Apr 7 2017

Overwhelmed With Gratitude!

I blogged last night looking for ideas for my road trip to the USA and just want to say a big thank you to everyone who responded. I have all sorts of offers from simple advice to offers from people wanting to give up their time to show me around even offering me a place to stay! I will reply to you all, there is a lot of you 😀 , once I get my timings sorted out and see what my long suffering wife will put up with along the road. She’s being a star about it all so far.

What a great thing the bonsai community is. It never ceases to amaze me what kindness is out there. It’s one of the main reasons I keep blogging. Thank you all.

Apr 6 2017

West Coast USA Road Trip – Help Required!

This is a shout out to all those who follow along over on the West coast of the United States.

I’m over on holiday this May/June starting off in LA and then travelling north with a final stop in Seattle. I have a basic route showing my stops below. I think the only one missing is Pismo Beach.

I was hoping to pick your brains about good ‘tree places’ on my travels. That’s big trees, old trees and of course small trees.

There are so many places for sequoia/redwoods that I’m bamboozled! At the moment it looking like Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon as my stops. I had hoped to make it over to see the Bristlecone Pines but the timings look to have made that difficult bar a driving all night type scenario.

I’m stopping to see the old Monterrey Cypresses at where else… Monterey.

I’m hoping to stop with Michael Hagedorn on my trip and I’m staying at Bonsai Mirai for a few nights. Pacific Rim Bonsai Museum and Bonsai Northwest are on my final leg.

What am I missing guys?

Is there anything between San Francisco and Sun River? I have a little more flexibility there to fit more in 🙂

I’m open to suggestions in the comments section or send me a private message via email to bonsaieejit@gmail.com.

Apr 3 2017

Go West… And Repot

I posted last year about a great chap living over in the west of Ireland with a collection of bonsai 40 years + in the making. Peter Flint, a long time bonsai enthusiast, now in his 80’s had been working through his trees catching up on some long overdue repotting. However, he had a few that were just to big for him to manage. Derek and myself popped over to give him a hand. When I say popped over, it was a 9 hour round trip for me, but I’d hate to see the trees suffer from lack of hands.

Now, Peter has his own way of doing things regarding mixes etc and even though I didn’t agree with him, who am I to change what’s been working for him for 40 odd years. First up was a tall cedar.

Then a great Hinoki Cypress.

After a fun day with Peter, Derek and I went to check out some great local yamadori, mostly hawthorn and blackthorn. Most weren’t collectable but I did find time to experiment with a few air layers.

Thanks for a great day Peter, and the pizza 🙂 and to Derek for good company on the trip, it just flew in.

Feb 24 2017

Bonsai Fundamentals Course

Feb 14 2017

Viburnum Repot

Another tree repot, this time it’s a shohin viburnum being moved to it’s new home, a nice little Japanese Pot.

This was it last year when I picked it up. Looking forward to seeing it fill out this year.

Feb 13 2017

New Pots From Ian Baillie

I was lucky to have access to a great collection of Ian Baillie pots at a club event this weekend past and I got my hands on some great pots. Sunday saw me repotting a few trees. Here are the results…

A dwarf Willow with a nice heavy base. This is it’s first time in a small pot and is in the first steps of styling this year. Tree is roughly 10cm tall.

A great pot with stunning detail.

This was the old pot and tree as acquired back in June last year.

A shohin Rose

A root over rock Rose. We had fun selecting a pot for this one. It’s a touch large as it sits but should make a stunning image when it produces pink flowers this year.

This was it before and in flower last year.

And a root over rock Cotoneaster in a new shallow pot adding to the drama .

and here in the old pot last September.

Feb 6 2017

Bonsai Empire’s Noelanders Video

Another great watch from Bonsai Empire.

Feb 5 2017

Noelanders 2017 Flying Visit

When my friend Harry in the Netherlands kindly offered to collect me from Amsterdam airport and take me to The Noelanders Trophy on Saturday, who was I to say no 🙂 I jumped on an Easyjet flight (other airlines are available) and made my way with Harry over to Genk for all Saturday had to offer. Every year something seems to get in the way of a visit to Europe’s premier bonsai exhibition, this year I was not to be denied.

I spent my time mostly between the trade stands and the exhibition with an occasional look at the demos. At every point in between I bumped into old friends and new. Very much a social occasion as well as a bonsai event. Great to see you all, albeit only briefly in passing on my way around the venue.

I mostly honoured the no photographs rule within the exhibition, only stopping here and there to take a few general shots of crowds viewing the exhibits. I did manage to take a few random shots around the trade halls to capture the feel of the event, and a few in the demo area. There’s loads of photos of the show already doing the rounds of social media that you can view, the best being the official shots on Bonsai Empire. See the winners there.

I will of course buy the gallery book of the event when it’s produced to remember the event. However, with the amount of people openly taking close up snaps of trees at the show and exhibitors doing the same and then posting these on social media on Friday and Saturday, I don’t really see why it’s been banned! Just ask for no tripods and request those taking snaps not to publish them until after the event is finished. I really can’t see this impacting on book sales. Just my opinion of course, we all have one 😉

Anyway, here are some random shots from the event.

A big thank you to the Belgium Bonsai Association for putting on this fantastic event. Well done.

A massive thank you to Harry and Anne for their amazing hospitality this weekend.

Jan 25 2017

Hawthorn Winter Wiring

This Hawthorn has been with me a while. It’s one of the finer growth species and thus not quick to flower as a bonsai. I’m spending a little time to get the placement of primary, secondary right and then build a nice canopy of ramification. The aim with this one was always a natural image of a Hawthorn commonly seen in the Irish Landscape.

Before Wiring

and after

played about with the time lapse app on my new camera and was please with the results. Check out the video.

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Jan 24 2017

Berberis First Wiring

This berberis was ready for it’s first wiring. I wanted to give it a first wiring last year but it budded out before I got near it.

I wanted to make a few further decisions about trunk selection and get the basic branch structure going in the right direction. A very brittle tree to work with and covered in tiny thin thorns, painful. This was the result. Early days with this being it’s first sighting of wire but great potential going forward.