BSA Exhibition 2014 – A walk around Willowbog Bonsai

With all that was going on at the exhibition, is was easy to forget that just out the door was a bonsai nursery! We were blessed with some sunshine for part of each day and many folk took the chance to have a walk around and see the sale trees and Mr Greedy’s Collection. Here’s a few for you to see.

BSA Exhibition 2014 – Valentin Brose

I was lucky enough to be staying at Willowbog over the weekend, so while others were back and forward from hotels etc I had the pleasure of spending time with the Jean and Peter Snart, Peter Warren, and John Armitage, all of whom I had met before. The new addition this time was Valentin Brose, the German Bonsai Artist, and former student of Kunio Kobayashi.

I was about to compare Peter Warren and Valentin, but that wouldn’t be fair on Valentin 🙂 We all know that Mr Warren is a one off! What I will say is that Shunka-en must instill a humbleness in it’s students, a great quality for a bonsai artist. His down to earth, one of the guys approach to the weekend was well received by everyone I spoke too. He is a talented artist and despite there being about 20 different regional accents at the exhibition, he coped very well. He still didn’t understand Phil though 😛

He demonstrated both days and led a display critique on the Saturday afternoon. We will not mention his ‘master plan’ for shohin domination of Europe that was hatched after a few beers on Saturday night 😀

Here are a few photo of his weekend. Valentin, it was a pleasure to meet you.

And just for you Valentin, this was what we discussed over breakfast on Sunday morning 🙂

BSA Exhibition 2014 Part 4 -The Event

The Event sound like a rather grand title but it was an event in every meaning of the word. Over the Weekend I tried to capture  in photos the story of the show from set up to take down. Admittedly it’s  my own personal view but I think it captures the social occasion that it was.  This is what I got.

 

BSA Exhibition 2014 Part 3 – Accents

I think I got most of them.

BSA Exhibition 2014 Part 2

Wading through the rest of the photos now. I’ll be doing the accents as a separate post along with a few other themes for the weekend.

Apologies if there are any doubles, I did revisit trees as the light changed in the galleries so some of these might be from the Part 1 post but better light.

Gallery

BSA Exhibition 2014 Part 1

This gallery contains 87 photos.

As I sit here sorting through my photos from the weekend two things are clear to me. First, this was without doubt a top quality Shohin exhibition that any country in the West would be proud to be associated with. … Continue reading

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Just a Quick One…

Just a quick post from the BSA Exhibition at Willowbog Bonsai. An excellent display of trees to an even better standard from I was last here.   Here’s a few sample photos to get you going.

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Video

Looking Forward to the Weekend

I’m looking forward to the weekend spent at Willowbog Bonsai at the BSA’s 7th Exhibition. I have my camera batteries charging 🙂

I thought I’d share these video done at the last exhibition in 2012 to show what’s in store. I’m reliably told that the standard will be up again this year 🙂

Sequoia Sempervirens Repot

I field grew this Sequoia  for a number of years and last year I did a little basic styling to get the main branches placed. Here’s a previous post. I don’t know a lot bout the species but I’m fond of having novelty trees 🙂 I did a little looking about online and it soon became clear that they can make a rather nice bonsai. They appear to readily ramify. I decided that it was worth investing a little more time in this tree this year. It’s been in this pot for 3-4 years and it feels tight as a drum  so the first step will a repot to establish exactly what I have here.

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This is what I found in the pot. It’s been a strong grower. It was planted in a mix of moler and grit 50/50.

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You will notice however that the top few inches appear empty and even a little at the bottom. I therefore had to investigate where exactly the nebari of this tree is. The base is swollen considerably, which is common with the species. It also sends out feckin hundreds of suckers!!

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There was some serious growth in the middle though.

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After removing the top 2 inches I eventually found a more suitable base level even though I had to remove a few heavy roots. This is it placed in a mica training pot. It will be given able time to recover and then some foliage refinement will be carried out. I also plan some carving at the base reaching up to mid tree. All a bit scrappy at the moment but this years new growth will make a massive difference.

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Portaferry To Ards

I had the pleasure of working in Portaferry this morning and on the way home I took advantage of a sky clear of rain and stopped along the way to take a few photos. Photoshop and photomerge came in handy too but still doesn’t do the scenery around Strangford Lough justice.