Oct 28 2011

Futter with Trees

A few months back at the start of the Summer we got a new club member. Michael came to us after having gone through a few wilderness years with his trees. I had a few years like that myself and was keen to get him up and running again. I’m delighted to say that not only has he jumped back in with both feet, he’s even started his own blog! He’ll probably hate me for posting this link to it but, if he even gets a fraction of the enjoyment from it that I have gotten from mine, he’ll forgive me 😀

By way of explanation, ‘futter’ in Northern Ireland, roughly translated means, ‘to play around with’, not to be confused with some of the other global meanings out there! I googled it and was rather surprised!! As I call myself an eejit, I can connect with his regional blog name 😀

Anyway, here’s a link to his blog, give him some encouragement and lets hope he’s still talking to me after this 😀

Oct 27 2011

Larch Pot

One of the trees I looked at in Stephens garden the other day was this lovely little Japanese Larch.

We have discussed a different pot for this for years. It’s hard to source pots over here and we chatted about what might be suitable. We even measured what we thought might be a good size. A semi cascade pot about 6 inches square and 5 inches deep.

It dawned on us that another tree in the same garden was in a pot that might fit the bill. This pot had a Hawthorn in it. It’s a little fussy for the Larch with the band on the pot but not too far off the mark.

I did a virtual. A bit messy but enough to get a feel for the look of the pot tree combo.

The cascading branch can be adjusted and extended slightly to fit the new look.

The only problem for Stephen is that that the pot doesn’t belong to him 😀 It’s a loner he borrowed off Phil. Let the negotiations begin 😀

Oct 27 2011

Stephen’s Garden Colour

I was down at Stephen’s place for a few hours yesterday and took a few snaps of his Autumn colour.

Oct 26 2011

Winter Protection

I managed to get a little time yesterday to pull together 4 videos from our clubs ‘Bonsai School’, back at the beginning of October. Peter Snart of Willowbog Bonsai fame gave us a good hour of information about planning for the expected bad Winter forecasted for the UK. It turned into a bit of a discussion on a few occasions but this adds to the sharing. I have embedded the videos below but you might want to watch them on Youtube for the bigger screen. Although seeing Peter on a larger format in HD might not be your wisest decision 😉

You can watch these at your leisure. If you find them of use, make sure you give them a thumbs up!

Oct 25 2011

Uncovered Roots

The birds where at their work again! This time they striped the moss off this juniper that I had repotted in the Spring. I was amazed to see just how many roots were showing underneath. This is normally a slowish tree to establish roots.

Oct 25 2011

A Few Others From Yesterday

Some from my very wet and windswept benches.

Oct 24 2011

Wild, Wet, Windy…

And I still braved the elements to take a few photos today!

I watched this Japanese Maple get striped by the wind over the last 24 hours. This is all that’s left.

A few of the leaves showing the range of colour. This one had green, yellow, orange, red and perhaps a little purple!

A few others.

Oct 24 2011

Fuji Cherry in 2011

My Fuji in 2011

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Oct 23 2011

Apex adjustment On Cotoneaster

This is the root over rock Cotoneaster that I air layered the apex off during the year.

Previous posts here:

Root Over Rock Cotoneaster

Air layerings

Air Layer Update

Air Layer Removals

I was putting it away for the Winter and gave the apex a final adjustment before I did. The new apex was a side branch that I’ve brought up using wire and a guy line. I have been doing this in stages during the year as it seemed prone to crack if it was done in one step.

I am looking forward to developing a new apex on this tree next year. By doing this I feel that I’m making my own mark/improvement on the tree after the hard work of the previous owner.

Oct 22 2011

Is that Autumn Colour at Last?

This Shohin Maple is finally starting to show a little Autumn Colour. The colour last year was fantastic and I’m hoping for a repeat performance. If this wind keeps up, I’m going to loose leaves before they even get a chance to change!

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