Nothing to do with bonsai but, I have been watching the Wild Week Series on BBC NI this week and have added a few photos on their FlickR group which they use to create a ‘red button’ slide show. I had a few selected for the slide show last night and tonight, to my delight, they used one of my photos on the actual programme 🙂
This is the one they used. It’s of a Valerian growing out of a wall at my Father-in-laws house.
They used these ones on the red button.
After spending 4 hours today getting trees sorted out for the club display this weekend, I got a phone call from the garden centre to say the room was double booked!! After being offered a very poor second area for the display, I reminded them that it was they who invited us this weekend, we had advertised the event, we had booked it first and we where using it for 2 full days not a private party for 2 hours.
After informing them that if we couldn’t have the room, then we were binning it and they could tell the visitors why there was no bonsai, they changed their minds and let us have the room. Not a great start, lets hope the set up goes better tomorrow. Here’s a few trees I’m putting in. As I’m doing a tree critique, and want to talk about specific things, these trees have been picked to allow me to babble away merrily.
In for the flowers only.
I’ve been trying to get these two hosta accent plants to produce flowers in time for the club display this weekend. I put them in a shady corner in the poly tunnel hoping the extra heat will boost them on. One isn’t looking hopeful but the other one might just make it.
I love the long stalks with purple flowers dangling from the end. One of my favourite accents.
In my previous post I talked about creating a landscape from a dwarf variety of Chinese Elm by planting them on local rock. I grew these trees from cuttings. Unlike normal Chinese Elm, the success rate for this variety from cuttings is about 30%.
The rock is from Lough Corrib in Galway, not on my doorstep but on the same Island 🙂
I thought I would play about with a few ideas today in an attempt to pull something together for the display at the weekend. The public always love the ‘wee trees on the rocks’ and I thought I would try and create a coastal scene. Not a local coastal scene but something more oriental.
There are 3 trees. They used to be on one rock but it broke in half last year!! This has turned out to be a blessing as I can now swap things around and add smaller rocks to the scene.
This was my starting point.
This is the other half.
I also have this rock with moss on it.
When I put them all together it looked a bit cluttered. If I get enough space at the display I might spread it out more, but space will be tight so I started looking for a smaller composition.
Too cluttered
This one was better but still not right for the space.
The rock at the back did help add depth to the composition though.
I took out the ‘two tree’ rock to see what it was like.
Not good, so I put the two back in and took out the moss rock.
This was looking better and not as cluttered.To give it more realism and help tie the different components together I added some grit as beach sand. Not ideal material but I’ll get something better for the weekend. Added a wee boat too 🙂
It’s not great but I’m pretty sure it’ll get the public talking at the weekend.
Way back in 1996 I bought 3 little Chinese Elms from a local dealer. They had been brought in from Lodders, Holland. I opted to put them together on rock and create a landscape with them. I have since sold them on to a club member who broke my heart with persistent requests to buy them. He lost them in the cold snap in Winter 2009. Should have kept them!!
Anyway, the reason I mention them is that they were a dwarf variety. Ulmus Parvifolia ??? Before I sold them I had taken cuttings and my plan was to create another landscape of my own, this time using locally sourced rock as opposed to the usual Chinese stuff you see all the time and I used in the original landscape.
Here is the original landscape.
The reason for posting this was to try and find out what this actual variety of Elm is called. I’m thinking that it is ‘Yatsubusa’. I know it’s not ‘Hokkaido’ as I’ve seen this before, it’s denser and even smaller. I can vaguely remember when I bought them that they were referred to as ‘Microphyllia’. I can’t seem to find this variety mentioned anywhere.
Here’s a few pics of the leaves compared to a normal Chinese Elm. This first one shows a normal Chinese elm leaf from a regularly trimmed bonsai and on the right is a micro one. 5p for scale.
The reason I say regularly trimmed Chinese Elm is because, when left to grow, the leaf size gets massively bigger. This can be seen in this photo.
1. Extended growth on Chinese Elm
2. Shoot from Cork Bark Elm
3. Shoot from Maintained Chinese Elm bonsai
4. shoot from Micro Chinese Elm.
Amazing the variation in size.
Below you can see the size of the tiny leaves at the start of a new shoot on a micro elm. If trimmed regularly all leaves on the tree can be reduced to this size 🙂
If anyone out there knows the name of this dwarf variety, please let me know. If I get a chance later I’ll post the photos I took today of my replacement elm landscape using local stone.
As the winds died down today I was out with the camera as usual and here’s my sorry looking Air Layer 😦 😦 From chatting with the guys on Wee Trees Bonsai Forum, it looks like I got away light as many have had bonsai trashed by the wind!!
This Juniper was repotted this year into a slightly larger pot than I wanted but it had grown weakly for a year or two and I wanted to ensure it’s health as it has big sentimental value.
As you can see it has responded well. Here are the before and after pinching pics.
We’ve had strong winds here today and a few local trees have fallen. Full leaf and high winds don’t mix I guess.
I just took a look around my trees to check every thing was still on the benches. I had put an air layer on a tall crab apple at the start of the month and, you guessed it, the wind snapped it right off at the point of the air layer!!
Getting on a bit in the year to try another lower down. I’ll maybe plant it out in the flower bed and have another go next year.
I wired this Fuji Cherry over the Winter and now it needed it removed due to rapid growth. This posed a problem due to all the dense leaves. I remembered that a few years ago it was attacked by caterpillars in early Spring and it responded by producing new leaves. I decided that I would have a little experiment and defoliate the tree. I could them trim back the extension growth to the first couple of nodes and remove the wire with ease. It had only managed to hold onto one cherry. I left this on for enjoyment.
Here it is before. I had already trimmed back the strongest growth as this stage.
and after defoliation.
I looked as best I could to see if cherry bonsai were ever defoliated but couldn’t find anything online. I’ll be interested to see what happens and what Autumn colour I have this year, if any!!!
One of my trees comes down with a bad case of mildew every year. Don’t ask me what the tree is, I haven’t a clue. Grew a few from cuttings about 12 years ago. The other one rarely gets mildew, this one never fails.
Today I opted to defoliate it and spray.
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