. It has had a hard life! A few years ago it lost the whole apex and had been left to regrow. This year a stray plank of wood being waved around by a careless workman broke another branch near the apex. (Sorry Phil couldn’t resist 🙂 )

Many of the problems can’t be addressed today as further growth is required. We hope that after this pruning, vigorous growth will allow for a redesign of the apex and a new potting angle to compensate.

Stephen at work, hiding behind the tree. It’s only a shohin 🙂

Pad before and after thinning.

and after work today.

We ran out of time with the other satsuki. We only managed to get the rest of the flowers removed and one branch partially thinned.

Another visitor to my garage was Michael, who has just joined the club. He’s been doing bonsai for roughly 12 years and had contacted me asking for advice about a few trees that had suffered over the Winter.

I think he enjoyed a walk around my garden and I popped over to his house with Phil that evening for a look at his trees. More of that in another post.

He brought with him a Juniper that had been previously styled by a few of Europe’s big names. It had suffered due to the Winter and a poor choice of potting mix. He was quick to see the benefits of a more open mix that he had previously been taught to use. In fact may of his trees had issues with mix choice.

This is Michael having a chat with Phil about Juniper growth and the techniques used to improve his collection.

Michael also had a problem with the deadwood at the base of his Juniper rotting. We introduced him to a few new products to stop this and helped him get the rotted wood removed down to savable harder wood.

During all this Phil was busy taking cutting from the two satsuki azaleas and a Cork Bark Elm.

That’s all we got done for the day. I’ll post some photos from Phil and I visiting Michaels garden later.