Sep 26 2011

Fantastic weekend at Willowbog

I had a fantastic time at Willowbog Bonsai this weekend. Peter and Jean, thanks for having me about the place, your kindness, generosity and friendship is greatly appreciated. I shall try and do justice here to my Willowbog experiences over the weekend. I don’t think all my photos would fit in one post 🙂 I fully intend to milk it for the rest of the week.

I must also say thanks to Peter Warren. I was officially only a spectator for the two days but I felt included in the workshops. More on the workshops in later posts.

To finish off, I’ll share some photographs of Willowbog Farm.

Pointing the way to Willowbog.

Not many trees in these few but I can assure you, the next post will take care of that 🙂

Sep 22 2011

Rearranging for Autumn Colour

I have moved a few of my trees around so I can appreciate the changing Autumn Colour.

This is the view from my living room window. I wanted to shift out the trees that were past their best, Hawthorn etc, and replace with a few that should give me a nice spread of colour over the next month or so.

Among this lot are 2 Trident Maples, 3 Japanese Maples, a Fuji Cherry, a Beech, a Raulii, A Japanese Larch, a Gingko, a Crab Apple , a Cotoneaster and a Korean Hornbeam. I think that should do the trick 🙂

I had a nice moment today when chatting to a club member. He rang to book a workshop place and in conversation he told me that after seeing my display area above, he went home and over the Summer has been putting up some reed screening to making more of an effort with his own display. I love hearing stuff like that. 🙂 I’m invited down for a look as well. Looking forward to that.

Sep 16 2011

A boot load!

Just back from putting some trees into a local Flower Show. My club supports it and we try and get enough trees in to make it interesting for the public. Managed to get 26 in the car, not all mine I might add. That’s Stan lurking in the front. A big thank you to him for assisting with the heavy lifting.

Looks like it could be a wash out. It was heavy rain and the marquee was under pressure! These blokes were doing their best to shift the water gathering on the roof!!

Sep 11 2011

Tour of North Down Part 2

Next stop was Stephen’s garden. Again this was a first time visit for Stan and Stephen gave him a tour of some of his trees.

I was too busy looking for bugs 🙂

Stephen’s little Bonsai Studio, only big enough for hobbits. He’s still looking for a round door 🙂

Some of Stephen’s trees.

Larch

Deshojo Maple

Hawthorn Raft

Korean Hornbeam

Cascade Hawthorn. Has yet to have it’s first styling. This was it as collected a few years ago.

I love the bark at the base of this large Larch as well.

If memory serves me right, Stephen was giving me stick about waiting for 30 minutes before I offered him a coffee the last time he was at my house . Did I get a coffee at his?? No! Some excuse about having no milk! Just thought I would share that to the bonsai community as a whole LOL 😉

Sep 11 2011

Tour of North Down Part 1

Yesterday I spent the day whizzing around North Down running errands involving bonsai.

First stop was Stan’s house. I was going to drop off some trees at Josh’s house and asked Stan to help with the heavy lifting. I had never been to Stan’s before. He’s a newish club member who appears to be as hooked on bonsai as me!! He started about a year ago and I was delighted to see his progress in his back garden. What impressed me most was his willingness to get stuck in on his own and style trees. Some of the tree were new to me and I was delighted to see his set up.

He’s already got himself some railway sleepers to make display benches.

Moving swiftly on from Stan’s we arrived at Josh’s Garden with a boot full of his trees to return. He was out!! We broke into his garden and left him a few extra trees for his display, kinda like stealing in reverse LOL.

I really enjoyed watching Stan’s face when he saw the size of some of the big trees in Josh’s collection.

Left to right, Hornbeam, Cotoneaster and Mugo Pine.

Lonicera Forest Planting.

Beech and a Turkey Oak.

Beech, Oak, Hornbeam and an Ivy cascading on the end.

and a Mugo Pine on a Rock.

As Josh was out I suggested to Stan that we pop down and get him a look at Stephens collection. After a quick phone call to make sure he was in, we headed in that direction. Photos to follow next post.

Jun 28 2011

Holiday care trees arrive

Those benches I made space on are now full. The holiday visitors have now arrived.

My own display benches are now full.

Jun 23 2011

Making Room

I spent an hour yesterday making some room on my benches for some new arrivals…

He’s not getting more trees, is he?

No, just some coming for holiday care. Every year I look after Josh’s collection. I quite enjoy it, more beautiful trees to look at 🙂

This year I also have some of Mario’s bonsai coming. Mario’s off to Dubai and I’m going to keep an eye on about 7 of his trees while he’s away. This should be about 2 years!! Happy to do it, top bloke.

Here’s the space.

Jun 14 2011

Reshuffle

I did a reshuffle on my benches today to change things around a bit. Added a few more accents and changed a few trees around with those up the back in the training area.

Jun 8 2011

East Meets West Photos

My friend Mariusz attended the East meets West Bonsai Exhibition in Poland a few weeks ago. As usual he took some fantastic photos. Here are a few of my favourite trees from the display. As you can tell, I’m in Pine mode these days 🙂

For the rest of Mariusz’s photos click the image below.

http://mariobonsai.com/east-meets-west-2011/

Jun 2 2011

Tidy Up

As most of my club are going to descend on my garden this weekend I did a tidy up. My shoulder is just about useless this week, so Stephen came down and gave me a hand clearing the garage.

I moved a few trees around. Here is my display area this afternoon.