Jun 8 2011

Scottie De-wire

I decided to remove the wire from my new Scots Pine this afternoon. My bad shoulder now regrets it!

It was a great way to see just what condition the tree was in. It appears that my spraying for woolly aphid was mostly successful. A few of the blighters were hiding under the wire. There was a few dead branches here and there but nothing major. The de-wire was just in time as some places were tight but not cutting in.

I placed a towel around the soil surface to stop the wire making a mess on the pot.

I found this poor fella on a branch. It’s one of natures friends. It’s the Larva of a Ladybird who was on the pine to eat the woolly Aphid. Unfortunately he got sprayed as well. I moved him outside as he was still alive. Fingers crossed for him 😦

Pine de-wired and feed and placed outside on a bench to take advantage of an afternoon downpour.

Jun 8 2011

Chuhin Maple Defoliation

Managed to get my Chuhin Japanese Maple defoliated today. I must admit, I’m very pleased with it so far.

Jun 7 2011

Juniperus Rigida

I hadn’t planned to buy another tree this weekend but there were three that caught my eye. I waited until the rest of the guys had had their pick and two of them had gone. The one I preferred however, was still there!!

I have never owned a Juniperus Rigida, Temple Juniper before and fancied this one. I have had numerous other varieties of juniper over the years and to be honest, I sold most of them.

This one presented a new challenge for me. I have to get to know the variety and it’s habits. Peter was very clear about a few issues with the variety and I took these on board. What attracted me to this one? Well, the deadwood is beautiful and mostly natural. It was once a much bigger tree but now the majority of the trees foliage comes from one live vein. There is a smaller vein running up the back of the tree but this looks weak. I’ll wait and see how it progresses.

What amazed me most about this tree was just how hard the deadwood is. Even at the base, what looks soft and rotted is actually hard. Peter says that’s one of the reasons that this variety is used by the Japanese. They tend to avoid the soft wood trees, always thinking to the future of the tree.

All I’m going to do with this one is clean up the deadwood and define just where the live vein is at the back of the tree. I may give it a little lime sulphur but really want to keep the natural colour of the wood. I’ll feed it strongly and pop it into my poly tunnel. Conditions in there should be perfect. No styling work is planned until I get to know the tree.

Jun 7 2011

Twin Trunk Scots Pine

I have been looking to get a half decent quality Scots Pine for my collection. I only have a small semi cascade and a few bits of average raw material. I was after a nice semi styled or raw tree. I asked Peter Snart from Willowbog to bring a few bits over for me to have a look at. I had seen a few of them in photos but wanted to wait to see them before making up my mind.

This is the one I opted for. Slightly further along development wise that I wanted but it was exactly what I wanted shape and style wise. In the photo I thought it was only about 60cm tall. When he opened the van and I saw it was 100cm, I had a big smile on my face.

There is plenty of work to do with it. It has a slight mealy bug problem, but most pines do this year. It needs to be de wired, but that’s a great way to get to know the tree. A few of the older straggly needles also need cleaned up. I’ve already sprayed the tree with insecticide and will do the other jobs this week.

I’ll then leave it for a while and look at wiring it towards the end of the year.

This is one angle. Second trunk apex needs be brought forward.

and a slightly different angle.

One of the features I liked was the bottom branch on the smaller trunk. It has been styled as another apex. I had been looking at a few of these in a few photos online recently and I quite liked them, especially on pines. That helped seal the deal 🙂

The bark is great and a stronger red colour than I’m used to seeing. Peter is going to find out a little more about the tree from it’s previous owner. I love to know the full history. I think it’s important to keep the history with the tree.

It’s in an Ian Ballie Pot which I think suits the tree well, so unless I drop it off a bench, I’m happy to keep it as is.

Jun 1 2011

Satsuki

Any Satsuki geeks out there who know the actual variety of this one. It has White/Light Pink, Light Pink with Dark Pink linear variegation and dark pink flowers.

White Flower

Light Pink Flower

Light Pink with Linear Variegation

Dark Pink Flower

Leaf Size

May 29 2011

Shattered!!

After a day setting up the display and 2 days of demos and tree critiques, I’m absolutely shattered!! Was it worth it? I had great fun and the help from new club members, and there obvious enjoyment of the event, made it all worth while. I got to meet some new people who visited the display over the two days and were obviously keen to learn. Lets hope they seize the day and join the club. Here’s a few photos from the display.

Tree Critique in progress

That’s it, enough’s enough, I’m away to bed. More tomorrow.

May 26 2011

What do you mean, double booked??!!

After spending 4 hours today getting trees sorted out for the club display this weekend, I got a phone call from the garden centre to say the room was double booked!! After being offered a very poor second area for the display, I reminded them that it was they who invited us this weekend, we had advertised the event, we had booked it first and we where using it for 2 full days not a private party for 2 hours.

After informing them that if we couldn’t have the room, then we were binning it and they could tell the visitors why there was no bonsai, they changed their minds and let us have the room. Not a great start, lets hope the set up goes better tomorrow. Here’s a few trees I’m putting in. As I’m doing a tree critique, and want to talk about specific things, these trees have been picked to allow me to babble away merrily.

In for the flowers only.

May 24 2011

Elm Landscape on Corrib Rock

In my previous post I talked about creating a landscape from a dwarf variety of Chinese Elm by planting them on local rock. I grew these trees from cuttings. Unlike normal Chinese Elm, the success rate for this variety from cuttings is about 30%.

The rock is from Lough Corrib in Galway, not on my doorstep but on the same Island 🙂

I thought I would play about with a few ideas today in an attempt to pull something together for the display at the weekend. The public always love the ‘wee trees on the rocks’ and I thought I would try and create a coastal scene. Not a local coastal scene but something more oriental.

There are 3 trees. They used to be on one rock but it broke in half last year!! This has turned out to be a blessing as I can now swap things around and add smaller rocks to the scene.

This was my starting point.

This is the other half.

I also have this rock with moss on it.

When I put them all together it looked a bit cluttered. If I get enough space at the display I might spread it out more, but space will be tight so I started looking for a smaller composition.

Too cluttered

This one was better but still not right for the space.

The rock at the back did help add depth to the composition though.

I took out the ‘two tree’ rock to see what it was like.

Not good, so I put the two back in and took out the moss rock.

This was looking better and not as cluttered.To give it more realism and help tie the different components together I added some grit as beach sand. Not ideal material but I’ll get something better for the weekend. Added a wee boat too 🙂

It’s not great but I’m pretty sure it’ll get the public talking at the weekend.

May 24 2011

‘Micro’ Chinese Elm

Way back in 1996 I bought 3 little Chinese Elms from a local dealer. They had been brought in from Lodders, Holland. I opted to put them together on rock and create a landscape with them. I have since sold them on to a club member who broke my heart with persistent requests to buy them. He lost them in the cold snap in Winter 2009. Should have kept them!!

Anyway, the reason I mention them is that they were a dwarf variety. Ulmus Parvifolia ??? Before I sold them I had taken cuttings and my plan was to create another landscape of my own, this time using locally sourced rock as opposed to the usual Chinese stuff you see all the time and I used in the original landscape.

Here is the original landscape.

The reason for posting this was to try and find out what this actual variety of Elm is called. I’m thinking that it is ‘Yatsubusa’. I know it’s not ‘Hokkaido’ as I’ve seen this before, it’s denser and even smaller. I can vaguely remember when I bought them that they were referred to as ‘Microphyllia’. I can’t seem to find this variety mentioned anywhere.

Here’s a few pics of the leaves compared to a normal Chinese Elm. This first one shows a normal Chinese elm leaf from a regularly trimmed bonsai and on the right is a micro one. 5p for scale.

The reason I say regularly trimmed Chinese Elm is because, when left to grow, the leaf size gets massively bigger. This can be seen in this photo.

1. Extended growth on Chinese Elm

2. Shoot from Cork Bark Elm

3. Shoot from Maintained Chinese Elm bonsai

4. shoot from Micro Chinese Elm.

Amazing the variation in size.

Below you can see the size of the tiny leaves at the start of a new shoot on a micro elm. If trimmed regularly all leaves on the tree can be reduced to this size 🙂

If anyone out there knows the name of this dwarf variety, please let me know. If I get a chance later I’ll post the photos I took today of my replacement elm landscape using local stone.

May 24 2011

Janet Juniper Pinching

This Juniper was repotted this year into a slightly larger pot than I wanted but it had grown weakly for a year or two and I wanted to ensure it’s health as it has big sentimental value.

As you can see it has responded well. Here are the before and after pinching pics.