My favourite tree on the benches in Winter. Shown here with and without leaf.
Tag Archives: photos
Korean Hornbeam
My Korean Hornbeam showing the change from Autumn into Winter.
Before trimming.
After trimming.
And in Winter image after dewiring.
Tenerife – Botanical Gardens
About 200 metres from my hotel was the Botanical Gardens. A nice place for a walk and some great specimen trees.
A nice Davilla, the local variety.
A stunning big Ficus in the middle of the Gardens. So many mature aerial roots that are now trunks.
Some stunning flowers throughout the gardens.
Trip hazzard!
The beginnings of new aerial roots on another ficus.
Tenerife – Centro Bonsai Tenerife
Whilst in Tenerife I had the pleasure of finally meeting up with Jose Acuna. Jose and I have swapped a few plants over the years and chatted on Facebook but I never crossed paths with him until now. Jose kindly picked me up from my hotel and showed me around his collection. I had a great few hours with him chatting all things bonsai. Interesting to chat about the major differences in climate, watering, species etc, between Ireland and the Canary Islands. They have heat and light but crap water. We have no heat and poor light but loads of great water lol.
Here are some of Jose’s trees, some fantastic shohin among them.
This great little juniper won the 2nd World Shohin Photo Award The submitted image can be seen below the one I took on my visit.
A stunning little maple.
A little bit bigger 🙂
Some of Jose’s awards displayed on his workshop wall.
I also fell in love with this pot. Truly beautiful carving.
I’m kicking myself for not taking a few photos of the pots that Jose made himself recently. Some very nice work.
Thank you Jose for taking the time on your one day off to show me around. I’ll maybe see you again soon 😉
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.
Arrival at the hotel.
View from room.
Great rooms
First ever letter with a wax seal lol
Mount Teide from the balcony.
The Hotel gardens were special.
The spa and hotel pool areas.
Great food.
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.
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 🙂
St Fiachra’s Garden, Kildare
A few more photos, this time from St Fiachra’s Garden within the National Stud. A beautiful and peaceful spot. I could have sat all day.
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.
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 🙂
Japanese Maple
A few missing, more to follow.
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.
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.
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.
A few monster trees being viewed in a sneak peek by one of our Scottish visitors.
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.
More Posts My ****
I did say about a week ago I’d be posting more me being retired now and all. Well you’ll have to wait. The extra time I seem to have filled it with Bonsai 30, our clubs 30th Anniversary exhibition. Tree prep, admin, show set up etc. All you dyed in the wool club guys will know what’s involved in setting up any sort of exhibition. I must say I’m rather enjoying watching this one come together. Trees in tomorrow 🙂
Bonsai Eejit 