I spent some time yesterday afternoon fixing up the trees damaged in the storm. Not an easy task as I’m suffering from a bad dose of man flu courtesy of Mr Snart who spread it to my household last weekend 😛

I potted the large Scottie into a large plastic training pot, roots not touched at all just transferred and give a little extra space to spend the Winter in. I’ll look for a new pot in the Spring.

My biggest disappointment was when I found out that the deadwood at the base of my Cotoneaster had been damaged in the fall from the bench. There was obviously some rot that had contributed to the damage but a lot of the deadwood I lost had been fine! I removed the bit that had been knocked off, it was just sitting there. I decided to go ahead and repot the tree for a few reasons. I could see wood now that was soft and I wanted to get wood hardener on it. This would be easily done during a repot. I had bought a pot for the tree last weekend and with good after care I felt confident that I could repot now.

Here you can see were the deadwood has now gone 😦

This is the tree removed from the pot and the wood that was rotting has been treated.

As you can clearly see, I now have a few problems to deal with. I cannot pot the tree to the same level as before as the gap at the base will be a major issue. I opted to pot the tree deeper to lower the remaining deadwood to the surface level. I decided to mount the soil slightly to assist with this. This will allow me to give further treatment to the deadwood and once the tree is established in the pot and ready for showing, I can add moss to hide any gaps.

Not ideal but the best I can do for now. I have had this tree since 1995 and it’s one of those memory trees that I like to keep around. It’s been a long road! For the full history of this tree, see this case study.

Nov 24 2012

9th Higo Gayu-kai exhibition

More great photos shared from the Bonsai Days Blog. This time they are from the 9th Higo Gayu-kai Exhibition. A club with some great bonsai. For more information about some of the displays shown and to see who won the public vote, visit Bonsai Days.

Nov 23 2012

Wind Damage!!

After a crap night’s sleep on Thursday night listening to a pretty bad storm blattering my bedroom window I awoke and went to work. On my return home I thought I better have a check around the trees.

Not good!!

My big Scot’s Pine took a dive off the bench and travelled a good few feet before hitting the ground smashing the lovely Ian Ballie pot 😦 I also lost a few minor branches which I can live with. This is the tree that I was going to use for my workshop with Ryan Neil in January.

On the way down it took a Japanese Black Pine and a Cotoneaster with it. No broken pots but the Cotoneaster has a partially broken branch that I’ve patched up in the hope that it will recover.

I used some sealer and then a wrap around of self amalgamating tape to keep the wound from drying out.

This other Scottie in training also took a tumble. The wind must have had some serious gusts to shift this one from were it was sitting!! Only in a wash hand basin thank goodness!

Lesson learned!!

Nov 22 2012

Not Harry, the other Potter

The latest video offering from Graham. Personally I wouldn’t be cleaning the trunk of a tree while a mate is using a power tool a few inches away, but I think that’s more down to who my mates are 🙂

Nov 20 2012

Bonsai Workshop Sunday

A few more shots from the weekend, this time it’s the workshop on the Sunday. I haven’t been able to alter the photos with photoshop to improve the indoor shots but at least these will give you a feel for the day. Some shots of a few trees in the workshop before and after. For some of the participants, this was their first workshop.

Nov 19 2012

Bonsai School Saturday

It’s been hard to post this week! Between my computer deciding that it no longer wants to talk to anything via usb, including my camera, and my hosting of a club event, I have been frustrated.

So, here I sit on my laptop, which I hate using, trying to add some photos for your viewing. Only a few snaps from the school, plenty of video recorded but I’m unable to transfer it at the moment. Here are some shots of my garage and driveway full of club folk soaking up the bonsai vibe. Peter Snart is also captured in full flow, and dear love him he struggled through two days with a nasty cough and splutter.

Nov 16 2012

Swindon Winter Image Show

Paul would kill me if I didn’t post this flyer at some point. Thought I’d get it up early 🙂

Nov 15 2012

Watched it, then watched it again!

A great video I watched over on the Capital Bonsai Blog with Ryan Neil talking about pines. A very interesting approach and an easy explaination about why you do it this way or that. Well, not that easy, I had to watch it twice 🙂 It never does any harm to refresh the memory.