I spent some time yesterday afternoon fixing up the trees damaged in the storm. Not an easy task as I’m suffering from a bad dose of man flu courtesy of Mr Snart who spread it to my household last weekend 😛

I potted the large Scottie into a large plastic training pot, roots not touched at all just transferred and give a little extra space to spend the Winter in. I’ll look for a new pot in the Spring.

My biggest disappointment was when I found out that the deadwood at the base of my Cotoneaster had been damaged in the fall from the bench. There was obviously some rot that had contributed to the damage but a lot of the deadwood I lost had been fine! I removed the bit that had been knocked off, it was just sitting there. I decided to go ahead and repot the tree for a few reasons. I could see wood now that was soft and I wanted to get wood hardener on it. This would be easily done during a repot. I had bought a pot for the tree last weekend and with good after care I felt confident that I could repot now.

Here you can see were the deadwood has now gone 😦

This is the tree removed from the pot and the wood that was rotting has been treated.

As you can clearly see, I now have a few problems to deal with. I cannot pot the tree to the same level as before as the gap at the base will be a major issue. I opted to pot the tree deeper to lower the remaining deadwood to the surface level. I decided to mount the soil slightly to assist with this. This will allow me to give further treatment to the deadwood and once the tree is established in the pot and ready for showing, I can add moss to hide any gaps.

Not ideal but the best I can do for now. I have had this tree since 1995 and it’s one of those memory trees that I like to keep around. It’s been a long road! For the full history of this tree, see this case study.

Nov 23 2012

Wind Damage!!

After a crap night’s sleep on Thursday night listening to a pretty bad storm blattering my bedroom window I awoke and went to work. On my return home I thought I better have a check around the trees.

Not good!!

My big Scot’s Pine took a dive off the bench and travelled a good few feet before hitting the ground smashing the lovely Ian Ballie pot 😦 I also lost a few minor branches which I can live with. This is the tree that I was going to use for my workshop with Ryan Neil in January.

On the way down it took a Japanese Black Pine and a Cotoneaster with it. No broken pots but the Cotoneaster has a partially broken branch that I’ve patched up in the hope that it will recover.

I used some sealer and then a wrap around of self amalgamating tape to keep the wound from drying out.

This other Scottie in training also took a tumble. The wind must have had some serious gusts to shift this one from were it was sitting!! Only in a wash hand basin thank goodness!

Lesson learned!!

Nov 13 2012

Black Pine Pot Virtuals

OK, One more tree for pot options 🙂

This is it with it’s new potting angle.

Back into the same pot

or?

or even?

Nov 10 2012

Juniper Pot Virtual

Yes, another one! Better to play around with ideas now than leave it until the Spring.

This is the slight change of front for this tree and a new tilt as well to bring the apex further over the base.

I was going to go smaller, something like this? What you think?

Give it a go yourself.

Nov 8 2012

Shohin Maple Colour Change

24th October

3rd November

Nov 7 2012

Escallonia Alteration

Again, another tree discussed with Peter Warren. This time it’s my Escallonia. I’ve been playing around with angles to pick a front and I asked Peter for his advice.

He suggested removing a branch at the front to show off some more of the character of the tree. I’m planning on some carving refinement on this tree this month and now I can actually get access 🙂

This was it sans leaf as Peter saw it.

And after branch removal.

I think I prefer a slight change of angle now with the branch away.

This is a virtual of it repotted but with the pot shrunk slightly!

The live vein at the front will probably shrink a little now that the branch has been removed. Escallonia are like Junipers in that they have a very defined route between a branch and it’s roots. I did leave a little shoot at the base of the removed branch to see if that is enough of a sap draw to keep the vein alive and see if the sap will transfer over into the main vein to it’s right.

Nov 3 2012

Naked Beech

This is my beech back on the 20th October.

Once the leaves turn brown I like to strip them off to assess this years growth and appreciate the natural image over the Winter.

Oct 31 2012

Rescue Maple Autumn Colour

First photo taken on 20th October, the next ones 7 days later.

Oct 27 2012

Autumn Benches

I had a few friends down last night playing with trees. It was absolutely Baltic, the coldest night so far this Autumn. A few who came, were here for the first time. It was dark and my outside light is on the Fritz, so they didn’t get a change to see some of my benches. So these are for you Susan, David and Adrian.