Jun 19 2011

In the Sun and the Rain

Well, I had great fun yesterday spending the day with a few mates working and talking about trees.

I started off on my own and made a start at defining the deadwood/live vein on my Rigeda juniper. This is as far as I got got before Stan arrived.

Stan brought his Chinese Juniper for some styling work. This is it before.

We started working outside in the sun.

Stan had to be given a special pass to be allowed into my garden wearing a Man Ure shirt! This was Stan’s first proper go at wiring and, he’s either a natural, or I’m an amazing teacher!! More than likely the former 🙂

We had to move inside as our usual Northern Ireland climate kicked in.

He even cleans up after himself which is a rarity in my garage.

This is the tree at the end of the day. To pull it further into shape it would have required further fine detailed wiring, but I felt that this was sufficient for the day. We discussed the addition of a shari in the future and another possible front.

Here’s the before and after side by side.

Stephen brought down his two satsuki for thinning and structural work. These hadn’t been touched in years and were in dire need of a major haircut.

We started on this one. It has had a hard life! A few years ago it lost the whole apex and had been left to regrow. This year a stray plank of wood being waved around by a careless workman broke another branch near the apex. (Sorry Phil couldn’t resist 🙂 )

Many of the problems can’t be addressed today as further growth is required. We hope that after this pruning, vigorous growth will allow for a redesign of the apex and a new potting angle to compensate.

Stephen at work, hiding behind the tree. It’s only a shohin 🙂

Pad before and after thinning.

and after work today.

We ran out of time with the other satsuki. We only managed to get the rest of the flowers removed and one branch partially thinned.

Another visitor to my garage was Michael, who has just joined the club. He’s been doing bonsai for roughly 12 years and had contacted me asking for advice about a few trees that had suffered over the Winter.

I think he enjoyed a walk around my garden and I popped over to his house with Phil that evening for a look at his trees. More of that in another post.

He brought with him a Juniper that had been previously styled by a few of Europe’s big names. It had suffered due to the Winter and a poor choice of potting mix. He was quick to see the benefits of a more open mix that he had previously been taught to use. In fact may of his trees had issues with mix choice.

This is Michael having a chat with Phil about Juniper growth and the techniques used to improve his collection.

Michael also had a problem with the deadwood at the base of his Juniper rotting. We introduced him to a few new products to stop this and helped him get the rotted wood removed down to savable harder wood.

During all this Phil was busy taking cutting from the two satsuki azaleas and a Cork Bark Elm.

That’s all we got done for the day. I’ll post some photos from Phil and I visiting Michaels garden later.

Jun 13 2011

Root Over Rock Juniper Update

Whilst in Stephen’s garden today, I noticed the Juniper that we worked on at the end of April. (I actually couldn’t remember when we worked on it, but the beauty of this blog is that you can go back and check. ) Here’s a link to the original post ROR Juniper 30th April.

This was it in April.

and this was it today, oops, it’s 00.25, make that yesterday 🙂

Loads of new growth and no die back from wiring at all. Stephen needs to pinch, especially at the apex, to balance out the growth and vigour within the tree.

Jun 13 2011

Shohin Chinese Juniper

This is my little Shohin Chinese Juniper which is really starting to get into shape. I need to do some further work on the deadwood and live vein. I have enjoyed working on this little one and I got to work on another one during a workshop at the weekend. I am now on the lookout of a nice shohin/chuhin one to add to the collection.

This was it last year. When I acquired it, it had some major wire damage at the apex and some poor branches in the wrong places. My treatment was drastic but I’m happy with the result.

Jun 7 2011

Juniperus Rigida

I hadn’t planned to buy another tree this weekend but there were three that caught my eye. I waited until the rest of the guys had had their pick and two of them had gone. The one I preferred however, was still there!!

I have never owned a Juniperus Rigida, Temple Juniper before and fancied this one. I have had numerous other varieties of juniper over the years and to be honest, I sold most of them.

This one presented a new challenge for me. I have to get to know the variety and it’s habits. Peter was very clear about a few issues with the variety and I took these on board. What attracted me to this one? Well, the deadwood is beautiful and mostly natural. It was once a much bigger tree but now the majority of the trees foliage comes from one live vein. There is a smaller vein running up the back of the tree but this looks weak. I’ll wait and see how it progresses.

What amazed me most about this tree was just how hard the deadwood is. Even at the base, what looks soft and rotted is actually hard. Peter says that’s one of the reasons that this variety is used by the Japanese. They tend to avoid the soft wood trees, always thinking to the future of the tree.

All I’m going to do with this one is clean up the deadwood and define just where the live vein is at the back of the tree. I may give it a little lime sulphur but really want to keep the natural colour of the wood. I’ll feed it strongly and pop it into my poly tunnel. Conditions in there should be perfect. No styling work is planned until I get to know the tree.

May 24 2011

Janet Juniper Pinching

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.

Apr 30 2011

Root Over Rock Common Juniper

Amazingly I didn’t post anything on the blog yesterday!! The main reason being the Royal Wedding…. only kidding, I was having a bit of a Royal Bonsai Day at my house with friends coming during the day to play with trees and have a bit of Craic.

First up was this Root over Rock Juniper possibly ‘Repanda’ owned by Stephen. When Stephen bought the tree about 5 years ago it was very overgrown and he has worked hard to get the foliage chased back enough to allow for this styling to take place.

Stephen and I got to work getting the whole thing wired. Well, Stephen drank about 3 pots of my coffee in the process 🙂

Maggie kept an eye on us from a hidden location.

Fully wired but as yet to be styled.

After some basic placement it became evident that the left hand side branch wasn’t required in the design.

We even considered a more brutal pruning option. This is an option for the future but there were concerns over losing a corresponding root by removing the branch all in one go.

Here is the final outcome.

Apr 27 2011

Another collection visit

I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Roy’s garden today along with Stephen. I have been meaning to get over to Roy’s Garden for a long time and it never seems to work out. I was therefore delighted today when the opportunity presented itself. My main aim was to get a few photos for the club website and have a good nosey around. Both achieved.

Here are a few general snaps of Roy’s back garden.

Here are some of Roy’s bonsai.

My favourite was this root over rock Trident. One side has a beautiful hollow in the stone to use to create a water pool but the roots are not as good. The other side has a more convincing root set up and the main pruning scar is hidden, but the rock isn’t as nice. Nice problems to have in my opinion. We discussed a different pot for next year.

I love this pot!

I’m hoping to get back in a weeks time to give Roy a hand with a few bonsai projects that need attention. If you’re reading this Roy, thanks for your time today mate.

Apr 25 2011

Blue Star

This Blue Star Juniper was planted in my flowerbed back in 1993. Over the years I cut it back and eventually I pulled it out. It struggled for years loosing branch after branch. At one point I thought it was dead. After removing all the dead branches I was able to scrap away all the dead bark from the trunk. I couldn’t believe it when I saw just how small a live vein remained. It took a further few years to get it to full health.

Detail of the live vein at the base.

Today I decided to style the tree. A few things needed sorting out. Most of the deadwood moves to the right but the bit top left goes against this flow.

I decided to heat the jin with a blow torch and bend it into a more complimentary position. I protected the foliage with tin foil while I heated the jin. I used jin pliers to hold and twist the wood as I heated it. Once I got it to the right spot I held it for a minute or so for it to cool down and set in it’s new position.

As you can see, the heating treatment allows for decent bends to be added and has the benefit of ageing the wood with fire.

After a quick coat of Lime Sulphur I applied self Amalgamating Tape to the upper trunk area to protect it while I applied a bend or two. The upper trunk was bolt straight and I wanted to bring the foliage in tighter to the main body of the tree.

This is it after bending and some basic branch placement. It isn’t very refined as the foliage quite heavy and I wasn’t prepared to pinch it back any harder at this point. I reduced the jins at the base as they distracted from the rest of the tree. These will also be refined further at a later point as they are a bit clunky as they sit now. Further growth will be needed to fill out the image but the basic structure I wanted it there now.

Apr 25 2011

Matthew’s Juniper

My son, Matthew, has been showing an interest in bonsai and I’m keen to support it. I spent some time with him today working on a Chinese Juniper. The juniper was given to him by my friend Stephen who wanted to make space on his benches. I’ve always liked the juniper and Stephen decided to give it to Matthew so I could prove it was worth keeping 🙂

It needed a thinning out to remove weak foliage and was then wired, by me, Matthew had visitors to entertain. We gave the bark a scrub and weeded the pot, then added Lime Sulphur. He likes that bit. 🙂

I forgot to take a before shot but this was it a few months ago.

This was it after some work. Some final tweaking of foliage required but we ran out of time.

The foliage needs to gain some more vigour and I plan to foliar feed during the year.

Apr 20 2011

Muckers Day Out

Mariusz came up from Dublin for the day and, after some time in my own garden, we popped over to Stephen’s place for a look around. We then moved on to ‘fun time’ Frankies with a quick look at Phil’s mountainside thereafter and then back to mine for food and wiring. A great wee day out and about in the glorious sunshine.

Here’s a few snaps of the day.