Oct 4 2016

Japanese Garden, Kildare Ireland

Was down in Kildare last week and stopped by the Nation Stud to see the Japanese Garden. Here’s some snaps.

Sep 20 2016

It’s Over!

Time to reflect and recover from what was a very successful weekend at the NIBS Bonsai 30 Exhibition.

The club has loads of photos to follow in a few days and these are being added to the Bonsai 30 Webpage as we go. Check in there to see some now but more to be added soon.

Here are a few of my own trees from the exhibition. It’s not until you get time to sit and look that you realise that tweaking was required after transportation to the event, a few branches knocked out of place. Not that I would have had time to sort them at any rate. I think that would be my main disappointment over the weekend, not getting enough time to really look at the trees on display and walk around with friends. I think we had roughly 18,000 through the event over the 2 days and every club member helping out gave their all to make sure both the trees and the public were happy.

Yew, Golden variety, collected from my Uncles garden 8 years ago.

Japanese Larch

Japanese Maple

Scots Pine

Escallonia

Hawthorn

Yew grown from a cutting

Japanese Maple

Root over Rock Cotoneaster and a little Elm

Shohin Stand by Ringfort Design Studio –

Japanese White Pine, Pyracantha (not mine) Larch, Rose, Maple, Juniper.

Blue Cedar

Fuchsia

Japanese White Pine

Larch

Rose 50% Ownership 🙂

Japanese Maple

A few missing, more to follow.

Sep 16 2016

It’s Here

Bonsai 30 that is. Spent the day knee deep in trees and accents.

This was my front garden this morning taken from the back end of a lorry collecting the bits and pieces.

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And a big thank you to this guy, Jeff has been a star with transporting the bigger trees and getting the club free use of a lorry. Burning it at both ends a tad Jeff but just know it is appreciated.

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A big personal thank you to everyone who gave up their own time to pull this together. Two years in the planning with many major barriers put in our way but it looks like our plan C has come good with a great set up, some super trees never even exhibited before and all done by many many helping hands.

Some snaps from tonight as we were closing up. Flood lights are moody which was actually fun to walk around and see the trees in different light.

Robert Porch in there somewhere, trading at the show as well.

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A few monster trees being viewed in a sneak peek by one of our Scottish visitors. dsc_0086-2

The labels are the QR codes for 30 showcased trees within the exhibition. Scan them and you get taken to a web page with the trees history. dsc_0088-2

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Sep 15 2016

Show Time

You can tell it’s getting near show time, all my trees are covered in netting to keep the birds of my lovely moss!

Sep 7 2016

Shohin Japanese White Pine

Yes, I know, I’ve been very slack with my posting on the blog of late. A very busy period in my life with business, personal and bonsai elements going full tilt. I am hoping to have a quiet few months coming up and look forward to having more time for my own bonsai and pushing forward with my own education in this wonderful art.

I have still been taking photos and I’ll try and get a few more out over the coming weeks.

I’ve been up to my eyes in the prep required for Bonsai 30, the biggest Bonsai event Ireland has seen so far and have been prepping a number of trees for the exhibit. I would rather leave most of them until the event before sharing here though.

However, here’s a little Pine that was gifted to me by my friend Mariusz. It will be getting a new pot in the Spring but has just had a rewiring in case we need it for the shohin display at the exhibition.

Sep 6 2016

Late Birthday Present

My wife surprised me with a late Birthday present. After having the privilege of viewing the online content from the Artisan’s Cup, I now have a hard copy for the coffee table.

Aug 4 2016

Workshop: MBC In Bunratty

Had a great weekend in Bunratty with the folks in the ever growing Munster Bonsai Club. A great mix of existing and new members on the day with lots of interesting trees to play with. Here some photos, some from myself and some stolen from the MBC guys.

Tight squeeze

Some sales items

Ray, the Boss at work

Busy busy

Tut tut Mark Tut tut 🙂

Piotr, another boss at work

More sales, Magic Ceramics

Harry’s little Larch finished

Kung fu fighting! Ninja Kieran

Finishing that Larch

How much for just the pot? 🙂

Mark’s Holm Oak finished

The gang minus Ilene who had to shoot off before the team photo. Thanks for supporting the workshop everyone, a very enjoyable and productive day.

Jul 16 2016

Bonsai 30

As most of you who follow my blog will know, I’m part of the Northern Ireland Bonsai Society. We have a special event coming up in September when we officially celebrate the 30th anniversary of our club. We are calling the event BONSAI 30. We have lined up an exhibition of bonsai from across Northern Ireland and from Republic of Ireland to showcase during this weekend event. We have worked with Belfast Parks to enable us to deliver this event at the Belfast Autumn Flower Festival at Botanic Gardens in Belfast on 17th & 18th September. We even have some guest exhibits coming from across the water in Scotland.

We aim to make this a fun event with free kids workshops and stands from Ikebana international among others, even a few trade stands. Plenty more to see both at the Fair and also around Belfast.

This is right in the heart of Belfast with plenty of hotels nearby along with shopping, restaurants and the odd bar 😉 The flyer for the event is below please share freely and if you feel the urge to pop over into Belfast for the weekend, the City Airport and a short train journey will bring you to us.