May 4 2013

Cavan’s Place

I got a call from an old club member last week asking for some advice. I popped over to Cavan’s place to see what was occurring 🙂

Cavan, when I first visited his garden about 12 years ago had a massive collection of bonsai. He was totally self taught and had been doing bonsai for over 25 years. Since then he has been reducing his collection. They where mostly big trees and like many of us, his back just couldn’t take all the lifting. He still had about 30 – 40 trees left, about a quarter of what he used to have!

This is Cavan showing me a few of his trees.

His main bench area now pretty empty after selling over the last few years.

Still many trees in his growing beds, Elms and Zelkova mostly with a few beech and hornbeam thrown in.

A rare Junper in his collection, mostly deciduous bonsai here.

I have never known anyone to have so many rock plantings especially root over rock! This is a hemlock on a rock

JH Elms on rock, he has a few of these.

Zelkova just out of the ground.

A nice Larch for sale.

His favourite Larch and one of the trees that he’s keeping.

Trident on rock

Trident and rock

Unusual Elm for Mr Warren 🙂

Deshojo Maple

Another Elm on Rock

Root over rock Maple

A greenhouse full.

A monster root over rock Elm!

Larch for sale.

Had a great time looking around. He wanted me to help price a few trees for sale. I even took a few away with me that I thought some club members might be interested in. More on those later perhaps.

May 3 2013

Stephen’s Garden Between the Showers

Popped into Stephen’s house for a cuppa on Monday and enjoyed a look around the garden between rain and hail showers! Amazing changes in the leaves in a few weeks since the show.

Apr 26 2013

Mario’s Spring Update

As I had the camera out on Sunday I took the opportunity to snap a few of Mario’s trees that I have in my care while he’s away working in Dubai. It’s sort of like proof of Life! 🙂

Jasmine

Satsuki

Japanese Black Pine

Korean Hornbeam

Itoigawa Juniper

Mar 21 2013

Phil’s Quince

This is a post I’ve been meaning to get around too but have put off due to the need to search for old photos. However Phil found some and even wrote the text for me so I couldn’t really leave it on the back burner any longer 🙂

This is the story of a rather heavy trunked Quince that Phil has been playing with for the last 13 years. Over to Phil…..

I collected this quince from an old garden in Bangor co Down in spring 2000 . It was lifted along the side of the driveway from a small bed . There was a smaller one with it but it did not survive the lift , after lifting it I potted it up in a large round container in a free draining mix it lived here for a couple of years to get it settled with just general pruning from time to time.

[A few photos of Phil putting the quince in a temp pot to await a proper repot with Robert Porch a few days later. Look how skinney he is back then :-)]

In autumn 2002 during a workshop with Robert Porch it was taken out of the large container and put into a large training pot.

And at this stage it had some of the branches removed and the first placement of the remaining branches. it lived in this pot up until 2008 , with very little work done apart from pruning from time to time .

First Branch placement in Spring 2003

It was repotted in spring 2009 into a smaller more manageable pot . Which it is still in at present time . It stayed at Ian’s house up until I got a house with a garden in 2010. And had very little work done, only general pruning as well as all the flower buds removed from the tree as soon as they appeared to let more energy go to branch structure . [Phil says very little work, but It was I who was watering and feeding and pruning it for 7 years!! 😛 ]

At a club meeting in April 2009

March 2010

February 2011

I will worry about flowering after I have built the tree . In the summer of 2012 I was doing a workshop with Robert porch and we thinned out the branches removing what was not needed etc .

Then in spring of 2013 I wired the whole tree and styled it . Looking at it, its branches look more like a c conifer than a deciduous tree but with this styling I was looking to open the pads up more than they were. over the next few years my aim is to have the branches reverting to the deciduous style rising up .I also aim to build up the ramification on the tree through clip and grow , if anyone has any hints or tips on building up ramification on a quince I would like to hear them .

I was thinking about getting wallsall Ceramic to make a new pot for it . I saw a glaze I liked on a pot that Peter Snart from Willowbog Bonsai had over with him at the last bonsai school. However, over the last few weeks I have been looking at different pics of quince and just seeing the different pot colours. This made me change my mind from my original thought which was a rusty coloured pot which would have tied in with the bark. Peter also had a cream one that looked rather nice against the tree , I am also drawn to a blue pot which would look nice against the deep red flowers of the tree but I will leave this for a bit more thought .

If anyone wants to do a few virtuals of pots work away as I would be interested in peoples views.

I wrote this for posting on face book about a week ago but have had to add this bit on due to the fact that Robert was over during again and I took advantage of this and did a workshop with him which, as always, was very informative. We looked at the quince again and we came to the conclusion that with a few tweaks we could improve the image of the tree. This was done with small upwards movements in the tips of the branches making big improvements to the tree . We also decided on the removal of one side branch and another back branch to be removed later in the year. We looked at a few ways to improve the surface roots of the tree through different processes.

I will feed the tree this year with Japanese rapeseed cakes about 18 -25 of them around the pot with a 4-6 week replenishment . I will also use a foliar feeding programme that was originally devised by Dave Hannah and tweaked a bit by myself to suit my own needs. Using fish emulsion week one, seaweed extract week three , and foliaire week five, I have used this foliar feeding programme for the last three seasons with great results the only draw back being with all the organic material getting sprayed over the tree the bark and branches especially the jin and shari can get a build up of algae quicker than normal. But the results are worth it .

More to follow as and when the tree progresses.

Phil Aka ‘two fingers ‘

Mar 14 2013

Ian B’s Kyiohime Maple Repot

This is Ian B’s little shohin Kyiohime maple after a repot. It was in dire need of repotting and the roots proved problematic. The pot Ian had purchased for this proved to be too risky to achieve in one step. This was my fault, not his, as I had picked the pot. It is now in this nice little blue one, a Lark Lane pot if anyone remembers them. I have a real soft spot for them.

Mar 13 2013

Stephen’s Hornbeam Repot

Stephen asked if I’d give him a hand repotting his Hornbeam. It’s a big tree and he’s only a hobbit sized fellow. 🙂 I wanted a hand with my big pine as well, so we opted for a potting session on Saturday afternoon.

This is the hornbeam

It has an impressive buttress, but that has been part of the problem with this tree.

The heavy roots also translate into heavy roots underneath. The problem now is getting the tree into a more suitable pot. Any of the right depth are unsuitable as the tree sits solidly on a heavy wood base. Stephen attempted to pot this tree last year but the pot he picked was a non-starter as it was too shallow. This is the offending base root/s.

This time around we took our time and slowly removed some of the wood to allow it to fit a shallower pot. Stephen had purchased a Wallsall Ceramic pot for this back in the Autumn, and even though it was deeper than the previous new pot, the tree was still was too high when placed in the pot. By removing the wood as seen below we hoped that would be resolved.

Stephen prepares the new pot.

And this is the tree repotted. Now, what’s the best front?! This is the front I prefer. The root spread is impressive and all chop mark deadwood areas are hidden at the back.

This is the other side. Still really nice and some would say that the wounds are more like uro’s and are worth showing off. The nebari is probably slightly better from here as well. Which is your favourite?

This is back to my front and with some slight pruning towards the apex as the buds where too strong in this area.

Nebari

It was fun watching Stephen trying to get it back in the car 🙂

See it even fits in a hobbit car!!

Mar 11 2013

Stephen’s Place

Popped into the Bonsai Baker’s place during last week. Had a good look about and chatted about trees as usual.

A head scratcher 🙂

His Kyio-hime Maple bursting out

His big Hornbeam that we repotted on Saturday afternoon. More on this soon.

Buds on Hornbeam swelling nicely

His clump Maple

A Cotoneaster potted into a training box to boost growth.

A lovely little pot that Stephen had. A lovely purple colour running through the glaze, photo doesn’t capture it well sadly.

Some of his Accent pots.

Stephen had used one of my pots recently for his maple and I was admiring a pot on his shelf. We ended up swapping. I have no clue what I’m putting in it, but who cares, I love it.

Mar 6 2013

Ben’s Maple Repot

After we potted up the collected trees last weekend, I gave Ben a hand repotting his Maple. The pot didn’t really do anything for the tree and Peter Snart had suggested removing a branch to the right side that was always going to look plain ugly. It looks ok in the photo, but trust me, it had to go! It’s not a typical maple, with a hollow trunk and the variety is known to produce a larger leaf. That said, Ben has done a great job of reducing the leaf size and also the inter-nodal length.

The old look

The new look. The little branch to the right will be grown out to add some balance after the removal of the ugly branch.

Mar 5 2013

Jamie’s Berberis

Young Jamie had this tree with him last weekend, just dug out from his Gran’s garden I think. We gave it a haircut to get new growth in the right places and got it into a new pot for him. The before image looks rather nice but the amount of foliage for the weight of the trunk was too much. Better to take it back and regrow in a more convincing proportion.

Starting to bud nicely after a week in the tunnel.

Mar 4 2013

Mercy Mission

I was contacted last week by a lady who was panicking about her husbands bonsai. He had 5 trees but has been working abroad and the trees had been neglected for the last few years. She brought all 5 trees to my house during the week and I have offered to help her out. Yesterday I had a closer look at the trees and decided that they all needed repotting. I had been given a free hand with regards to pruning and a little styling too.

This was the first one to get attention, A twin trunk Larch on a slab, over grown and with many dead branches.

This is it after a repot and a haircut. A few obvious branches were wired to bring a little shape back. Some moss added to keep the mix in place.

This was the other larch, same issues as the first one. Some major branches dead and wire badly cut in in a few places.

After I got through with it. Still light of green on the right side but a back branch is being brought around to that side to visually fill the space.

I just loved this little English Elm, and I loved the pot even more! No before shot, hands were to dirty to hold the camera 🙂

Probably a cheap one, but I really liked it.

Again a few dead branches in the tree especially to the right side but I adjusted the potting angle to fill the front image a little more.

Obviously been an air layer at some point.

Potted up

The last two were not as good and had even worse health problems. This False Larch had a lot of dead branches and had obviously dried out badly at some point. When I repotted it, there was hardly any viable roots. It was in a really bad clay, probably there from it’s Chinese origin days. Some buds swelling, so fingers crossed for the owner.

The last tree was a Chinese Juniper. Sorry no before shot again. It was 4/5 brown foliage 1/5 green. I removed all the dead branches taking it back to the remaining green bits. There is signs of regrowth and after a repot and some TLC it should make a come back.