…a month makes.
This is a quick snap from the door of my greenhouse on 15th March
and another one taken today.
Tag Archives: bonsai
Corky Haircut
This litle Cork Bark Elm has responded really well to a repot. This it a week or so ago.
It had fully opened since then but I wasn’t happy with the length of some of the internal branches. I want to build up a fine ramification and some of these are too long and straggly. I decided I needed to take it back in quite hard to eliminate the strait bits and force some back budding. This is it today.
Just back for our club night.
I was at our monthly meeting of the NIBS tonight. Yet another busy night. Great to see people either working on trees or just enjoying a friendly chat and sharing ideas. Mario travelled up from Dublin and was half an hour late. He got a bit of stick for that but he had a good excuse with a bomb scare on the main Dublin road at Newry. I had really hoped that all that crap was behind us!!
It was nice to see a few of the trees previous worked on coming back and looking really well. One of the newer members turned up with a little larch grown from seed I think. She’s had it 15 years and it was pretty old when she got it. There must be 4 decent options in it for a nice tree.
This is the Larch.
Phil giving it a look over.
A few other shots from the night.
Ben looking over his new acquisition, a nice little larch from Willowbog. I was impressed by his willingness to get stuck in.
My son Matthew gulping down the BPM, that's all he needs, more energy! He's really starting to enjoy bonsai. Fingers crossed he'll stick at it.
It’s back!
Every year my Common Juniper gets it’s usual flowering of rust fungus. It usually occures in February. Last year it got a major dose of fungicide and I had crossed my fingers for this year.
This was it yesterday. 😦 It’s just starting and hasn’t got to that jelly like state yet. I have kept it in the tunnel and on the dry side. It usually goes nuts after a heavy shower.
The general health of the tree is very good. It was repotted in the Autumn and spent the Winter in the poly tunnel. The problem with the rust is that it seems to cause the tree to throw the odd branch. Here’s an example.
Guess I’ll keep trying different fungicides and keep my fingers crossed.
Coral Bark Maple
This is my Coral Bark Maple ‘Sango Kaku’. It was my first Maple bonsai attempt going back to 1994.
I bought it as a garden centre tree that was very root bound and probably over worked it in it’s first few years in my care. It was slow to grow and weak on many branches. It sat in a corner for a year or so and then it was planted out into open ground for about 8 years. Even in open ground it didn’t do much for a long time. It was just starting to gain vigour when I had to clear the ground.
In ground 2004
Two years later and this is where I’m at with it. It is overly tall at the moment but I plan to increase the overall width of the tree. I’m building up the branch structure from the inside to ensure short inter-nodal length and good ramification. I’m not after a quick fix bonsai maple . You see these all the time and when they’re bought the new owner ends up not being able to live with the faults and cuts all the branches off and starts again.
Summer 2010
April 2011
This shot shows the original chop wound on the tree. It’s almost totally healed over. The other little patches are Lichen.
Another chop nearing closure. I’ll reopen it this year to speed the process along.
This is a virtual of the overall size I’m aiming for with this tree. Hopefully with a smaller leaf and more definition and negative space.
What the Hell is it??!!
Just for Mike, I thought I would add another one for the day 🙂 🙂
I was asked to trim a bonsai for a guy about 16 years ago and I took cuttings. I have no idea what it was. It was known as a Chinese Hackberry but I have yet to see a picture of one remotely similar to it. I planted a few of them in open ground for 8 years and they thrived. Now that I’ve a few of them in training at last, I’m hoping to figure out what they are.
The wood is hard and even a small tree feels heavy!! The bark is a dark grey and the cambium layer is very thin, similar to a beech. The leaves are ovate and have a slight silver furry feel to the back of them. It’s very prone to throwing up suckers from the base. Here’s a few photos of new growth today. The tree isn’t great and I have a better one, but it’s not open yet.
Any Ideas???
Hawthorn Muncher!!
I lifted a few hawthorn out of the Poly Tunnel today to check them over. They had been repotted this year and tucked away out of reach. I was very pleased with the new growth. Both had basic branch selection and wiring last year. I removed the tips of the elongated growth before it thickens. I did this last year on a small one at this time of year and the amount of ramification that resulted was fantastic.
I lifted the next one in and was amazed by the back budding on the trunk.
I set about doing the same process as with the first one and noticed one branch that looked weak. No buds had opened and I just assumes that it had been knocked and a crack had dried out causing it to suffer and die. On closer inspection I realised that I had a visitor! Little fecker was helping himself to the nice new tasty leaves.
A catapillar of some description. If it helps you identify it, when you squish it, it’s green on the inside 🙂
The tree after removing all the unwanted shoots.
A few of the little people
Not Leprechauns, a few Mame I having knocking around. The first one is my son’s little Cotoneaster.
Next up is a root over rock Cotoneaster recently repotted into a shallower and longer pot.
A garden centre juniper. It’s been a bit weak over the last 12 months so I’ve repotted it into a slightly larger pot to get some vigour back and it’s worked already.
This is a Chinese Elm yet to be styled. Bought for a fiver in a reject pile, I cut the top 10 inches off and am going to work with the new growth at the bottom.
This is a little Sorbus Reducta that I’ve had for about 15 years. Repotted last month, it’s pushing on now.
Back to Front
I snapped a few pics of these two yesterday. First is a field grown Silver Birch. I popped it into this pot last month. It was lifted from the ground 2 years ago and has only been clip and grow to this stage. I’m reluctant to wire too much as they drop branches for fun after wiring. I plan to build up some ramification this year and then work on the deadwood cuts in the Autumn.
Here’s the front and back, you decide which is which 🙂
This little Yew was also field grown. Out of 15 growing in open ground, this one decided that fattening up wasn’t for him. It remained quite small and I have decided to keep it as a shohin. I styled it last year and I’m hoping for plenty of growth this year to start filling out the image. Again, front and back below.
Stephen and Ian’s big Adventure
Well, not big, a few hours out driving around speculating where there might be trees to collect. I wanted to get a few snaps of some trees in a field near where I live before they came into leaf. This is them.
No trees but nice all the same.
I took Stephen to see some Blackthorn that were amazing but totally un-collectable. Deep deep rooted into stone. To even attempt to lift these would be a waste of time and a sin for ruining a beautiful tree. Some things are better left alone. It was blowing a gale at the time but Stephen was still amazed at the quality of these wee fellas. The bark was to die for. We collected a few dead branches to use as accents. The movement and character in them is amazing.
WINDSWEPT STYLE LOL
Bursting into flower
We then came across these Ivy’s among the rocks. Not deep rooted 🙂
The place was covered with them!
Removal of a few stones resulted in a few keepsakes. This is Stephen doing his impression of Father Jack. DRINK!! 🙂
Back at the bat cave…
This one held onto a rock
I’m hoping for these to put out some decent root and then I’ll air layer a few small bits off here and there. I have a wee Ivy air-layer and they take easily. We picked up a few nice stones for display as well. I’ll post more pics tomorrow.
Bonsai Eejit 