elm | Bonsai Eejit

That’s Green and White Army in case you are wondering. I took a half day today as I’m going to the Northern Ireland v Slovenia Euro qualifier tonight.

Got the grass cut first and then had time to take a few photos of a few trees opening quite strongly after repotting. First up is Janet’s Juniper. It’s not Janet’s, it’s mine 🙂 I dug it up from my sisters garden 17 years ago just before she emigrated to Perth in Australia. What was once 4 foot tall and 8 foot wide now looks like this.

This maple that I bought as a rescue job last year is responding really well to repotting. Just have to figure out where to go with it!

My little Chuhin Maple is really pushing this week as well.

with Flash!

My Cork Bark Elm is moving faster than the others in the garden too. I just love it’s new (well secondhand) Walsall pot.

I noticed on the Cork bark that some of the wounds need attention to get them to heal right. The one below is sitting a tad proud and will need carved in a little to allow the cambium layer to roll over without causing an ugly bump.

The one below is healing well but the wood at the bottom needs to be reduced to allow it to roll in.

This one is spot on. You can see it’s rolling in evenly the whole way around the wound. Hopefully covered within the year the way this boyo is growing.

I’ll add the Roddie just to keep up the progression of opening flowers.

Over the years I have gathered up far too much material on my benches and plan to thin out this year. To do this I’m giving some trees away and selling others. Most of this is raw or semi styled material. I spent a morning yesterday setting all these trees to the side and assessing if I want to keep them, or how much I need for them.

During this process I found a few trees that on their own were nothing special. To get the best use out of them I decided create a few group plantings.

First up was 4 Dawn Redwoods that had been field grown for 6 years. Four isn’t ideal for a group but one of the trees was a twin trunk so it looks like 5 :-). Hey it works!! The pot is poor but, if you’re going to sell it, who cares :-). Major work required on the deadwood (deadwood on a redwood 🙂 sorry, just had to say that!)

buds - perfect time for repotting

Next up is a beech that I planned to sell but I want to keep it now. I plan to experiment with a few new techniques for beech this year and this one is ideal for it.

Repotted

I also had 6 elms that have been sitting under a bench for years without a second glance. I decided to pop them into the red tray from the beech and get them started as a group planting. Six trees is never going to work, so I put five in the group and the spare is going to Jamie from the club for him to play with. I’ll expect a comment on here Jamie, I know you follow this :-). Here’s the 5 in the group.

None of these are that exciting but I think I’m now getting the best out of the material.