What a stunning lump of rock we live on. Pity we seem determined to feck it up!
Tag Archives: Northern Ireland
Stolen Trees – Sad Story
I spotted this over on Mike Jones blog Bonsai Passion. It’s a link to a news article about trees being stolen from an 87 year old man in England. Sad to read an article such as this. What sort of human would do this?
Stolen Bonsai BBC News Lancashire
First Swallow
I always look out for the first Swallow each year. Always try and spot one before my Dad but that rarely happens. As I keep this blog as a diary I thought I would add a note now as I seen the first one this year today. Funny how seeing a bird makes you happy, made my day 🙂
Sparrows
These Sparrows have been doing a grand job of keeping on top of the insects on a few of my trees. Supposedly on the decline in the UK, my garden is full of them. That’s great until you moss a tree for a show 
Bonsai Art of Japan Episode 25
As we have come to expect, here is another excellent video in the series, this one concentrates on the pruning of Japanese Maples.
More Accents
I’ve been splitting and potting up more accents. I wanted to make use of a few pots I got at the BSA exhibition.
This is a Lichen with red flowering trumpets in a Suteki pot.
Some Japanese Horsetail, also suteki pot.
and another suteki pot with an unknown plant, answers on a post card please 🙂
All still to mature but I’ll keep you posted.
Yamadori Pine Collecting Video
I managed to take a few video clips during our bog hopping exploits last week. I’ve thrown them together for my pleasure and hopefully yours 🙂
Malus in Flower
Malus just reaching it’s peak of flowering.
Accents
I caught up with an old friend this week. Robert Porch is in N Ireland seeing family and called with me. Robert taught me a lot about bonsai and is probably one of the most understated, under estimated bonsai artists in the UK.
He brought a selection of accent plants with him and we managed to do a few swaps.
Some of the trays of accents available.
I got my hands on a dwarf Astilbe.
Snowbell
Hosta, he had about 7 varieties with him!
Dwarf grasses
Potting Up
Yesterday saw us potting up the remaining Scots Pine and getting them into the poly tunnels. As usual I had the camera in hand. Some would say that this is a cunning ploy for me to avoid the heavy lifting, that is not the case but is a rather handy bonus 🙂
Phil considering binning this one!!
Phew, he’s only removing some of the grass from the root ball.
We managed to find a few interesting heathers as well.
and some rather nice lichen with red flowering trumpets.
The watering area before placing into the tunnels
Smudge doesn’t care about the Pines’ ‘Just throw the Ball Phil!!’
More watering
Important to keep watering until the water runs clear. The grit is dusty and all the fine particles need to be washed out of the bottom.
The Old Tunnel
and the new tunnel
the rest went to Phil’s place to go on his heat bed for a month or so. These were the trees with poorer root systems.
This was our last collecting trip this Spring. If all goes well we are looking at further collecting in the Autumn.
Bonsai Eejit 