Jan 30 2013

Children of the Night!

A strange title for a post, but if you know your movies, you will know this is from a rather old Vampire flick. What has this got to do with bonsai? Absolutely nothing, but for some reason it became the buzz word/phrase for our evening socializing. Long story, don’t ask. We will just say that Vlad the Impaler came up in conversation while drinking red wine and Dave Jones ran with the theme 🙂

Over the few nights we stayed at Willowbog we had some great times chatting into the wee hours, well late evening, about all things bonsai and a few other things besides. Peter and Jean’s hospitality knows no bounds and having the chance to chat with Ryan Peter W and Peter S about bonsai and life in Japan was one of the trip highlights.

WE even had these two muppets to keep us all entertained 🙂

Jan 29 2013

Arrival

On our arrival at Willowbog we sought out the boss to let them know we had arrived. As we couldn’t find Jean, we had to make do with Peter Snart 🙂

The Friday workshop was coming to an end with a few members already away but the die-hards with four wheel drive were still there finishing off their session with Ryan Neil. I didn’t want to be in everyone’s faces with a camera but did manage a few shots of how things had gone on the day.

A general shot of what greeted us at the door. Phil the fingers strikes again! 🙂

Peter greets us and looks like he’s had a hard day on the digger clearing the snow. Must be nerve racking worrying about a big event being cancelled due to the weather! Ben seeks revenge on Phil for a long long van ride 🙂 The demo tree for Saturday can be seen in shot, already lifted into place.

We had a quick look at some of the trees that had been worked on during the Thursday and Friday workshops. Some impressive trees.

As soon as the workshop cleared we got to work to help Peter set up the demo area for the following day. Work for your supper if you like. Peter was putting the three of us up and we were keen to help out as staff as much as possible during our stay.

Peter’s big Yew wheeled into place and ready to go.

Dave Jones of Walsall Ceramics was also staying and had a great stand ready of any sales.

Jan 29 2013

The road To Willowbog…

Ok, ready to start adding my photos from the weekend. Spent a good bit of time today recovering, but also thinking about what I saw and heard this past weekend. I have been sorting out my photos and trying to decide the best way to add them here. I have opted for a chronological order but with one or two aspects left out, but to be mentioned later. It’ll take a few days to get them all together so keep stopping by for a look. It will be photo heavy as usual. With bonsai, photos always say more.

First up is the road trip. Phil Ben and I set out early on Friday morning for what proved to be a challenge in getting to Willowbog Bonsai. The ferry crossing was straightforward but as we approached our destination the snowy conditions steadily got worse. Along the road I managed to snap a few photos of interesting landscape features and trees. here is a gallery showing a step by step of the journey.

Travel buddies Phil and Ben

First signs of fresh snow fall

One of many interesting trees in the landscape

Old Scottie with wind blown snow

BBrr!

Military Road along Hadrians wall still clear

The movie tree from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Closer

A stand of Scotties

Nice group

Hawthorn

getting closer

Hadrians wall under the snow somewhere

3 great pine images

Winter image

feeding time

nearly there

old old tree

can almost smell Jean’s cooking now.

Roads get harder to drive on

hawthorn

passing point

last stretch is by far the worst.

Willowbog Farm sighted from the road with the workshop lights blazing.

Jan 26 2013

Demo Day

Anybody who was at the Ryan Neil demo today will no doubt back me up when I say just how enjoyable and educational a day it was.

Ryan certainly is every bit as good as the greater bonsai public say he is. I will be adding many of the 100’s of photos I have taken so far during this coming week. Just not possible to do it now with this internet connection. I will however share the before and after shots of the Taxus Cuspidata that Ryan worked on today. No easy option for Ryan, he wanted the best possible outcome for this year which involved seperating the live vein from the deadwood to allow the image to be compacted more bring the green bits closer to the wonderful deadwood.

Compare where the foliage in in the before photo to were it is in the after. Use the deadwood as a reference. As usual a photo does not do this tree justice.

Workshop tomorrow, after more red wine tonight 🙂

Jan 24 2013

Drama! and We Haven’t Even Left Yet!!

Popped over to Phil’s place today to drop off my tree for the weekend and give him a hand lifting out his rather larger one. We are travelling in Phil’s van which he had unbelievably cleared of all the usual crap he carries about in it 🙂

His tree had to be secured at an angle to get it to fit and he spend a little time screwing wood around both trees to stop any movement.

Here’s a few photos.

We managed to get all this done and the van fully filled and I drove off to leave him to pop home. About a half hour later I got a call to say the van was dead and we were now stuck for transport. This started a frantic session of phone calls to the AA [That’s Automobile Assoc not Alcoholics Anon :-)] Stenna and a van hire company, to try and cover all options. We had a 5pm deadline to get things sorted one way or another. At 4,30pm after changing the boat time from first thing in the morning just in case, the AA guy found the fault and has made a temporary fix. No part available in Northern Ireland but we hope to make it as far as Carlisle tomorrow before it quits. The part awaits us there!

All very dramatic, lets hope it starts in the morning. A £27.50 part was better than a £300 van hire!!

Next Stop Willowbog Bonsai, fingers crossed everyone 😀

Jan 24 2013

Tree for the Weekend

This is the Scots Pine that I’ll be doing in the workshop with Ryan Neil next Sunday.

I did some prep and removed some of the older needles for wiring.

After needle removal

Even remembered to cover up to catch the needles 🙂

Jan 23 2013

OK, Very Pretty, Now GO AWAY!!

You can’t fail to have noticed the white stuff everywhere this week. All very nice but I want to see the back of it before we travel over to Willowbog Bonsai on Friday.

I’ve been lucky here to be honest. At sea level we rarely get much and at no point has it been more than a few inches. Pop over the hill to Belfast and it’s a lot worse. Most countries that are used to snow seem to cope with it but the UK is hopeless, everything grinds to a halt.

I did snap a few shots just to record the dates here on the blog. Always interesting to record when we get the snow and what the weather has been like. I is meant to be a Bonsai Diary after all and the weather plays a big part in how our trees grow.

Empty benches

Even in the greenhouse!

Jan 22 2013

Old Joe Yew Update

Time to rework this Yew called Old Joe after my Uncle. See HERE and HERE for background and older photos.

This is it now. Grown well in the last while. Decisions to be made about the future height of the tree. Initially keep tall for a bit of carving practice on a poor tree. Now as it fills out I might be tempted to create the tree from the bottom few branches. However, tall and straight is part of my memory of my uncle, decisions decisions.

Jan 20 2013

Noelanders Trophy 2013 Winners

Trying to piece together the winners of this year’s Trophy. From what I can glean, this is it. If there’s any mistakes, or others I’ve missed, please let me know.

First prize, Luis Baliño (picea)

First prize (Deciduous): Luis Vallejo (Fagus crenata)

Second prize (Deciduous): Udo Fisher (acer palmatum)

First prize (Shohin): Marc & Rita Cooper

[Edit – Looks like this display actually was in second place with Mark and Ritta’s other display shown below getting First. Not that it matters as both are quite stunning.]

Second prize (Shohin): Marc & Rita Cooper

Third prize (Shohin): Nanci Ball

Will update as information comes in.

Jan 19 2013

Noelanders Trophy 2013 Photos Part 7

And finally Part 7, the last batch from Harry. It’s a bumper batch too with a few extra 🙂

A big thank you to Harry on behalf of all the folk who have been hitting the like button and sending private messages. For those of us not lucky enough to be there, this is as good as it gets. If anyone here’s about the other winners, let me know and I’ll post the trees here for all to admire.

I and I have also added a link To Jerry’s FlickR Set with quite a few photos from the Trade area for those interested. As others add their photos on the net I’ll add links here too. Save you all hunting about ❗