That me off to Willowbog Bonsai for the weekend 🙂
Peter has kindly offered for me to spend the weekend with him and Jean watching the Peter Warren Workshops.
One thing I can say about bonsai, it has introduced me to many good friends around the world. Many I haven’t met face to face, but hopefully, as the years go by, I will rectify that 🙂
Click below to see what I’ll be watching.
This set of carving bits was recommended to me by one of the chaps on the Wee Trees Forum. I had been looking for something that fitted the Dremel that would allow for detailed carving work. This set had something very similar and you got 3 of them for the price that most Bonsai Suppliers were charging for one. I got them today and they look the part. Obviously you don’t need the black thing. Once I give them a go, I’ll let you know if it was worth the saving or not. Sometimes cheaper isn’t better, or so my wife says!
Here’s the link to the vendor on ebay. 4 piece multipurpose cutting kit.
I entered a few trees in the Autumn Fair at Botanic Gardens in Belfast over the weekend. I had time to spare today and took a few snaps.
The main glasshouse.
Spotted this large Yew in the grounds. It has been chopped back recently and was back budding well on internal branches. Interesting to see the technique working on a full sized tree. Nice nebari too.
Haven’t a clue what this tree is, being in a botanical garden, it could be anything! Loved the bark and light through the branches.
The flower show itself was well turned out. Just love the riot of colour from all the Dahlias.
That’s the biggest leek I’ve ever taken 😉
Shows like this are struggling. This one got a last minute reprieve after losing it’s funding. It may not be the best way to display bonsai, in fact, it’s probably the worst way other than setting them on the ground, but it’s a good way of reaching the public with are art.
All the trees in my garden look like this today!!
The UK is getting the tail end of America’s Hurricane and there are some very strong gusts. Things are meant to get worse overnight. After a quick check everything is still where I left it. Fingers crossed there will be no broken pots or branches to clear up in the morning.
I noticed these two leaves on a recently collected Ivy. most of the other leaves are the normal shape but these two, well, I just fell in love 🙂
Not really, but interesting all the same 🙂
I’m reliably informed that this guy, James Madden, predicted both recent bad Winters ahead of time. He also predicted in January that this would be one of the coldest Summers on record for the UK. He got that right too!!
And what about Winter 11/12???
You guessed it, Snow in Oct/Nov. Frequent heavy dumps of snow, worst in Scotland, North of England and, you guessed it, Northern Ireland. Click below for all the info.
I just love it when the latest issue of Bonsai Focus hits the door mat 🙂
There’s always something of interest in there and this latest issue is one of the better ones I have received in the last few years. Some great articles on Japanese Maples.
What a strange year it’s been for our trees. I’m seeing signs of Autumn all around the garden and not always where you would expect it.
This is one of my Crab Apples, well on the way to leaf drop.
This is a Beech Forest that belongs to my friend Josh. One of the stragglers still to make it home after the Summer care. If you are wondering what the yellow bit is, it’s a rope off a kids swing that has been wound around the slate edge for a year to allow loose soil from the repot to mesh together.
This is my Hawthorn Raft already dropping leaves, not much in the way of colour though.
This Rhododendron usually only flowers in March. Over the last week or so it’s had flowers opening. They started at the extreme right and have been working their way back along the tree.
Am I the only person to find the sizing classifications of bonsai a real pain?
Everywhere I look on the Internet I see different classifications. Some are similar and some have no resemblance at all. Some are classes in themselves and others call the same thing a sub category of a size class.
Peter, from Willowbog Bonsai, queried my sizing of a Trident Maple I have in another post. He was spot on, I had it down as a Kifu size tree when Chuhin would be more accurate. I could also call it Katade-mochi!
The Japanese Maple I call Chuhin could be called Kifu , although some would say Kifu is a sub category of Chuhin and others don’t even mention kifu as a size at all.
From what little I know about all this, in Japan they don’t worry too much about sizes and measuring tapes are never seen at exhibition. It’s more down to the feel of the tree than the dimensions.
I know there are some very knowledgeable folk out there reading this, either for amusement or through friendship 😀 , Id be interested to here your views.
Here are some of the sizes I have stumbled across on the net.
I have added Peter’s and my own comments from the other post below to explain how this topic became my focus for the morning 🙂
is Kifu not between shohin and chuhin ?? surely that trident is a fairly big tree ??
they all look very well !! lots of nice maples throughout the UK lost following the last 2 winters !!
Sizes confuse me a tad to be honest. Everything I read contradicts! Some don’t have Kifu at all. I have done a bit more googling this morning and have come to the decision that no one agrees on this at all. The Japanese Maple above, that I have called Chuhin, is 28 cm tall and could be called Kifu or Chuhin. The Trident is 48cm tall and, as you say would be better called Chuhin as well. However it could also be called Katade-mochi! There seems to be about 3 different size classification for Bonsai out there. Considering how complicated bonsai is, this doesn’t surprise me! 
I think I’ll just stick to calling the Trident ‘Stratford’ to differentiate it from the others 
Might be worth a post on the blog about this 
I sympathise with what you say !! I was lucky enough to win best Kifu at the N.Trophy a few years back with a P. densiflora that I thought was shohin , talking to Marco about it later he claimed to have never heard of Kifu despite his time in Japan ! many years ago in B.Today there was an interesting article that had been taken from Kinbon, where a few Japanese masters got together to discuss what constituted bunjin style , the consensus seemed to me, at least, to be that a tree had to ” feel ” like a bunjin to the viewer !!!! never mind thinking about style criteria , I think the size issue is a bit like that as well , no matter what a tape measure says, the bonsai has to ” feel ” like a shohin , chuhin or whatever , John Armitage reports that he has never seen a tape measure used in shohin bonsai shows in Japan , they are more interested in just enjoying the trees than worrying about size , of course , the other side to that is that I suppose generally folk know what is appropriate for each show and what it not !! I good example is bunjin style in the shohin category , this style of bonsai can be still shohin and yet be much taller than the 22 or 25 cms height limit !! alternatively I believe that a tree that in all respects seems ” big ” can be within the height limit for chuhin and yet not really be appropriate for the category .
confusing ? perhaps just to western minds !!!
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