Nov 30 2014

Big Bonsai

I popped over to a friends house on Saturday with a view to helping him select a tree for entering in Bonsai Europa next Autumn. It was nice to see some of these trees for the first time in Winter image.

This Beech is a monster.

This Acer Campestre or Field Maple isn’t much smaller.

And a little smaller again, this Ulmus Glabra or Wych Elm. Hard to see with the poor backdrop but again, you get the idea.

And last but not least is a Hazel, it’s covered in Catkins for next Spring and even produced 6 Hazelnuts this year past.

Tree selected and plans made. Josh in one of the nicest bonsai people I know but then the rest of us are all oddballs 🙂

Nov 26 2014

Winter Image – Trident Maple

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.

Nov 25 2014

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.

Nov 24 2014

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.

Nov 23 2014

Higo Gayu Kai 2014

More stunning Shohin displays from the blog of Nekotoban, this time from Higo Gayu Kai 2014.

Nov 15 2014

One to One – Larch

I had Ben here for a one to one session today. He brought this big Japanese Larch with him. He collected it with us a few years ago and it had grown strongly under his care. This is the tree as collected.

This was it at 12pm today. The session saw us having to make a few decisions.

Ben was keen to make a twin trunk image but the two main trunks were both similar in size and thickness. We talked through the options and eliminated the faults leaving everything else for wiring.

A few bends were added to improve the trunk line to the apex and we shaped it to create this first styling image, and as you can see, it’s a twin trunk, just not the trunk that was expected.

This was it at 5pm.

Before and after

Nov 15 2014

Tony’s Garden

Most of these have probably appeared on Facebook over the last week but I’ll share anyway. These where taken in Tony’s garden. It was great to see some of these trees in the flesh having only seen them in photos and websites over the years. It’s hard to not be impressed with the quality of the Yews in his collection but what most interested me was the quality of the ramification on the Hawthorn. Also nice to see some humble projects being worked on as well with rock plantings catching my eye. I only wish I’d seen it in Summer for a closer look at the accents, my other passion. Most were already in their Winter state. A few pots here as well that caught my eye.

Nov 14 2014

Up at Allotments

Tony gave us a look at his yamadori collection at his allotment. If only he had the forethought to arrange a dry day. 🙂 Thankfully Sunday saw a blue sky. These are some of the snaps taken over a few visits, some very exciting trees, especially some of the demo trees set aside for Bonsai Europa 2015 .