Cleaning up a wound, the discussion continues…

Brian VF's avatarNebari Bonsai

After sharing the results of this experiment, I received an interesting comment from an individual whose horticultural knowledge I respect and seek at times. Here is the essence of his comment, which made me consider the fact that I didn’t consciously create a “control” in the experiment.

Brian,
Very interesting blog post today…

I saw a Lindsay Farr video a few years ago where he contended that recutting the suberized tissue accelerated the healing response. While it seems plausible, it never seemed to do anything beneficial for me. I am assuming you were influenced in an analogous way. What I don’t understand about why this could possibly work is that the first thing the cambium actually does is to reform the callus and then xylem grows behind the cambium and bark ahead.

Cutting away the suberized tissue leaves the a cambium exposed to dessication. Putting something over that prevents the…

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The Joy of Bonsai

William N. Valavanis's avatarValavanis Bonsai Blog

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The Kawa Bonsai Society of Florida is sponsoring their annual convention The Joy of Bonsai, on January 16-18, 2014, in Bunnell, Florida, near Daytona Beach. Louise Leister did an outstanding job organizing the event. The speakers, Sean Smith, Ted Matson, Mike Rogers and Wm. N. Valavanis will be conducting demonstrations, workshops and critique. There is a wide selection of trees, containers, tools, supplies, suiseki and magazines for sale by a select group of vendors.

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Come, join us as the speakers share their skill and knowledge!

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Very Large Mtn. Hemlock Clump-

crataegus's avatarMichael Hagedorn

This is one of those trees I’ve had in my yard a long time, and never done a follow-up post about. For one thing, it’s so large it’s hard to photograph. For another, I just didn’t get around to it.

All of the trunks come from one base; it’s one tree. The snows are so heavy where it came from that the young branches were brought down, and those branches later grew upwards and are now the trunks that create the clump.

This was the tree that started all my madness around finding new solutions for the slab question. Ironically, it’s the last tree I’ve put on a slab. This hemlock sat on a plywood slab for years, with me just dreaming about it, while completing other slab experiments. So, it benefited from other tree’s mistakes. Or my mistakes with them, I should say. Finally in 2014 it went onto…

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Kyusyu Miyabiten 2014

More amazing exhibition photos from the Nekotoban blog, this time from kyusyu Miyabiten 2014.

Sunday’s Collecting Trip

After an evening with Piotr our host on the Saturday night, we made an early start on the Sunday morning to visit two collecting sites. First off we wanted to collect some Larch for the NIBS, our own club, who have plans about a special inter-generational workshop next year. Here we our selecting some suitable trees for this.

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We popped back to Piotrs home for a quick cuppa before some serious travelling to the second site. While we were there we had a look around some of Piotr’s trees in his garden. I think we can safely say he’s hooked on bonsai with a garden rapidly filling with trees.

We then headed along the West Coast to get to a site we hadn’t visited before. We had been told that it was a possible Pine collecting site. I’m not going to go into the location for obvious reasons but Piotr had done the ground work for us so we could just go and collect. He came along with us and it was great to have his help.

It was a bit of a drive and then a bit of a hike from the road but what we found was an excellent site for both Scots Pine and Lodgepole Pine. These trees were self seeded and growing in an exposed area which created some great shapes and bark. These are the best Pines that I’ve found in Ireland. Here are a few shots of some of them on site. A nice mix of sizes. Sorry for a few blurry photos  but it was raining for a while.

Saturday Workshop

I’ve been taking the easy option and reblogging Munster Bonsai Clubs posts about the weekend but I do have a few photos of my own that help capture the great day we had. I’ve been back to what has been a hectic few days in work and am still trying to recover from the serious travelling and work that the guys down there had us doing 😉 Anyway, here’s a few of my shots.

Mark’s workshop trees

twinsrat bonsai's avatarMunster Bonsai Club

Mark has been working on his two trees on last workshop. There we have some pictures.

big Chinese elm before

and after. this tree has been potted to more shallow pot and some branches has been re-positioned to improve ramification

the second tree was Trident Maple Mark

the tree before it was originally potted in green pot that empty one on left hand side

and after work in new blue pot. this tree has been shift more to the right side of the pot.

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first workshop in 2015

twinsrat bonsai's avatarMunster Bonsai Club

10/01/2015 we had our first workshop in this year. As usually very busy and progressive day. The main topic was re-potting so we have good chat about it. Then Ian and Phill did some critique on ours trees, and finally we become to do some work on ours trees. Here we have some pictures.

Mark’s poly tunnel ready for messy work. Thanks Mark 🙂

selling area- some lovely pots and trees

general chat

trees critique

Ray wiring his twin trunk larch

Kieran wiring his new Scottish pine

Mark and Ian are preparing pot for Mark’s Chinese elm

two fingers Master is working on Ray’s larch

Kieran and Ian are working on Kieran’s small cotoneaster

Ray and Phill still on the same larch

Mark is re-potting his lovely Chinese elm

Kieran is wracking his cotoneaster 🙂

First fitting Mark’s elm

All happy faces at the end of the day

Thank you…

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Back Home…

… After a great weekend in Cork with the Munster club lads. Didn’t take too many pics as I was rather busy but I will share what I have during the week. In the meantime I’ll just share this one.

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A Good Day

Relaxing with friends after a great workshop in Cork with the guys in the Munster Bonsai Club.

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