Oct 26 2016

Tenerife – Hotel Botanico

This retirement lark is good. I had a last minute holiday recently to Tenerife and the Hotel Botanico. I can not praise this place enough, a top notch Hotel and Spa.

The usual photo on the way in.

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Arrival at the hotel.

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View from room.

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Great rooms

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First ever letter with a wax seal lol

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Mount Teide from the balcony.

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The Hotel gardens were special.

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The spa and hotel pool areas.

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Great food.

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and to top it all, the hotel had it’s own Bonsai collection ! They hold a workshop for guests every Tuesday morning but sadly that was my day or arrival and departure, so I missed it.

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I never recommend hotels to people as everyone has their own tastes, but this place I would recommend to anyone. Gandalf was even staying there 🙂

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Oct 20 2016

Saulieu 2016 – The Trees

My friend JP Reitz has a superb album of photos from Saulieu up on FlickR.

Click on the Image below to view. Enjoy 🙂

Oct 8 2016

Group Workshop Announcement

On November 5th Bonsai Eejit and Belfast Bonsai, Phil Donnelly and I, are hosting our final joint workshop opportunity for 2016. Approaching 50 years of Bonsai experience between us, we can tailor the session to meet most needs on the day.

This is an ideal opportunity to evaluate deciduous bonsai and do some wiring. Pines, Larch etc can be brought for wiring and styling. If you have a tricky project that requires more than one set of hands, then this is a great way to get direction and assistance. A range of carving tools will be available if you require them. Feel free to bring multiple trees for working and advice. Workshop open to all levels of experience.

The workshop runs from 10am to 5pm, in Newtownards and includes a snack lunch with tea and coffee on tap during the day. Total cost for the day is £30 per person. Bring whatever trees you wish to work on and other material will be available if you wish to purchase a suitable workshop tree. Spaces are limited so to avoid disappointment please register asap by emailing me at bonsaieejit@gmail.com or using the contact me tab at the top of the screen.

Oct 7 2016

Videos

I’ve got out of the habit of sharing videos here over the last year so I thought I’d add a few now that caught my eye. We used to be starved of good video content but recent years have seen the likes of Bonsai Empire and Bjorn Bjorholm really push up the quality of what’s out there. Here’s a few recent ones in case you missed them. Make sure to subscribe to the channels.

Oct 4 2016

Japanese Garden, Kildare Ireland

Was down in Kildare last week and stopped by the Nation Stud to see the Japanese Garden. Here’s some snaps.

Sep 20 2016

It’s Over!

Time to reflect and recover from what was a very successful weekend at the NIBS Bonsai 30 Exhibition.

The club has loads of photos to follow in a few days and these are being added to the Bonsai 30 Webpage as we go. Check in there to see some now but more to be added soon.

Here are a few of my own trees from the exhibition. It’s not until you get time to sit and look that you realise that tweaking was required after transportation to the event, a few branches knocked out of place. Not that I would have had time to sort them at any rate. I think that would be my main disappointment over the weekend, not getting enough time to really look at the trees on display and walk around with friends. I think we had roughly 18,000 through the event over the 2 days and every club member helping out gave their all to make sure both the trees and the public were happy.

Yew, Golden variety, collected from my Uncles garden 8 years ago.

Japanese Larch

Japanese Maple

Scots Pine

Escallonia

Hawthorn

Yew grown from a cutting

Japanese Maple

Root over Rock Cotoneaster and a little Elm

Shohin Stand by Ringfort Design Studio –

Japanese White Pine, Pyracantha (not mine) Larch, Rose, Maple, Juniper.

Blue Cedar

Fuchsia

Japanese White Pine

Larch

Rose 50% Ownership 🙂

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A few missing, more to follow.

Sep 16 2016

It’s Here

Bonsai 30 that is. Spent the day knee deep in trees and accents.

This was my front garden this morning taken from the back end of a lorry collecting the bits and pieces.

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And a big thank you to this guy, Jeff has been a star with transporting the bigger trees and getting the club free use of a lorry. Burning it at both ends a tad Jeff but just know it is appreciated.

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A big personal thank you to everyone who gave up their own time to pull this together. Two years in the planning with many major barriers put in our way but it looks like our plan C has come good with a great set up, some super trees never even exhibited before and all done by many many helping hands.

Some snaps from tonight as we were closing up. Flood lights are moody which was actually fun to walk around and see the trees in different light.

Robert Porch in there somewhere, trading at the show as well.

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A few monster trees being viewed in a sneak peek by one of our Scottish visitors. dsc_0086-2

The labels are the QR codes for 30 showcased trees within the exhibition. Scan them and you get taken to a web page with the trees history. dsc_0088-2

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Sep 15 2016

Show Time

You can tell it’s getting near show time, all my trees are covered in netting to keep the birds of my lovely moss!

Sep 7 2016

Shohin Japanese White Pine

Yes, I know, I’ve been very slack with my posting on the blog of late. A very busy period in my life with business, personal and bonsai elements going full tilt. I am hoping to have a quiet few months coming up and look forward to having more time for my own bonsai and pushing forward with my own education in this wonderful art.

I have still been taking photos and I’ll try and get a few more out over the coming weeks.

I’ve been up to my eyes in the prep required for Bonsai 30, the biggest Bonsai event Ireland has seen so far and have been prepping a number of trees for the exhibit. I would rather leave most of them until the event before sharing here though.

However, here’s a little Pine that was gifted to me by my friend Mariusz. It will be getting a new pot in the Spring but has just had a rewiring in case we need it for the shohin display at the exhibition.