I did a little tidy up on some late shoots on my Escallonia. This is it before the trim and shows the old front.
After a trim
The new front.
The back showing another live vein
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Tag Archives: blogging
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Stephen’s Cotoneaster
This is a Cotoneaster that Stephen brought to my place a few weeks agao to do a little carving and eventually restyle. It had lost two weak branches at the back and was placed into this tub to regain vigour for the last year. This seems to have worked.
Stephen cover this session on his blog HERE
Yesterday afternoon Stephen came back to do the wiring and styling. We also did a little more carving. This was it before we started wiring.
After some wiring this is the image that Stephen preferred for the tree.
I found this older photo of it from back in 2011
Elm Adjustments
I have been making a few decisions with this field grown Cork Bark Elm. It was styled a few years ago and since then I have been building up ramification and girth to lower branches.
This year saw a lot of growth but a lot of this wasn’t in the right places. The wire had been removed last Winter and during the year they have risen out of the desired profile. The finer growth is too dense in places to the detriment of inner areas.
I spent an hour the other afternoon wiring the primary and secondary branching and thinning out the dense areas to create proper structure. Although this has reduced the size of the overall tree, in a negative way, the structure left is correct and I will be able to quickly replace the ramification. I did manage to snap a little branch near the apex. Didn’t see that pruning wound from last year which had created a weak spot. At least at the apex it can be replaced quickly.
The foliage mass needs to be at least twice as much as it is now, but that’s part of the enjoyment of deciduous bonsai, no quick fixes.
2014
Happy New Year everyone. A bit of a sore head today, took down my Christmas tree but I don’t think that counts as tree maintenance 🙂 Looking forward to what 2014 brings.
Lets do it together….
Valerie’s Hornbeam
Another one from Valerie’s collection, this time it’s a Korean Hornbeam that has great ramification but was in need of some structural pruning.
This is it thinned out a bit. Needs a few branches wired to get things into position.
Normal Service Resumed
Those of you who are mad enough to check my blog daily, and are therefore as mad as me for updating it daily, will have noticed that I have skipped a few days. Well, it’s Christmas, and lets face it, things in the bonsai world have slowed down. However, I am endeavouring to get back on track with my posts.
I had a great/quiet Christmas at home with my family as this snap of an evening in front of the TV shows. Dinner over, fire lit, candles burning, tree lights illuminating, cosy or what 🙂 All that’s missing from this photo is the two dogs who are normally fighting with my son for the spot in front of the fire.
As most of you know I usually have bonsai friends around on the last Friday of the month to play with trees. However December is always a bad month to have one of these evenings as folk don’t want to come out into the dark, wet and very very windy night. I was chatting to Phil and Stephen, my two bonsai muckers, and the idea was floated for a smaller gathering but this time in the afternoon. After a quick email to a few friends it soon became apparent that some people were desperate to get out of the house lol.
I got the garage set up and ready to go.
Now at this point you will be expecting a photo gallery of all that went on… Well guess who was having so much fun that the camera hardly came out?! Yep, me. I have a few trees shots which I will share over the next few days, but very little else. I know Stephen had his camera with him as the flash was going off in my face a lot 😉 I’m hoping he has some nice photos over on his Bonsai Baker blog soon. But knowing Stephen……
In the meantime I will keep linking too and reblogging anything I find of interest about bonsai on the net. It saves you lot having to look anywhere else 😛
Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday.
New Website Norego.fr
Well worth a look and a follow as new material is added. Just click on the image to visit.
Show Video
Hot Hostas
Well they will be warmer in their new home with Jose in Tenerife 🙂
Click on image for Jose’s blog post
Munster Workshop Travels
Myself and Phil are on our travels in January all being well. We are popping down to Cork, Munster, to run a demo and workshop with the newly formed Munster Bonsai Club, part of the bonsai Ireland group. I’m really looking forward to it.
If you are viewing from Ireland, please give Piotr a shout and get booked in, even just for the Friday night perhaps. It’s so important that we all support him and Adam with the new club. Everyone has been crying out for one for years, now it’s here it needs to grow and your support is vital. If this workshop is a success then other will be planned for later in 2014.
Bonsai Eejit 