May 31 2011

Movie Maker

I spent a few hours today putting together a video to show case our club display at the weekend. Nothing too fancy, just something put together with Movie Maker. I’m getting to grips with the camera and it’s video functions. I even managed to find time at the show to take a few clips of individual bonsai.

I’m amazed by the success of our Club You Tube Channel that started back in November and has nearly 13,000 views to date!! I know I trawl around looking for good quality or informative bonsai videos on the net, it appears I’m not alone 🙂 With a little extra effort we have been able to put together clips of tree progressions, shows and the popular Bonsai School. These seem to be what people want. They are not up to the standard of the Graham Potter, Bonsai Basho, Atelierbonsai or Bjorvalabonsai, but add to the total of the online bonsai community.

If you want to have a look at the latest video, it’s just went live on the channel. Click below to view.

NIBS Spring Display 2011

May 30 2011

The Rest…

Here’s the rest of the photos from the NIBS Spring display.

May 29 2011

Shattered!!

After a day setting up the display and 2 days of demos and tree critiques, I’m absolutely shattered!! Was it worth it? I had great fun and the help from new club members, and there obvious enjoyment of the event, made it all worth while. I got to meet some new people who visited the display over the two days and were obviously keen to learn. Lets hope they seize the day and join the club. Here’s a few photos from the display.

Tree Critique in progress

That’s it, enough’s enough, I’m away to bed. More tomorrow.

May 29 2011

Hectic!!

Hardly have time to post anything yesterday and today with our club display in full swing. Nursing a fuzzy head this morning after last nights celebratory beers watching the Champions League Final. I’ll have plenty of stuff to add during the week.

I had a great time yesterday doing a tree critique session with some members and the public.

May 27 2011

BIG Elm!

I was picking up a few trees from Josh for the display and was greeted with this Elm just lifted from the ground this Spring. It was the first time I had seen it in a pot. Impressive 🙂

May 27 2011

More Drama…

After getting the big OK last night that the display was going ahead as planned, Dobbies tried to shaft us again this morning. Wanted us to have demo and display in the middle of a bloody restaurant for 2 days so a 1 hour kids party could use the display room. Make sense? Not to me!! Car was already packed so I went over and chewed out 2 managers who didn’t have a leg to stand on. After a heated exchange, mostly on my part, they backed down when I said we were walking away and reverted to the original plan. My secret spy on the staff says the minions working there are delighted 🙂

So, drama over this was my day in pics.

Trees from here…

to here…

to this..

which we changed to this…

and then to this..

The usual tweaks to be made to the display in the morning when more trees arrive. Now looking forward to a few days of pure bonsai 🙂

Plenty more photos being taken tomorrow.

May 27 2011

The Art of Bonsai Japan Episode 3

I keep posting these as they come out. Quality vids well worth the 10 minutes to watch.

The Art of Bonsai Japan 3

May 26 2011

What do you mean, double booked??!!

After spending 4 hours today getting trees sorted out for the club display this weekend, I got a phone call from the garden centre to say the room was double booked!! After being offered a very poor second area for the display, I reminded them that it was they who invited us this weekend, we had advertised the event, we had booked it first and we where using it for 2 full days not a private party for 2 hours.

After informing them that if we couldn’t have the room, then we were binning it and they could tell the visitors why there was no bonsai, they changed their minds and let us have the room. Not a great start, lets hope the set up goes better tomorrow. Here’s a few trees I’m putting in. As I’m doing a tree critique, and want to talk about specific things, these trees have been picked to allow me to babble away merrily.

In for the flowers only.

May 24 2011

Elm Landscape on Corrib Rock

In my previous post I talked about creating a landscape from a dwarf variety of Chinese Elm by planting them on local rock. I grew these trees from cuttings. Unlike normal Chinese Elm, the success rate for this variety from cuttings is about 30%.

The rock is from Lough Corrib in Galway, not on my doorstep but on the same Island 🙂

I thought I would play about with a few ideas today in an attempt to pull something together for the display at the weekend. The public always love the ‘wee trees on the rocks’ and I thought I would try and create a coastal scene. Not a local coastal scene but something more oriental.

There are 3 trees. They used to be on one rock but it broke in half last year!! This has turned out to be a blessing as I can now swap things around and add smaller rocks to the scene.

This was my starting point.

This is the other half.

I also have this rock with moss on it.

When I put them all together it looked a bit cluttered. If I get enough space at the display I might spread it out more, but space will be tight so I started looking for a smaller composition.

Too cluttered

This one was better but still not right for the space.

The rock at the back did help add depth to the composition though.

I took out the ‘two tree’ rock to see what it was like.

Not good, so I put the two back in and took out the moss rock.

This was looking better and not as cluttered.To give it more realism and help tie the different components together I added some grit as beach sand. Not ideal material but I’ll get something better for the weekend. Added a wee boat too 🙂

It’s not great but I’m pretty sure it’ll get the public talking at the weekend.

May 24 2011

‘Micro’ Chinese Elm

Way back in 1996 I bought 3 little Chinese Elms from a local dealer. They had been brought in from Lodders, Holland. I opted to put them together on rock and create a landscape with them. I have since sold them on to a club member who broke my heart with persistent requests to buy them. He lost them in the cold snap in Winter 2009. Should have kept them!!

Anyway, the reason I mention them is that they were a dwarf variety. Ulmus Parvifolia ??? Before I sold them I had taken cuttings and my plan was to create another landscape of my own, this time using locally sourced rock as opposed to the usual Chinese stuff you see all the time and I used in the original landscape.

Here is the original landscape.

The reason for posting this was to try and find out what this actual variety of Elm is called. I’m thinking that it is ‘Yatsubusa’. I know it’s not ‘Hokkaido’ as I’ve seen this before, it’s denser and even smaller. I can vaguely remember when I bought them that they were referred to as ‘Microphyllia’. I can’t seem to find this variety mentioned anywhere.

Here’s a few pics of the leaves compared to a normal Chinese Elm. This first one shows a normal Chinese elm leaf from a regularly trimmed bonsai and on the right is a micro one. 5p for scale.

The reason I say regularly trimmed Chinese Elm is because, when left to grow, the leaf size gets massively bigger. This can be seen in this photo.

1. Extended growth on Chinese Elm

2. Shoot from Cork Bark Elm

3. Shoot from Maintained Chinese Elm bonsai

4. shoot from Micro Chinese Elm.

Amazing the variation in size.

Below you can see the size of the tiny leaves at the start of a new shoot on a micro elm. If trimmed regularly all leaves on the tree can be reduced to this size 🙂

If anyone out there knows the name of this dwarf variety, please let me know. If I get a chance later I’ll post the photos I took today of my replacement elm landscape using local stone.