Oct 30 2012

Ian B’s Trees

Ian B, are hard working Club Treasurer was with me on Friday night and I snapped a few photos of his trees while he was here.

His little shohin Kiyo-hime Maple

His Zelkova with the dregs of Autumn colour still clinging on. This tree has come so far from when I first saw it at the club many years ago.

Japanese Larch

His Scots Pine before and after. Nearly all the branches emerged from the one spot on the trunk and we had to removed a lot to stop this point swelling and create some proper structure on the tree. In some ways a step backwards, but better for the tree in the future.

Oct 29 2012

Image

Pool Rock

Oct 29 2012

Autumn Colours on the Wing

Even the Butterflies in my garden have Autumnal colours at the moment!

Oct 28 2012

Korean Hornbeam Critters!!

A few months back I noticed that a Korean Hornbeam in my garden was being eaten by something. I did the usual search of the leaves but couldn’t find a darn thing. I sprayed with insecticide and left it at that.

Last week I noticed that another Korean Hornbeam, in a different part of the garden was also getting eaten, leaving some leaves like skeletons. This time I spotted the little caterpillars that were doing the damage!

They’ve kind of ruined my chances of decent Autumn colour on this tree now. Has anyone else in the UK had these buggers on their Hornbeams, or even know what they are?

Oct 27 2012

Autumn Benches

I had a few friends down last night playing with trees. It was absolutely Baltic, the coldest night so far this Autumn. A few who came, were here for the first time. It was dark and my outside light is on the Fritz, so they didn’t get a change to see some of my benches. So these are for you Susan, David and Adrian.

Oct 27 2012

Silver Birch Autumn Colour

Yellow kicking in on this Birch. Only in training a few years and has a long way to go but it’s nice to see the splash of colour on the bench.

Oct 25 2012

An Eye Opener

I use FlickR a lot for storing and hosting my photos to use here on the blog. I’ve gathered up some great bonsai contacts there and it’s always GOOD to see what everyone else is up to.

A few days ago, one of my American contacts, Openeye , posted two before and after images of two trees that he styled in a workshop with Ryan Neil of Mirai Bonsai Fame. As I’m doing a workshop with Ryan myself in January, I was delighted to see the quality of what was produced. Great material always helps but still, look at these 🙂

Well worth checking the rest of Mike’s [OPENEYE] Bonsai set on FlickR

Oct 24 2012

Rhododendron Alterations

Another tree that Peter Warren looked at on his recent visit was this Rhododendron.

This was it a few weeks before his visit.

Peter suggested opening it our a little along the main long branch and a few other suggestion about future growth and pot. A few pot virtuals over the Winter months perhaps.

Heavy wire used to add a slight separation in the pad. Like Azaleas always use a heavier wire than normal to alter branches on this species. Some other areas were reduced. This was the first time that the tree has even had wire applied!

This was it in 2002

A few dodgy years were major TLC was needed to keep this one alive.

Oct 23 2012

Tullymore

Just had to share this photograph with you. It was taken in Tullymore Forest Park in County Down N. Ireland by Hugh Wilkinson, one of our club members. He’s been playing around with his new camera and I was blown away when I seen this. It’s now my desktop image!!

Click photo for bigger image

Oct 22 2012

Shohin Black Pine

I’ve shown this one before but I asked Peter Warren for his view on it and we changed the angle a touch and removed two branches. Oh, and we made the back the front 🙂

This was it before wiring. The first one was my chosen front. The main reason for this choice was to hide the chop mark.

This was the back that I had discounted. You can see the chop that I was avoiding.

This was my styling.

Peter said that many people, obviously me included, can get hung up on one particular fault. The chop is hard to see and he didn’t see it as a big problem. He pointed out that the major bend in the trunk was easier on the eye from the chop side. With a slight change of angle and a few minor branches removed….

He had a few minor concerns over the slight yellow tinge. This years rainfall has seen many of the micro nutrients being leeched from the soil. He suggested a feed with seaweed extract and better control of the watering by placing it in the greenhouse for the Winter.