That time of the year when we get to see the good and the bad in the branch structure of our trees.The dregs of Autumn removed to show my Trident Maple.
Tag Archives: Northern Ireland
Sunday’s Two to One
Sunday saw another workshop session, this time a Two to One with two of the guys from the Leinster Bonsai Club. It was a busy day with a lot of trees examined and a lot of time spend looking at what makes a good bonsai.
When we got down to work this heavy-trunked raw material Hornbeam got some carving to remove dead stumps and some problem branches. What’s left will make the basic structure of a nice tree. The final trunk line at the apex will be reduced further next year. Left for new to allow buds to pop to see when the best chop point should be.
The material
Some major chop points to be worked.
More pruning wounds.
Some chopped roots also needing work.
Owen at work. Think this was his first time with a makita and he loved it 🙂
and the new front after removed of unwanted branches etc. Tree will be a little shorter, just below those top branches, however after the chop just below that pointed I opted to keep it a little taller to draw sap in the Spring. As more adventurous buds appear it will be reduced by about 3-4 inches.
Rear view of the chops after basic carving.
Owen also brought this little Blue Spruce, picked up for 10 euros and bought for practice. He got some wiring practice out of it at any rate.
As the tree fills out a few more branches will be removed.
Another tree worked on was this beast stump of Berberis stump, a two man lift. Some adjustments were made to the deadwood and then the young branches were placed at the right angles and movement added. This has to be done at this stage before they harden further,berberis are brittle when they thicken. We were only concerned with the first few inches, after that the tips were pointed upwards to give vigour.
Before work.
We opted for a twink trunk image but to make it convincing we had to removed a significant portion of the second trunk to make it look thinner that the main trunk line.
Some block carving carried out on the sencond trunk. No point doing any refinement at this stage of the trees journey.
It was a busy day but the guys seemed to enjoy it as can be seen on Owen’s blog HERE.
Saturday’s One to One
I had a one to one workshop on Saturday and as part of the session we carried out a little work on this Maple Raft. This is the front before we started.
End on view
Back view
and from the other end
Over the Winter and into next Spring we planned to reposition the last branch on the right of the tree. In it’s current position it stopped the flow. The branch when viewed end on, or even in the back view above, turns almost 90 degrees towards the front and brings the flow to an abrupt end. We raffia’d the branch and wired it to allow us to bring it around into a more suitable position. This was done in stages during the afternoon. We opted to use a bar to act as an anchor point to give us more control of the branch. The tree had a few other branches wired at the same time. The wire will need close monitoring in the Spring as this tree is a vigorous grower. Hopefully the wire can stay in place until the tree is defoliated in late May early June at which point it can be removed.
Some work was also carried out on a deadwood hollow in the main trunk. Some wood was rotting and in a few places deadwood was stopping the rolling in of the cambium layer. The hollow will be darken down to catch the eye less when viewing.
The tree after work.
First Frost 2014
I always post when I get the first frost each season and today was the first of Winter 2014. Comparing that to the last 2 years blog posts it’s roughly 20 days later than the normal. What that means for this winter I have no idea!!
Higo Gayu Kai 2014
More stunning Shohin displays from the blog of Nekotoban, this time from Higo Gayu Kai 2014.
Video – Burrs 2014 Part 3 (Final)
Video -Burrs 2014 Part 2
Video – Burrs 2014 Part 1
Swindon Winter Image Show
PAS Pottery
At Burrs last Sunday (has it really been a full week?) I had the pleasure of meeting Patricia from PAS Pottery who had an amazing collection of shohin and accent pots for sale.
These pots where made in Shigaraki in Japan where she spent 4 months learning some new ceramic techniques. We had a good chat about some of the techniques she used in creating her pots and her passion for ceramics was clear to see. These are a few of the photos that I took. I even managed to buy a pot for a shohin Juniper I have. I deliberated for ages about the size as she had a slightly bigger one there. I opted for the smaller pot, and you guessed it, it’s too small!! Always good to have the tree with you 🙂
Here’s a few more from Patricia’s Site. Also follow her on Facebook .
Bonsai Eejit 