I’ve just added some new accent pots and tiles to the Magic Ceramics page. Full list available here.
MC153 £10.00
MC149 £10.00
MC148 £10.00
MC147 £10.00
MC132 £8.00
MC143 £12.00
MC135 £12.00
MC130 £8.00
New Accent Pots & Tiles Added
Hostas, Garlic and Slugs
Last year I had a reasonably slug free hosta experience but my little minis are raised up on a stand avoiding the ground loving slug.
I was chatting with Stephen aka The Bonsai Baker (also known to blog once a year 😉 ) He adopted the use of a home-made garlic spray this year and is raving about the results. He got the recipe from Ian Scroggy up at Bali Hai Nursery here in Northern Ireland. Stephen says that it smelly to make but it’s only for a few hours but the results are amazing. He uses the ice cube tray method and sprays once a month which works for him. Just don’t get the cubes mixed up when you go to add ice to your drink! Anyway, below is Bali Hai’s recipe for them. Give it a go, I am.
The Garlic Recipe
Get two large Garlic bulbs place in a plastic bag get either a roller pin or hammer and crush the garlic the bag helps to hold the small crushed pieces together. Once finely crushed add contents to two pints of boiling water let it boil for 2-3 minutes or until the garlic looks like it is blanched. Let it cool best to do this outside it does smell a bit. As soon as it is cooled get an old pair of stockings and place them over the saucepan and drain off the liquid into a jar the stockings help to filter out the small garlic pieces. Now you have a concentrated liquid of garlic. With this liquid put two tablespoons into your watering can about two gallon size or 10 litres and with a fine spray rose on your watering can water this over the leaves of your hostas best to do it in later afternoon after the strong midday sun has passed over. Spray your plants every 14 days during active growth ie from the first shoots starting to emerge to late August-September. You can also pour your garlic concentrate into ice cube holders and freeze it that way it cuts down on the smell and just use 2 ice cubes to 10 litres of water.
Try making your own garlic spray and just do one or two plants to start with so as you can see the difference with the Hostas that you sprayed and ones you left alone. Within a month you will see a good difference. I know the smell puts people off making their own but it is worth it I can assure you. Make sure when spraying the plants that the leaves are dry so as the spray will stay on the leaves and the liquid will dry on thus giving the protection. I only spray every 14 days but weekly would be even better. “Garlic Barrier” also do a granule form that you can mix in with the compost I tried this on 100 pots of Hostas but did not get the same results as I got from the liquid sprays but this was only a small scale trial it might work for you and there is hardly any smell of the granules.
In need of a little trim
Poor Emma Rose, I look very imposing there !!
Yes it’s a pic of our club chairman/dogsbody Ian Y sporting his mid life crisis designer stubble at the kid’s corner during the Bonsai Experience on Saturday past. He mumbled something to me about needing a transplant but I didn’t really understand what he was saying.
An Interview on Bonsai Empire about Bonsai Europa 2015
Accent : Geranium Saguineum Elke
Absolutely Magic
These are my new accent pots from Magic Ceramics. This guy just keeps getting better and better! I’ll be adding some new pots to the sales page soon.
Loving these ceramic tiles, great to use as an alternative to the wooden jitta. All that he made have been snapped up but new ones on the way.
My new favourite pot, which I’ve named ‘Alien Egg’. Lourve it!
This bad boy gives a few options for planting with the split.
Another great one.
This one’s just nuts. No idea what to plant in it yet, but inspiration will come.
This one’s got loads of layers to it, can’t wait to pot it up.
Juvenile growth on junipers…Cut? Leave alone?
I’ve received several emails about how to handle juvenile foliage on junipers, and felt like this was one of those discussions that could be useful to a larger group of people.
- Juvenile growth in junipers is when the shoots display needle-like growth on a typically scale growth variety (a few of those are listed below).
This is Rocky Mountain juniper, a scale juniper, showing the past year’s growth as the spiky, juvenile foliage, with the tips transitioning into mature, scale foliage.
Spiky juvenile growth is a response to either too much foliage loss from pinching (don’t do that), overly hard pruning, or sometimes too much fertilizer. Naturally, since mature scale foliage is nicer to look at, and is what the tree grows when it’s content, we might have the impulse to cut the juvenile off.
- Don’t do that. Leave the juvenile foliage alone.
- The problem is, if we cut off the…
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The Bonsai Experience
This gallery contains 18 photos.
Originally posted on futterwithtrees:
Here’s a few shots of trees shown during the Bonsai Experience on Saturday 27 June in the Botanic Gardens, Belfast. The guy’s from Northern Ireland Bonsai Society staged a very successful show with over 1000 visitors…
Taiga Workshop
The Next Generation
I’m still recovering from our clubs event on Saturday. We were looking to promote bonsai to the public and seek new members but also give our current members a good day out. We sought funding from Belfast City Council and their Parks department. If you hold a stand alone event in one of their parks they will offer grants to fund this. We applied and were successful. We called the event ‘The Bonsai Experience 2015’
One of the aspects we hoped to address was getting young people into bonsai. We offered out 20 free children’s workshop places on the day for ages between 5 and 16 years. We added this to our promotion of the event and received bookings for half the places prior to Saturday. The rest of the places we filled in the first hour or so. Kids and parents alike just loved this! So did we 🙂 It was my favourite part of the day seeing young people absolutely engrossed in what they were being told and then transferring that to their own tree which they got to keep at the end.
I know other clubs have done a little of this around the world, I’ve seen it on the net but honestly, I feel that this should be good practice for any club looking to grow. Not easy to run, health and Safety is always a concern but kids remain under parental supervision throughout and I think the parents get as much out of it as the kids! We are lucky to have a school teacher on our committee who ran the sessions and as I have experience working with children in my own job, I was able to help out at busy times.
Worth noting that posters and flyers have a limited use in this era of social media. By far the most effective means of promoting an event these days is via Twitter and Facebook, especially if you are seeking new younger members!
All the photos from the event are on multiple posts on the club website www.nibonsai.co.uk but just look at this selection below and tell me how it made you smile 🙂
Bonsai Eejit 