This Juniper was repotted this year into a slightly larger pot than I wanted but it had grown weakly for a year or two and I wanted to ensure it’s health as it has big sentimental value.
As you can see it has responded well. Here are the before and after pinching pics.
We’ve had strong winds here today and a few local trees have fallen. Full leaf and high winds don’t mix I guess.
I just took a look around my trees to check every thing was still on the benches. I had put an air layer on a tall crab apple at the start of the month and, you guessed it, the wind snapped it right off at the point of the air layer!!
Getting on a bit in the year to try another lower down. I’ll maybe plant it out in the flower bed and have another go next year.
I wired this Fuji Cherry over the Winter and now it needed it removed due to rapid growth. This posed a problem due to all the dense leaves. I remembered that a few years ago it was attacked by caterpillars in early Spring and it responded by producing new leaves. I decided that I would have a little experiment and defoliate the tree. I could them trim back the extension growth to the first couple of nodes and remove the wire with ease. It had only managed to hold onto one cherry. I left this on for enjoyment.
Here it is before. I had already trimmed back the strongest growth as this stage.
and after defoliation.
I looked as best I could to see if cherry bonsai were ever defoliated but couldn’t find anything online. I’ll be interested to see what happens and what Autumn colour I have this year, if any!!!
One of my trees comes down with a bad case of mildew every year. Don’t ask me what the tree is, I haven’t a clue. Grew a few from cuttings about 12 years ago. The other one rarely gets mildew, this one never fails.
Today I opted to defoliate it and spray.
I used the Kaizen Algae cleaner on this yew a few days ago and it worked a treat. I did miss a bit but you can see how things have improved.
Missed a little bit here 😦
This Coral Bark Maple has grown rapidly this Spring to the point were the canopy is so full that no light is reaching the inner buds and branches. This needs to be rectified to avoid die back on the inside of the tree.
As it was the last day of the Premiership season with all the ups and downs of relegation, I brought the tree into the conservatory to work on. A rare occurrence in my house.
I took a quick snap before I started in earnest. Notice how little you can see of Sky Sports on the telly.
I then started to trim out any extension growth taking it back to the first two leaves on the branch.
Here you can see the centre shoot removed.
Now to let extra light reach the interior of the tree I remove one of leaves from each pair on the exterior of the tree.
This is the leftovers.
Now compare how much of the telly can be seen through the tree.
and here it is with a clear background.
It’s still early stages as far as development of this tree goes. It will need a major wiring in the Autumn to correct a few issues.
Oh, and I was gutted that Blackpool went down 😦
This has got to be one of the better quality You Tube Bonsai channels, both in content and in production. I thought the advice on leaf pruning maples in this episode was particularly good. Wish they were longer!
I had a strange request this week. A friend of the family asked if they could borrow a bonsai for a jewellery display stand at a local event. They wanted one about 20 cm tall. I decided to lone them a typical Chinese Elm. It’s what most people [general public] think a bonsai looks like and as it was an £8 purchase from B&Q 2 years ago. Wish I had a before photo.
I spotted it in the store in a bad state. It was reduced to £8 and was mostly yellow leaves. I liked the squat heavy trunk. You can see were I removed the usual lower poker straight branches.
The top of the tree was poker straight as well so I chopped it off and brought up a branch as a new leader that matched the twisting flow of the trunk.
It’s not everyone’s idea of a good bonsai. I bought it to sell on but have grown attached, dangerous habit in bonsai! More filling out required, so I’ll keep it a while longer 🙂
Some thieving ‘toe rag’ has been at their work stealing bonsai in West Yorkshire. As many of those following this blog are from the UK, I thought I would add a post about it.
The stolen bonsai can be seen on an IBC thread. Just click the stolen tree below to see the rest of them.
Whoever stole them obvious had an eye for good material as opposed to finished bonsai, so they knew what they were looking for.
By way of update for the above post, here is the Satsuki in flower now. It looks like the apex is dark pink with the rest of the tree light pink.
Haven’t a clue what variety it is, perhaps ‘Wishinu’ 🙂
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