Oct 28 2012

Korean Hornbeam Critters!!

A few months back I noticed that a Korean Hornbeam in my garden was being eaten by something. I did the usual search of the leaves but couldn’t find a darn thing. I sprayed with insecticide and left it at that.

Last week I noticed that another Korean Hornbeam, in a different part of the garden was also getting eaten, leaving some leaves like skeletons. This time I spotted the little caterpillars that were doing the damage!

They’ve kind of ruined my chances of decent Autumn colour on this tree now. Has anyone else in the UK had these buggers on their Hornbeams, or even know what they are?

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.

Oct 27 2012

Silver Birch Autumn Colour

Yellow kicking in on this Birch. Only in training a few years and has a long way to go but it’s nice to see the splash of colour on the bench.

Oct 26 2012

Peter Warren Bonsai Focus Video

What’s that you say? Another Peter Warren Video!! Well, this one isn’t mine.

Oct 25 2012

An Eye Opener

I use FlickR a lot for storing and hosting my photos to use here on the blog. I’ve gathered up some great bonsai contacts there and it’s always GOOD to see what everyone else is up to.

A few days ago, one of my American contacts, Openeye , posted two before and after images of two trees that he styled in a workshop with Ryan Neil of Mirai Bonsai Fame. As I’m doing a workshop with Ryan myself in January, I was delighted to see the quality of what was produced. Great material always helps but still, look at these 🙂

Well worth checking the rest of Mike’s [OPENEYE] Bonsai set on FlickR

Oct 24 2012

Rhododendron Alterations

Another tree that Peter Warren looked at on his recent visit was this Rhododendron.

This was it a few weeks before his visit.

Peter suggested opening it our a little along the main long branch and a few other suggestion about future growth and pot. A few pot virtuals over the Winter months perhaps.

Heavy wire used to add a slight separation in the pad. Like Azaleas always use a heavier wire than normal to alter branches on this species. Some other areas were reduced. This was the first time that the tree has even had wire applied!

This was it in 2002

A few dodgy years were major TLC was needed to keep this one alive.

Oct 23 2012

Tullymore

Just had to share this photograph with you. It was taken in Tullymore Forest Park in County Down N. Ireland by Hugh Wilkinson, one of our club members. He’s been playing around with his new camera and I was blown away when I seen this. It’s now my desktop image!!

Click photo for bigger image

Oct 22 2012

Club Tree Critique Night

I’ve been wading through video taken during Peter Warren’s recent visit here trying to put some useful and interesting stuff up on Youtube for all to view.

The problem as usual is how to edit this together into small chunks that are watchable. I have had to make some clips longer than I wanted but most will be around the 20 -30 minutes mark. I would have preferred 10 minutes but I just couldn’t leave out bits without making it disjointed.

My biggest problem was the guy behind the camera! Phil did a lot of zooming in on nasal hair, ear lopes etc. And people call me an eejit!! 🙂

Here are the first 2 Parts of the 4 I’ve made from the Friday nights meeting. As I publish them on YouTube and the Club Site, I’ll add them here as well. I have more following that taken during the two days of workshops.

Oct 21 2012

Photo’s From Cavehill, Belfast

Some photos from my walk this morning up Cavehill over looking Belfast and Belfast Lough. A bit misty at the top and some mist floating around the docks giving it a spooky look just in time for Halloween approaching.

Three photos in one using photomerge. Click it for a bigger image on FlickR.

Belfast docks

Holywood, County Down peeking out of the morning mist

Had to laugh at this 🙂 Bonsai Baker down on his knees to get a decent shot, then …

Enter Smudge stage left who whipped him round the face with a wet tail on the way past 🙂 …

and the look of, ‘WTF’ on Stephen’s face 😀

Inspiration in an old Scottie

Why they call it cavehill

These two cavemen heading home! Spoke to them briefly on the way up. Both obviously high as kites from last night and have gone for a wander up the hill. They tried to pet my dogs who managed to give them a wide berth! [Yes Stephen, I’m taking credit for the cavemen joke 🙂 ]