One of the benifits of going to the BSA exhibition was the change to get my hands on an Ian Baillie pot. I’ve been looking for a new pot for a shohin maple and I was hoping to find one on Ian’s stand. It didn’t take long. This was my find.
I also picked one up for a little Chojubai quince which was potted up on the Sunday of the show, more on that in another post.
Here are a few more pots from Ian’s stand, some were still warm from the kiln on the Friday night!
The Event sound like a rather grand title but it was an event in every meaning of the word. Over the Weekend I tried to capture in photos the story of the show from set up to take down. Admittedly it’s my own personal view but I think it captures the social occasion that it was. This is what I got.
I think I got most of them.
Wading through the rest of the photos now. I’ll be doing the accents as a separate post along with a few other themes for the weekend.
Apologies if there are any doubles, I did revisit trees as the light changed in the galleries so some of these might be from the Part 1 post but better light.
This gallery contains 87 photos.
As I sit here sorting through my photos from the weekend two things are clear to me. First, this was without doubt a top quality Shohin exhibition that any country in the West would be proud to be associated with. … Continue reading
I field grew this Sequoia for a number of years and last year I did a little basic styling to get the main branches placed. Here’s a previous post. I don’t know a lot bout the species but I’m fond of having novelty trees 🙂 I did a little looking about online and it soon became clear that they can make a rather nice bonsai. They appear to readily ramify. I decided that it was worth investing a little more time in this tree this year. It’s been in this pot for 3-4 years and it feels tight as a drum so the first step will a repot to establish exactly what I have here.
This is what I found in the pot. It’s been a strong grower. It was planted in a mix of moler and grit 50/50.
You will notice however that the top few inches appear empty and even a little at the bottom. I therefore had to investigate where exactly the nebari of this tree is. The base is swollen considerably, which is common with the species. It also sends out feckin hundreds of suckers!!
There was some serious growth in the middle though.
After removing the top 2 inches I eventually found a more suitable base level even though I had to remove a few heavy roots. This is it placed in a mica training pot. It will be given able time to recover and then some foliage refinement will be carried out. I also plan some carving at the base reaching up to mid tree. All a bit scrappy at the moment but this years new growth will make a massive difference.
I had the pleasure of working in Portaferry this morning and on the way home I took advantage of a sky clear of rain and stopped along the way to take a few photos. Photoshop and photomerge came in handy too but still doesn’t do the scenery around Strangford Lough justice.
Michael was with me last riday night but didn’t manage to get all the wiring done so he popped over on Saturday afternoon and after giving me a hand repotting a Sequoia, we finished the wiring and did a little shaping.
This is the tree before.
And afterwards
I repotted this one with a friend during a one to one session last week.
It had been in this pot for a long time and had been potted in peat by the previous owner. When we got it out of the pot the smell was grim, a stale rotting smell. The pot was also holding a lot of water. There had been no mesh over the drainage holes and we found holes leading up into the root mass and a few slugs gorging themselves.
This is it much later and into a smaller pot.
This one was interesting to do.
Before
After
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