Aug 9 2011

New Lens

One of my purchases in America was a new lens for my camera, Sigma 70-300mm. I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it but took it out into the garden yesterday for 10 minutes to see what the macro function was like on it. I took a few random shots of foliage and anything else that would sit long enough. Here’s the results.

Jun 21 2011

Frosses Pines

I took some of my family, visiting from Australia, up to the North Coast yesterday. On my way I stopped briefly ay the Pine trees lining the Frosses Road near Ballymoney. I have always admired these pines leaning over the road creating an arch. Well, they used too until some were removed for safety reasons!!

Here’s a few pics of the pines.

Jun 10 2011

Two Scots Cascades

Here is my Scot’s Pine Cascade. Some will remember it from the repot photos back at the beginning of this blog. It was slow to extend but now appears happy.

And this is my mate Phil’s one. It was spending a bit of time in my tunnel to recover from a repotting. It’s now further on than my own.

Jun 8 2011

Scottie De-wire

I decided to remove the wire from my new Scots Pine this afternoon. My bad shoulder now regrets it!

It was a great way to see just what condition the tree was in. It appears that my spraying for woolly aphid was mostly successful. A few of the blighters were hiding under the wire. There was a few dead branches here and there but nothing major. The de-wire was just in time as some places were tight but not cutting in.

I placed a towel around the soil surface to stop the wire making a mess on the pot.

I found this poor fella on a branch. It’s one of natures friends. It’s the Larva of a Ladybird who was on the pine to eat the woolly Aphid. Unfortunately he got sprayed as well. I moved him outside as he was still alive. Fingers crossed for him 😦

Pine de-wired and feed and placed outside on a bench to take advantage of an afternoon downpour.

Jun 7 2011

Twin Trunk Scots Pine

I have been looking to get a half decent quality Scots Pine for my collection. I only have a small semi cascade and a few bits of average raw material. I was after a nice semi styled or raw tree. I asked Peter Snart from Willowbog to bring a few bits over for me to have a look at. I had seen a few of them in photos but wanted to wait to see them before making up my mind.

This is the one I opted for. Slightly further along development wise that I wanted but it was exactly what I wanted shape and style wise. In the photo I thought it was only about 60cm tall. When he opened the van and I saw it was 100cm, I had a big smile on my face.

There is plenty of work to do with it. It has a slight mealy bug problem, but most pines do this year. It needs to be de wired, but that’s a great way to get to know the tree. A few of the older straggly needles also need cleaned up. I’ve already sprayed the tree with insecticide and will do the other jobs this week.

I’ll then leave it for a while and look at wiring it towards the end of the year.

This is one angle. Second trunk apex needs be brought forward.

and a slightly different angle.

One of the features I liked was the bottom branch on the smaller trunk. It has been styled as another apex. I had been looking at a few of these in a few photos online recently and I quite liked them, especially on pines. That helped seal the deal 🙂

The bark is great and a stronger red colour than I’m used to seeing. Peter is going to find out a little more about the tree from it’s previous owner. I love to know the full history. I think it’s important to keep the history with the tree.

It’s in an Ian Ballie Pot which I think suits the tree well, so unless I drop it off a bench, I’m happy to keep it as is.

May 17 2011

Needle Cast

In 18 years of bonsai I had never came across needle cast on Pines. Am I just lucky? It’s strange how this hobby/art throws up new things every year. Just when you think you know something, you find out you know precious little!

This weekend I spent a good bit of my time researching and asking for advice on Pine needle Cast on Scots Pine. My pines are cast free but my friend Stephen has it on 4 of his. We believe it has spread to his garden on the wind from a large Scottie that was over looking his garden. The council cut it down as it was suffering from something. Now we know what that was!!

Here’s a few photos of one of Stephens infected Pines.

As you can see, the old needles have turned brown and have the banding that indicates Needle Cast. The tree is still strong as can be seen by the new candles emerging.

This was the tree in April, it looks strong and there was no visible sign of Needle Cast.

So what do we do now? I googled it, as one does these days, and read about all these fungicides that work, Zineb being the main one. Then as I look further into it I find that this is no longer available under EU regulations. I then refine my search to needle cast on bonsai. You can bet if anyone knows how to mollycoddle a pine tree its a bonsai enthusiast. This thread on the Internet Bonsai Club Forum was useful. I found more references to Zineb but also mention of regular treatment with Murphys Copper Based Fungicide. This prevents the cast spreading to new needles and with a prolonged period of treatment you can eventually eradicate the cast. This can take years.

I phoned Stephen and told him to hit the Garden Centres to buy this product. Yep you guessed it, nowhere has it!! We are still looking. This product is going to be removed from the market in 2013 and Murphys are no longer making it. Our only hope of finding it is in some back water garden centre that still has old stock. So far, no joy.

During this process I had posted a request for information on the Wee Trees Bonsai Forum, and Molly, Mike, Corin and Paul, 4 of the members, offered advice. The best bit of info came from Molly who asked his bonsai mentor, Rob Atkinson for advice at a weekend workshop. Rob said that copper based fungicide was the best treatment and that if Murphys was unavailable to try Vitax Bordeaux Mixture. Also, remove all infected needles and get rid. Remove all needles from the soil surface and even remove the top layer of soil. Keep the tree on the dry side and only water the soil when watering. After a few seasons, things should start to return to normal.

Well Bordeaux Mixture, containing Tetra Copper was readily available and was swiftly purchased.

So there you have it! The power of the internet and the bonsai community. I think at some point I’ll add this to a page on my blog as opposed to a post. At least it may help others who find themselves in this position. Thanks to all those who offered advice and even a willingness to post over a few packets of Murphy’s!