Aug 30 2013

Garage Night

Tonight for my first garage night in ages. Haven’t been able to manage one with work of late. We had a great night playing with trees and chatting.

They actually all look busy, no chat at all!

Michael on his knees!

Ian hard at it

Shaz and the White Pine

Caleb at his first garage night, will he come back? Ben getting stuck in.

Aug 26 2013

Mame Rowan

Autumn colours already appearing on this little Rowan.

Rooting into gravel tray, only way to keep these smaller ones healthy this year.

Aug 24 2013

Collection For Sale

The observant among you will have noticed a new page tab at the top of the page titled Collection For Sale. A friend has decided to get out of bonsai and is selling his collection of 26 trees, either singularly or multiple trees. If you are interested click on the image below or just just click the tab above for a full run down. No prices listed but offers welcome.

Aug 19 2013

Stephen’s Raft Maple

Leaf size coming down nicely after another defoliation this year. Pictured front and back.

Aug 17 2013

Cotoneaster Tweaked a Little

A few minor tweaks to this Cotoneaster just to fill out the area top right. Not a big difference now but as the newly wired branches fill out it will make for a better image.

Aug 16 2013

Flowers on my Birthday

Another year gone 😦 so I thought I’d add a flowering Spirea to brighten things up. Not one but two.

Aug 15 2013

Japanese Black Pine

This Japanese Black Pine given to me by a friend has always been a bit of an experiment to see how far I can get it to back bud on leggy branches. This year I have decided to actually place a few branches to start building a structure. A long way to go, but fun to be had in the process.

This is it before and after wiring. A few branches removed.

Aug 13 2013

Field Maple Rethink

I was taking another 1to1 session last week and the client brought along this ‘Mother and Child’ Field Maple. A large tree that has been neglected for a number of years after the original owner died. The new owner wanted some direction with the tree and we set about removing what was over grown aiming to leave what would make the basis of a good structure of the new

We opted to change the front slightly to bring the child trunk slightly further forward. The original front had both parallel to each other.

This it it after removal of over extended and straight branches.

A few issues remain but these can be sorted next year when we see how the tree responds to this cut back and a major repot to get it out of the peat that it’s in now.

Aug 11 2013

Decision Made

Back in January I posted about trying to make my mind up about whether to keep this Yew Tall or go for a shorter tree. I talked about the sentimental value of this one and the tall character of the tree suited this.

Last night, being on my own while my wife is in America for a few weeks, I decided to drink beer and listen to 80’s music on the radio while playing with trees in my garage. DAB radio has lots of new stations available and this one is right up my street 🙂

So beer in hand, music blasting I sat this tree down in front of me and explored a chop option. No matter what I looked at, I could find a convincing image. I therefore set about thinning and wiring to improve the taller option. This is the result.