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Jan 12 2012

BSA 6th Annual Exhibit

As I sit here waiting for my trees to waken up in the Spring I can’t help but look forward to the forth coming British Shohin Association Exhibition. I plan to make the trip over to this in March and maybe even get a tree exhibited.

I have made many new friends through this blog and this will be an opportunity for me to actually meet a few face to face. To get in the mood I’m going to share a few photos from past Exhibitions.

This is a short View clip of the show display area.

Jan 6 2012

Harold and Kumar go Tree Hunting…

…. lol and we found some 🙂 Apologies for the movie reference, in an odd mood today.

Phil and I decided to check out a site that we thought might yield a few nice Larch and Spruce to collect. Phil had spotted it near one of his fishing spots up in the Sperrins area in Tyrone. Being vague here but you can understand this 😉 Anyway after a rather long and wet hike over 5 miles on rough ground, we found a small patch of trees that fit our needs.

We hadn’t planned to collect anything today. The whole point of the trip was to find the site and gain permission. The trees were commercially planted but no longer viable for harvest due to some very nice goats and sheep roaming the hills. 🙂 They have stripped the bark on many of the trees causing multiple trunks and shari.  The Spruce are to be cleared anyway by cutting off at the base!!

Can you call this yamadori? Not really, they are commercially planted trees and is some cases not even that old. However nature and the elements have done some good work here for us in a short space of time. We don’t have the Alps on our doorstep and have to make do with the best we have on offer. As Larch and Spruce aren’t native in Ireland, this is the best we can do with regards to those species.

After finding and photographing the trees we set out to find the right person to gain permission. This turned out to be harder than walking to the trees in the first place. After some detective work, we got the right man and returned to the site with him. A quicker route as he had the key to the locked gate! When he saw what we wanted he was happy for us to remove trees that he was going to have to remove anyway.

The moral of this story, always ask for permission. I’ve asked twice this year for two separate sites and both were happy to say yes on hearing what they were for. Take a bonsai book with you to show examples and keep a big friendly smile on yer face. Works a treat 🙂

Here are the photos of a few of the trees we looked at. First some of the larch. Not the best trees but it gives you an idea of the ground we are collecting from. The trees are right on the treeline of the mountain and are quite exposed.

Phil gets the camcorder out. The deadwood on the ground is the remains of Lodgepole Pine that had been planed there but failed at some point a few years ago. A few survivors still showing here and there.

Typical damage caused by goats.

Trees eaten early on by having there apex damaged result in multi trunk trees. This is one of them but there are a few really tasty looking ones there and for some reason I didn’t snap them at the time.

Some of the Sitka Spruce that have to be removed. Someone told me today that they are spikey buggers. I found that out for myself yesterday!!

This one is interesting. I couldn’t get both my hands around the base of this one. It’s 4 feet tall but after major height reduction, I think it’ll make a powerful tree.

Showing some of the terrain that we had to walk over.

We spotted this Lodgepole Pine and gave it a closer look.

Me for scale. Some nice bark and deadwood on it. A few others were pointed out by the landowner later in the day as the light was disappearing.

Some nice little mountain streams feeding down into the lake nearby.

 Some nice little mountain streams feeding down into the lake nearby.

Stream cut through a peat bog surrounded by heather.

So there you go, I hope you enjoyed the photos as much as we enjoyed our day out. Being caught out in an open area during a cloud burst and having sore legs today was worth it. 🙂

Jan 2 2012

Journey to Japan

I stumbled across these on You Tube and think they deserve a few more hits. It follows Andrew Sellman’s trip to Japan. Some very clever editing in there too.

Mr Warren pops up in this one 🙂

Dec 22 2011

Eejits On Tour Part 1

Today Phil and I went on a little tour of Northern Ireland. This wasn’t a random thing, we did have a purpose. We were looking for new collecting sites and checking on a few old ones. We planned to get the required permissions needed to collect legally, so we could devote the day of collecting to just digging trees. We also wanted to touch base with the  land owners who previously had allowed us to collect on their land, just to let them know that we’d be back in the Spring.

It was a very successful day and we achieved everything we wanted, and more. I’m not about to broadcast to the world exactly where we collect, that would be rather stupid!! We are eejits [idiots], but not complete eejits!!! 🙂 However, I did take plenty of photographs along the way that won’t compromise our plans. I plan to share these over the next few days. Some are trees for inspiration, some wildlife etc.

It was a long drive with most places not yielding much in the way of decent yamadori, however, many nice trees were on view.

A common sight in Ireland, a hawthorn in a field. Untouched due to superstition that it’s a ‘fairy tree’.

A few Birch.

Some of the views along the coast and up in among the rivers and Glens, are truly beautiful.

The mountain in this image is shrouded with cloud. It kind of looks like a volcano that has spewed forth a cloud of ash!

Sheep grazing in the glens.

A panoramic of the last two shots.

Rathlin Island

Stay tuned, plenty more to come….

Dec 21 2011

The Willowbog Experience

Peter had asked me to convert this DVD for use on his blog, Willowbog Chat.

I thought I would share it here as well. I’m glad to say that I count both Peter and Jean as friends. If you get the opportunity to visit Willowbog, you will not be disappointed.

Nov 23 2011

Stephen’s Autumn colour Larch

Another one of Stephen’s trees that I photographed on Sunday. It needs a total rewiring this Winter as many branches have started to rise with the Strong growth. Note the very unusual base. Interesting story behind this tree but I’ll leave that for Stephen to tell in his own time. He’s threatening to start his own blog before the end of the year 🙂

Nov 20 2011

This Morning on Cavehill

Stephen and I took a walk up Cavehill this morning. I was hoping to get a clear view of Belfast but the cloud moved in during the 10 minutes we stayed at the top. It did however lead to some interesting photos.

Here’s some scenic shots.

Looking at the top.

Hawthorn silhouette

Stephen taking in the view as it disappeared into the cloud.

Love this one.

Looking down over North Belfast.

Belfast in a shaft of sunlight.

Shipyard where the Titanic was built 100 years ago.

Belfast Castle, our start and finish point.

A sculpture in the grounds of the Castle.

Some trees for inspiration.

Beech Uros.

Yellow Larch

Hawthorn berries

Scots Pine

Hawthorn popping up everywhere.

and the best for last, a panoramic of Belfast Lough, stitched together in Photoshop.

Nov 9 2011

Yenling Bonsai Blog

I’m all for sharing the love 🙂

Therefore, I thought I would share a link to Yenlings new blog. I found a link for it today and was impressed with the standard of yamadori he’s collected and his attitude towards bonsai. The quality of the photos on the site is superb.

The tree photos are inspirational. I dream of visiting the West Coast of the United States and getting to see some of this for myself.

I wish you all the best with your blog Yenling.

To visit, click the image below or find it in my Favourites on the sidebar.

Nov 4 2011

New Tunnel Step by Step Part 2

Yesterday we had a ‘dry’ window of opportunity for a few hours in the afternoon. Stephen came over to give me a hand. Before he arrived I did a little prep on the ground to allow the tunnel frame to sit flat. I then staked the frame to the ground with tree stakes and plastic ties. This isn’t essential but it makes me feel better.

We then had to trench around the tunnel to allow for the burial of the cover skirt. Smudge was paying close attention to Stephens work 🙂

We popped the cover on and attached the velcro straps to the frame. It’s surprising just how effective these are at tightening the cover. The trench was back filled and packed down.

A quick soak down of the interior to wash any soil away into the gravel and we were done for the day. The rain had started!!

Today I will get the rest of the area tidied up and get a few low stands put into the tunnel. I may even start to populate it with a few trees. Tonight I have some mates coming over to play with trees which means I have a lot of clearing up to do before they arrive.

Nov 2 2011

Bonsai Disaster!!

 After posting about the Common Juniper yesterday were I mentioned briefly about a major disaster in my Bonsai journey, I thought I would share the full story.

Back in 2005 I was busy dealing with other things in my life and bonsai took a back seat. This lasted for roughly 3 years. My one big regret in bonsai is wasting these years. My trees got water, if they were lucky, and every now and again they got feed.

In 05/06 disaster struck! I spotted  fertilizer for sale specifically for Conifers, not conifer bonsai, just conifers.. I decided to buy it. It was cheap, I had no other fertilizer left at home and I liked the idea of sprinkling a little on the pots and walking away. I followed the correct dosage, or less that recommended and fed the conifers in my collection. I have since learned from someone who used to work in a similar fertilizer factory that it’s pot luck what’s in the box.  Chemicals are added in a hap-hazard manor and rarely in the correct dosage. It would appear that what I got was a very high Nitrogen feed, not what was on the box. A few days later I looked out the window and noticed that a few of my trees where looking a little dull in foliage colour. I didn’t do anything as I was going out to work. Idiot!! The following day I was devastated to see that about 15 of my trees where suffering badly from what I can only assume was fertilizer burn on the roots. I flushed out the pots with running water. Took me most of the day.

It was then a waiting game. I managed to save 6 of the trees. Some of these lost branches but over the years I have worked around this and made the best I can from them. The other 9, I lost. By way of a memorial to them, here they are:

Japanese White Pine ‘Zushio’

Japanese White Pine ‘Zushio’ Common JuniperRoot Over Rock LarchScots PineMugo PineCommon JuniperJapanese Larch

Japanese Larch

I’m sure others out there have experienced loses during their time doing bonsai. However, I bet not many add them on their blog! I do this to show that we all have our disasters and hope that others might learn from my mistake. Be 100% confident about what you feed your trees. As you can see I lost some rather nice trees and it nearly made me quit bonsai.

Thank God I didn’t 🙂

To end on a brighter note, here are a few of the ones that suffered but survived. All photographed this year.