A Tree Versus a ‘Bonsai?

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.     

Martin Luther King

 

Over the years those that know me will no doubt agree I have generally; (not always) gone for a look that could be considered a fully grown tree in miniature. Indeed, I have for as long as I can remember, favoured the miniature world. I built up a miniature model-railway, miniature long-haired Dachshunds, and so on. When I first started out with Bonsai, I was of a mind that one should strive for the wonderful images as seen in many of the early books. After a time I realised that actually I preferred the look that was a full sized tree in miniature without the perfectly manicured pads and shapes. It might have been because I never had the time to spend hour after hour with wire. Highly likely, as there were other pursuits I enjoyed which all took up time.

One little Maple that I once owned, was for me a perfect example. everyone kept telling me I should shape it rather than have it as was. I suppose in the end it looked fine either way? I still like that natural look though.

Hinoki Cypress

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

Richard Branson

 

One of the nicest species I’ve ever worked with is the Hinoki Cypress. I purchased one about fifteen or so years ago and it was virtually identical to the first image below. Clearly it was in a pot and was secured as a bargain basement purchase from a Bonsai nursery. It had come out of its pot and when I bought the thing the root ball was a dry as a chip. This is NOT what you want to find with this species. They will NOT thank you for having dry feet.

Indeed make sure you check they are evenly moist throughout the year. Dry and you’ll get huge amounts of die-back. Anyway, I digress; this image is very similar.

Hinoki

You can do so much with the cypress, as the foliage is already halfway there in terms of fanning. one quick tip, DON’T use scissors to cut unless you remove from source then by all means use scissors. For keeping foliage tidy and how you might like to see it use your fingers. Hold the cloud in-between finger and thumb and just gently pinch with fingers of the other hand. Not using your nails.

Moving on to 2014 I thought long and hard if I should lop the top off and think about a completely different style. As it happens I decided against a ‘chop-job’ and just spent some time seeing if I could get a tree that looked like a real tall grand tree in the wild. I’m initially pleased and the following image as is. i’ve done more, but I need to take another image. still struggling with the Canon 6D but that is another story.

Procumbens All Change

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.

        Leo Tolstoy

Not been around in a while as health issues and moving home (we hope) have taken priority. I have however had a good week or two and thought I would spend a bit of time on all my trees.

I only have eight trees now so really I can now actually enjoy spending time working with them rather than thinking of it as a chore. When I first started on the road to Bonsai and over subsequent years I became what I can only imagine as addicted to having more and more trees.

sure I had nothing like the amount as many do and have done over time mostly because pretty much all my trees were large ones. Some so heavy it took two to move them. Thirty-one years later and I’ve gone much much smaller. Sure not Shohin sized but all manageable by one person and don’t need the wheelbarrow to move them.

I’ll upload a few others, but for now my old cascading Procumbens had gone a bit bushy again so figured I sit and think about a future for it. I repotted three years ago after obtaining a rather nice pot whilst up at the Swindon Winter image Show.

Here it can be seen as a Yeti like Cascade.

The pot above was a very heavy one from Peter Chan. The great problem with the Procumbens Juniper is the foliage gets pretty heavy and creating a cascade became difficult for me, as I found the weight of the branch required permanent wiring to keep any kind of shape.

Here it can be seen after a fall in high winds with some branches broken. I threw it in this pot which I quickly purchased from the local Garden Centre. To give an idea of size the slab that the pot is sat on is 40cm in diameter.

Again I figured I would leave it and see what happens. It recovered well and I cleaned it out to see once more if a possible cascade without permanent wire was possible. See the first image. Also this one. Cleaned out and removed from pot to go into the PC grey one.

The root-ball was indeed looking well recovered and so into the PC pot it went. Over time I just didn’t or could not get my head round the tree. I wondered if actually creating something with this one was out of my own skill-set? I’m not to proud to admit at times I’ve wondered if I was capable, and fumbled at times. Oh I thought I’d include the absolute original image of the tree. This was prior to falling and prior to a much needed trim.

Moving on and as I started off saying eventually I had had enough of constant wiring and thus decided enough was enough and into a much smaller more manageable pot. This was the one I spoke about earlier the one I got from Swindon.

And yet I still wasn’t happy! Yes it looked to me a heck of a lot better but balance wise it wasn’t right and I still wondered if it had too many branches. Moving bang up to date from 2011 when I popped it into the pot above, I purchased another pot whilst in Swindon this year at the winter Image Show, and paid the mighty sum of £22.50 for it. Brand new, Chinese, perfect condition and deep enough to get a bit more root growing and also to see how it looks in a more rectangular pot. Incidentally I should say I like the following image very much and it will be my intention to get another rectangular pot but not so deep.

Taken a couple of days ago March 2014 in the new pot. Tree needs an overall tweak bend over to the left by a few mm which i’ll do with the foliage when recovered from the repot.

Thank you if you are still with me and reading; I hope you enjoyed it?

Lazy Days.

Struggling as I do these days … with my health, I can still sit on my backside and enjoy the hobbies I have. Today I was trying out some new camera techniques. Before I did however I had to take one as it was happening at our place today 🙂 You can clearly see the one doing all the work.

Some New Accents.

A firm tree does not fear the storm.      

Dayak

I was fortunate enough to make the Bristol Bonsai Show at the weekend of the 18th. What a fantastic show with absolute applause from me with respect to the organisation, QUALITY of trees and supporting / companion accents, trade stands .. well, the ‘whole nine yards.’ Superb and thank you all. Sadly I had the compact with me and luddite me managed to have it set on 300k per image and not 3 meg 😦

It really was impossible to single any out but spookily I managed a larger image of a stunning Elm owned by Mark and Ritta Cooper. I’m delighted to show it here on my blog. Pot is a ‘Dansai’ and stunning too.

I managed to purchase a couple of new pots from Dan Barton who had quite a remarkable choice to select from. Gwen pipped me on that gorgeous ‘curly-pot’ almost something H.R. Giger about it. Thankfully ‘Dansai’ is going to make me another but smaller. The pot is below.

My own purchases have been potted up and I include them below. The Blue pot is a Delosperma ‘graf reinet’ and was a gift from my good friend Paul B. Thank you Paul. Along with the White flowering variety Paul also gave me another colour and this one happened to be in a tiny pot Paul had made himself. It was a larger plant but I cut a length off to pot up.

This Red pot, also a ‘Dansai’ is now looking after an Echeveria that I rescued. Pot and plant go well together. This pot is a high glaze somewhat different to what I would normally have, hence the appeal.

Finally I had seen Paul with a rather nice Japanese Rose, which he got from Ritta Cooper. Without a moments hesitation I just knew I too would not be content without one. Potted on into a spare pot so now I will see how it does. Leaves are really tiny.

I was very pleased to receive a gift from Dansai which is a Hosta Blue Mouse Ears. It is exceedingly healthy and I will split it next year. Rather like the Dansai pot too. I’ve not done well with miniature Hosta of late and this specimen will be pampered. Thank you again Dan.

Looking forward to Bristol 2014!

Mountain Maple After Leaf Removal.

I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that two of my Maples had the most awful leaf burn this year. After much thought and input too from others I have settled on a combination of three areas. I mention this as someone might find it useful if they are either considering leaf pruning or outright removal for a myriad of reasons.

This is the first year I have had each and every single leaf display mild singing to out and out burnt shrivelled leaves. I’ll not include images of the leaves as they are HERE on the earlier post I mentioned above. A detailed explanation of possible causation is to be found in this previous blog entry. HERE.

I know much is bantered around about what an amazing technique it is to grow a second set of leaves, or even a third on a very healthy tree, but truly folks it is little more than what nature could do all on its own. So, without any further babble I include a before image of the small Maple, and one taken yesterday after the new set of leaves turned it into a bush like plant; clearly I attacked it with a pair of scissors though. It will do for now; further trimming will be required over the next few weeks. The first image is after initial leaf hardening but at the burn stage. Eventually it looked awful. In this image I had already taken away 30-40% of the leaves as they had turned completely brown.

Then after leaf removal, with some branch pruning too. SEAL cuts to avoid bleed this time of year and minimise this type of branch pruning.

In this image it is three weeks after the original removal of leaves. You actually have a job looking at the tree to see any branches at all. This one I have taken looking down at the crown.

After a couple of hours of detailed tidying the tree is now without any browning whatsoever. Seen here in a Tony Remington pot. Thanks for looking in.

A quick snap half way through. A typically I forgot to take a front on image.

Leaf Strip Results

On the 23rd June this year I leaf stripped two Maples. I was concerned that I may have had a disease going on … or it was a uniform leaf burn. I mentioned then that almost every single leaf had signs of burning (See Original Post HERE).

I took the following image yesterday of ‘Stumpy’ and am delighted to say that not one leaf has come through with any damage. It has leafed well, all-be-it there are a handful that have come through huge; these I have removed. In the image below the darker colour leaves are just simply new ones in clusters that have yet to turn green and harden. Wind has been kind lately so fingers crossed.

CAUSE

I feel 100% certain it has been a two fold issue that has caused the dreadful leaf marking.

1. Scorch from strong winds. Without a doubt this was part to blame. Other than keep em coddled and fully protected I can do little about the wind.

2. I’ve been using tap water only this year. I store it for a minimum of two days fully vented to get any gasses present to evaporate. I’m convinced that the build-up of salts I have been experiencing this year mostly in accents has emanated from said tap-water. And actually re-reading this some years later I think not.

With the latter in mind there are really only two things I am aware of that actually stop this occurring.

1. Add a teaspoon of distilled white vinegar to every five litres of water. (Thanks again Will for the correction).

2. Water copiously each watering; ‘shilly-shally’ watering techniques do indeed permit minerals build up, which inevitably leads to salts. You’ll know, as you will have near white marks on top of the soil or at the base of a pot.

I may have been caught out with a liquid feed that was not actually organic, and I may have overdosed slightly. This then actually makes a third point to consider; one of which I’d like to cover another time.

Here then was stumpy on the 23rd June 2013 followed by the 14th July 2013.

Siberian Elm Leaf Size.

Although this Siberian Elm is a tree that looks better in a winter image, it is still never-the-less a deciduous tree, that for seven to eight months of the year is in full leaf. I always felt it a shame to just let it grow and wait until winter. Sure late Autumn the leaves turn yellow and if we are lucky with winds, it looks nice at this time, as many fall leaving a ‘skeleton’ like look.

The single biggest flush is as the new leaves settle in early Spring; toward mid to late Spring it starts to look untidy. This year I knew that I wanted to reduce the tree down, or reduce the size of the canopy width primarily whilst balancing up the rest of the tree at the same time. Here it can be seen at mid to late Spring.

The sheep of course don’t do a good enough job! The next image is off the tree with size to the canopy reduced but not finished. Far better to wait a while as once it comes off, you can’t very well stick it back on. For that you need to wait a year or two.

 

The Hawk-eyes among you will have seen that I missed the middle of the pot in 2012 during its repot. One of those things, it happens, and I hadn’t noticed until a good pal pointed it out to me. Then again I am due new specs again. I mention this as the canopy looks like it hangs off the right more than it should.

So after many hours of trimming and selective pruning I wanted to let the tree have a couple of weeks to settle; this then for now was as far as I went. Over the next week or so there were plenty of browned leaves to remove. Very difficult on a full foliage to not snip where you should not. I’m limited on time due to my arthritis, suffice it to say it took me a full day, plus I had some help too.

The next few images concern leaf size. That is leaf size on the hardened ones and the plethora of new that would be spring out. During the following images I hope you can see where reasonably hard pruning has induced a wealth of back buds. Some will stay other will go.

Light is all important to species that have such a thick canopy; when they are dense hardly any light makes it in and the best I used to get when I knew no better was a few that would turn yellow within the tree and eventually drop. I did actually think some twenty five years ago that eventually it would became such a huge tree, I would have to plant it in the garden. I could not get my hear around this pruning malarkey, no matter how many books I read. I thought back then a good prune meant taking off twenty or so leaves!

In the following two images you can clearly see the extent of new growth that is springing up well back along the branchlets and within what was the darker areas.

Since the first 2013 hardish prune I have continued to water daily with some overhead showers but waited a short while until much of the new has hardened before resuming feeding. I’m using seaweed as a tonic and for good leaf colour, ‘The ONE’ in powder form so I can mix it myself, and Levingtons Tomato feed.

You can see in this next image how daylight can be seen quite clearly through the foliage canopy.

Towards the end I will include one from the outside in as a close up. The following images are of leaf size current and new. Obviously the lighter colour ones are the newly emerging, and quite quickly they will blend in as darker leaves when hardened. I’ve included the largest leaf size on the tree as well as the new ones.

Actually leaf size stays quite small throughout the year, also a fairly even size right across the tree.

I have spent a good few hours further pruning, and for now it will stay as can be see in the next two images. I keep removing those wee brown leaves and for now I believe I have just about the lot. In total I have taken the canopy diameter in by 1.5-2.5cm on each left and right side. The front down by approx 2cm and the back has been left as it is fine. The leaves will not grow any bigger once hardened, hence why the species makes such a credible tree as a ‘Bonsai.’ Yes this one would stand some more thinning but for now I shall leave it. It very often becomes a case of pruning ongoing until winter.

Here I have taken a picture close up to show the airy side of the tree. The one immediately below that is as right now.

For Photography purposes I have use a Canon 500D with an L series 24-105mm lens with f stop settings selected by me with the camera deciding on shutter speed. ISO 100 mostly, custom white balance, cropped where required in PSE. Thank you for looking.

Two ERIN, One Barton And a Remington

All sung to the twelve days of the Silly Season. Lovely morning here in Somerset, and I could not walk by without a click of the shutter. Colours are lovely to see.

Enjoy the day, or should that read days? I think we are in for some rather nice weather it would seem. The mercury be a poppin upwards 🙂

Old Accent Plants (where do they go?)

Over the years I have made some of the worst possible choices for accent plantings; yes I’ll hold the ol hand up. Have I learnt? Not entirely, as on occasion reason goes out of the way and I will STILL try something completely barking!

Luckily (in one respect) we do have large gardens here, and there are many beds or paths or gravel to try something out. So when an accent planting has not worked or it was simply getting stupidly big I tend to find an area to plant them in. I suppose in a completely daft thought I see it as letting the plant do what it really wants to do … have a good stretch after being in a small pot and grow.

Just a few snaps then of some that started off in a tiny wee pot.