Sep 10 2011

Autumn Colour Creeping In…

I noticed a little more colour in the garden today.

This little spiraea is turning lovely shades of pink.

Josh’s Beech Forest is well on the turn now.

This was it 2 weeks ago.

A cotoneaster

and a wild pear.

Still no sign of colour in any of my Japanese Maples, can’t wait of it to kick in 🙂

Sep 9 2011

Two Hearts beat as one :-)

I noticed these two leaves on a recently collected Ivy. most of the other leaves are the normal shape but these two, well, I just fell in love 🙂

Sep 9 2011

Matthew’s San Jose Juniper

This is my son’s San Jose Juniper. It was field grown from a cutting and I gave it to my son to try and add to his interest in bonsai. That’s still a work in progress!

This was it a few weeks ago. I had lifted it in for a quick record photo. I had plans to style it with Matthew at some point.

Then a few days ago this happened! Freak gust of wind and down it went..

The pot would have survived if it had missed the slate on the ground!

This forced my hand a little. I needed to get it into a new pot but wanted to give it a quick styling before I did that. My son wasn’t free to do it with me so I did a quick job on it yesterday and repotted it this morning.

I removed 2 branches.

and about an hour later..

I changed the front slightly to bring the second live vein into view at the base.

This still leaves me with the biggest problem on the tree, the long straight section on the trunk after the first bend. The shari makes this a rather stiff problem to bend.

I repotted it into the only pot I had available that suited the tree. It’s a little big but will be ideal for developing the tree further. This wasn’t a full repot, just a transfer with a little soil removed to facilitate the new potting angle.

and this is it with a little virtual foliage added.

I’m not overly struck on the tree but my son is happy. Next year, once the tree is established in the new pot, I might tackle it again and take drastic action with that straight section by splitting the trunk and using raffia and heavy wire, add some movement. If it wasn’t for the smashed pot I might have tried it now. Ah well, there’s always next time…

Sep 8 2011

Michael’s Scot’s Pine – Part 2

Michael popped over yesterday afternoon to finish off the wiring on his Scots Pine.

PART 1 in case you missed it.

This was it before and after work.

I’m a bit disappointed with the photograph LOL looks much better in real life.

We discussed the problems that this tree has and tried to find solutions. I wanted to remove the heavy bottom branch to the right and change the viewing angle. Michael agreed that it was a possible future option.

This would have been the new front.

and this would be it with the branch removed and repotted.

A nicer flow to the trunk line, shows off more of the flaky bark and removes a heavy lower branch that will only get heavier. It would also be a better balance of foliage with a tree of that weight of trunk.

Back to the front we settled for,I find the bend on the first branch distracting. There’s plenty of branches in there but the branch structure is poor with many leggy shoots.

I didn’t get time to do a lot of tweaking and some other adjusts are needed. Michael was happy with the final product which was the main goal. All the other options we discussed are still there and I hope that next year before a repot he might consider removing that branch. Here’s a pot virtual just to give a better idea of the final position.

Sep 7 2011

Cork Bark Elm Air layer

After removing the air layer from a smallish Cork Bark Elm on the 5th of August, SEE HERE , I was surprised that the parent base has budded so strongly this late in the season.

Sep 7 2011

Bugger!!!!

Very annoying!! I was standing about 10 feet away when a freak gust of wind caught this Juniper and launched it off the bench. It was my sons tree, I haven’t told him yet 😦

Luckily no branches were damaged. Big drop in temperature here today, is this the start of it?

Sep 7 2011

Does this count as a Triple Trunk?

I noticed today that my little potentilla had sprouted some fungi right at the base. Never one to miss a photograph opportunity, here they are.

Don’t know why, but I just love finding these little guys lurking around my trees.

Sep 6 2011

Blackthorn Pot Virtuals

A few years back I used virtuals a lot to plan ahead with my trees. I even made this guide for the club website.

By far the best use is to assist with pot selection. It’s even more fun when it’s not your tree 🙂 As a regular user of online bonsai Forums, I like to do the odd virtual. Today Dave on the European Bonsai Forum was asking about pot options for his lovely Blackthorn. Must acquire one of these soon. This is the original Image.

I took out the clutter with Photoshop before I started to play with pots.

It was an interesting task to find a suitable pot for this tree. It’s slanting style was going to be hard to get a convincing match. I don’t claim to be good at picking pots for trees, and this process of creating virtuals is a great way to push myself to find what works.

My first thoughts were to put it on a slab or shell. These were my first virtuals.

I liked these but wanted to give Dave a few other ones to help decide what works and what doesn’t. Next, I tried a Rectangle.

and a coloured glaze.

and a Walsall Ceramic oval.

Not a great option either. My next selections were drums. I quite like this first one.

For the last one I opted to change the potting angle by 15 degrees to a more upright position as a different option.

Hopefully Dave found it useful. As usual, I’m not sure I found a good match either. I’d love to hear what pot you would suggest.

Sep 6 2011

Here we go again….

Spent a few hours this afternoon talking to a group about bonsai. I get asked to do this on a regular basis and it can get a little mundane. Today it was about 35 retired NHS doctors and nurses in Bangor, County Down. I owe a lot to the care these people give, and was happy to do the talk. I even had Stephen along for some heavy lifting to save my iffy neck.

I gave a short history of bonsai to start. I then use trees on display to explain how bonsai are created and what can be used. I always do a little bit on the so called indoor bonsai and then I throw it open for questions at the end and get the usual ones!

How much do they cost?

Is it cruel?

How old is that one?

You’ve heard them all before!!

Sep 6 2011

UK Long Range Weather Forecast

I’m reliably informed that this guy, James Madden, predicted both recent bad Winters ahead of time. He also predicted in January that this would be one of the coldest Summers on record for the UK. He got that right too!!

And what about Winter 11/12???

You guessed it, Snow in Oct/Nov. Frequent heavy dumps of snow, worst in Scotland, North of England and, you guessed it, Northern Ireland. Click below for all the info.