I held off as long as I could, but over the last few days have popped most of my trees into cover for the Winter.
Empty Display Benches
This is where everything is hiding.
Winter Protection
Tag Archives: photos
Merry Christmas Belfast…. NOT
A few weeks ago I was walking around the fantastic Christmas Market in the grounds of Belfast City Hall soaking up the festive spirit and stuffing my face with all sorts of good food. I took this photo of the sign that captured the moment.
Sadly this has come to a end. How this country can self destruct so quickly is beyond me. I hate politics, racism, sectarianism.
What am I talking about? This sign pictured above overlooked a riot at the weekend. The market was closed after being wrecked. This Fact File from the BBC will fill you in.
I grew up on one side of the religious divide in Northern Ireland and my best friend as a child was from the other side. I know who I am, I don’t need help with my identity, I never really understood the need for this tribalism. Some people need to step back and think about what really matters in life. This photo says it all, the two opposing flags side by side in Afghanistan were soldiers from both sides in Northern Ireland fight together. It’s who got your back that matters, not what flag they fly.
Trim and Tuck
Yesterday I did a little trimming back of Summer extension growth on a few deciduous trees before tucking them away in the green house for Winter.
I’m trying to increase the overall outline of this Trident maple and have therefore allowed for more extension than normal to remain.
Escallonia Step by Step
I did a little more work on the Escallonia in November.
Peter Warren had suggested back in October that I remove a front branch. I did this and now this stump needed added to the deadwood on the tree.
When Mr Snart was here a few weeks back we had a look at it. Peter has excellent carving skills and I wanted his advice about opening up the trunk to allow me to reach the hollow centre. It had rotted at the base and was hollow inside, but I couldn’t reach this area to add wood hardener. Peter kindly offered to do a little carving on the tree to add the extra deadwood at the front and also open up the trunk to allow me to gain access.
This was the tree before removal of the front branch.
and after branch removal
Here is Peter doing a little carving.
On Friday I spent a little time washing out the remains of the sawdust and rotted wood. I did a little more carving and cleaning of the original deadwood to remove some algae. As you can see below there are now 3 opening added by Peter into the centre of the trunk that I can now access and apply hardener. The opening are small visually but allow room for a toothbrush to enter. The remaining heartwood is all solid and rotting seemed to have been limited.
I plan to treat the wood this week and apply a fresh coat of lime sulphur to the outside, perhaps darkened down a tad. I’ll keep you posted.
Friday Night Lights
Had a few mates around on Friday night to play with trees. Ben here found it hard to comprehend the light requirements 🙂
And the penny drops 🙂 Phil gives his salute to the greater bonsai community as per usual.
Michael was first to arrive with a Larch for wiring.
After Michael and I diligently wired the tree, Phil arrived late and jumped in to do the styling. It’s OK , I’ll fix it for Michael another day 😉
Ben brought a clump of Lonicera collected from a garden. We worked through in and removed a few unwanted trunks and left what will be the basis of it’s future image.
Remaining stumps will be carved away.
John McP brought a Spruce that he tells me has been neglected for a number of years. John’s new to the club but has been dabbling with bonsai for a few years on his own.
The tree has a few issues, leggy branches, bar branches and a few empty areas that will need work. However, this is a great tree for John to learn from. We only wanted to do a little branch selection on the night and get John wiring. We only wired the primary branches to drop them down and create an future, older image for the tree. The green was thinned out and will be left until next year as we try and promote some better inner structure to work with.
Ian B brought along a Scots Pine that he has grown from seed. Ian must be about 150 years old as the bark on this little fellow is very nice indeed. I didn’t get a before shot sadly. After everyone else had left, Ian and I worked through this tree and got it wired. We removed about 50% of the foliage. There were a few options with this one. Ian opted to keep the hanging primary branch. There remains a nice literati option for the future if required.
An enjoyable evening.
Korean Hornbeam – Winter
Parent and Layer Update
An update on the parent plant and the layer I took on a Cork Bark Chinese Elm in 2011.
This is the parent now achieved from a stump in a year. A few bits need to be cut back to balance out the growth but not bad for a year. Might even get a suitable instead of this Sh1te one 🙂
This was it in September 2011
And this is the layer a year on.
Ballot Prize
It a first for me to win something, but at the Willowbog School our club had a prize draw and I won this little Scots Pine in a delightful Ian Baillie pot. Long term for the tree but a nice little bit of material.
Que the comments, Fix! Fix!
Edit: It was pointed out that it was remiss of me not to mention that the tree was donated to the club by none other than Peter Snart of
WILLOWBOG BONSAI
A very kind and generous gift from Peter indeed.
Danny Use Hornbeam Forest Creation
Another great post on a blog I follow, this one was on Danny Use’s Blog showing the creation of a Hornbeam Forest over a number of years. Click on the image to visit the blog. It’s well worth following as regular posts are made with interesting content. Not like the tatt I serve up 🙂
Trident – 2010 – 2011 – 2012
2010
2011
2012
2012
Ready for some thinning out but I’m trying to increase the canopy size.
Bonsai Eejit 