Trees, People, Bath and Rocks: My Day at the Joy of Bonsai

Rather than tell a story from the beginning, let me commence sort of a third through the way and wind my way back up to the start.  

The GPS (AKA 'That Biyotch' to a friend of mine) took us to Bath via the A303 which led us through some lovely scenery, particularly when we got closer to Bath.  Quaint cottages, woodland scenes - all very picture book English countryside, which made the opening vista of the city with its straight lines of limestone architecture seem extremely regimented to me.   All the creamy yellow/gold Bath stone architecture under the morning sun as you drive down the hill is impressive - but I guess it is a 'you love it or you hate it' sort of thing.

In my last post I said that catching up with people was probably going to be the priority of the day (second to getting my morning coffee, of course) but actually - despite feedback I had heard on the Saturday saying the lighting wasn't very good - I did manage to get some pics of the trees and accent plants.  I could've taken more pics, but to be perfectly honest I was more caught up with gassing with the owners of the trees.  Especially as some of their stuff are bonsai that I probably already have pics of in previous posts on this blog.

I first saw this Willow by Simon Temblett at the Swindon Winter Image show two years ago, and he says it's now starting to look more like how he wants it to be.  Pot is also by Simon.

Also by Simon is this composition entitled 'Blackthorn Juggling on a Unicycle', which is almost self-explanatory.  You also get a fairly good view of the branch wiring in the photo.

Framed in black and floating in space is John Pitt's 'Beyond the Moonshine'; no prizes for guessing who the potter is:

However you can get a better view of the entire composition here, courtesy of @ExtremeWork.

This one, called 'The Lightning through the Clouds', was one that people couldn't resist touching, particularly when they were told the tree wasn't real.

Paul Finch (UK New Talent Contest winner and UK candidate for the 2008 EBA NTC at Vienna) modelled this on one of Kevin Willson's trees.  The woody bits are out of modelling clay and the foliage is from bits of fake Christmas trees.  An excellent piece of work, IMHO.  And in case it isn't legible, the notice to the left says 'please do not touch the exhibits'.

We oohed and aahed over this little accent Contorted Hazel by Russ Farley. 

I didn't manage to get the potter's name, but if you do want to know, then you have to ask this guy here.  His wife tried her best to edge out of the picture but one day there will be no escaping my Sony Ericsson...

We have been bumping into Russ and Julie at bonsai shows here and on the Continent for over 10 years now, and I've seen their son grow up, in almost a stop action punctuated sort of way, over a series of bonsai shows.  Kinda makes you feel old, after a while.

Obviously these two take bonsai extremely seriously and the one on the left is Bob Bailey whose shohin and mame have appeared several times on this blog.

This display of bodily assault could have been a forerunner of the Karate demonstration that afternoon.  And that is really all the innuendo I am able to spread on Mr Bailey, even though I have threatened to do so several times over the past years.  That said, he has taken quite a lot of stick over the colour of his shirts....

More dirt was being dished about by the Welsh lads; here we have Chris Thomas showing off his moss....

.... and proving he can multitask by entertaining us with a lot of smutty hilarious jokes while finishing up a group planting....

.... which eventually wound up like this:

Another demo here, possibly of interest to those who want to give the root-over-rock style a go: Simon Temblett taking a tube-grown maple (to achieve the long roots) which was destined to go over the red 'pebbles' on the lower right hand side.  In the background you can see the other demonstrators at work.

I missed the rest of the demo as I went to have lunch (my next highest priority to my morning coffee).  By the time I had demolished a steak and complained about its size (on the small side) to an unsympathetic Mr Bailey, this particular demo was done and Simon had gone on to doing a Tanuki, achieving the bark colour with a solution of soot and water.  The finished root over rock maple is on the lower left hand side of the photo, wrapped in sphagnum moss to protect the roots.  Over time this will be removed once the roots have settled.

Another of the demonstrators, Serge Clemence, here doing an illustration of what will eventually be the finished image of the tree he had worked on.

We first met Serge at the EBA convention in Poland where he had displayed a large yamadori pine that took the best in show prize that year.  That said, Serge was still immersed in plans for refining the tree into the image that he had in plan for it.  We saw the tree again at another show a couple of years later and it had acquired a more mature and finished look, aside from being a healthy specimen indeed.

Moving away from the demo area, I managed to grab these pics of the Pitt-boss John (and why is it all my photos of him are blurred?  Is my phone trying to tell me something?)...

and his wife Linda...

... who is my partner in hilarity at her husband's expense.  Only sometimes.  (Like at every show we meet.)  But he's a great sport.  And he gets his own back :D

And in reverse order (as this was the first photo of the day I took), let me leave you with a minute impression of one of the biggest piles of Suiseki I have ever seen in my life:

Them grey rocks in the middle of the field.  Click on the pic to blow it up.  That's right:  Stonehenge as seen from the A303.

Spring view of another WIP

Works In Progress, we haz dem.  Big time.

This root-over-rock Forsythia has been WIPping around in the garden for nearly 10 years and has never come out on exhibit, as you can clearly see why. 

I believe we purchased it as a bare-rooted item, then stuck it in a generic deep, round 'export-blue' coloured pot for the longest time.  Almost two years ago, it got put into this shallow oval that shows the landscape off better.

There's still a major piece of work to do on improving the branches, the crown of the tree and the appearance of the trunk.  On the other hand, it's flowering profusely despite the whopping winter it went through.  Or possibly because of it?  We did get a mega-lot of root growth, as there's a whole load of the little buggers trying to escape the edge of the pot on the right,

As usual the birds had a field day with the moss protecting the topsoil, so we will be back to re-mossing all the trees this spring, once we get a new food processor - the last one we got for chopping moss didn't quite survive a year.  I guess like everything else, you get what you pay for...

And BTW, we will be off to Joy of Bonsai at Bath tomorrow, but I cannot promise pics.  Partly because my recollections of the lighting in the hall do not inspire optimism, and more because we will be meeting up with loads of friends and socialising may just have a teensy-weensy priority.  Or maybe I could do only people pics instead of tree pics?  Now there's a thought - I could consider starting a new career as paparazzo, armed with a camera phone.

My chances of hitting the big bucks suddenly don't seem too high.  Feh.

Better late than... even later?

Well, in the last post I did say I would take pics at our club meeting.  And I did.

And I did say that I'd post said pics if the light was good to my Sony Ericsson.  And it wasn't.

So rather than put out some over/under/badly-exposed shots for you to go "huh?" over, how about if I make up for it with more pics of the accent plants that are starting to come out in the garden.  Some of these were my earliest guinea pigs subjects for last year's posts, so to a certain extent it is interesting (for me at the very least) to see how they've come along since then.

This is a white Hepatica nobilis which first came out in this post.  It's only started coming out into flower in the past couple of days and there are at least two more flower buds waiting in the wings.  Just to show that everything is late this year, my 2009 pic dates back to late February and the flowers were much further along.  This planting is due for a break-up fairly soon, as the seedlings are now in their second year (you can see them in last year's photo). 

You get a better look at the pot's colour in this shot, though.  I'm  not sure if the leaves should actually be there, as they are last year's foliage and are really rather manky looking.  Despite the hard winter, none of our established Hepatica (and most of the seedlings) went fully dormant; they just hung on to every last bit of greenery they could.

And only just out by a day or so is what I believe to be a Scilla (possibly siberica), although its flowers are looking a little pale so maybe it isn't what I think it is....

This is in a Walsall pot, about 2.5 in / 6.5 cm high.

Last year I wasn't so sure this plant would make it - the double flowered form Hepatica transsilvanica 'Mrs Elison Spence':

It was either vine weevil or the alpine mix which didn't agree with my plant.  I now try to transfer all of our alpines into an akadama mix, which seems to suit our watering style (and our garden conditions) better.  For the vine weevil, we use a mix of organic (nematodes) and chemical (Provado) control.  Or I feed the buggers to the birds.  Either way, I'm happy to report that I have managed to save the parent plant as well.  This one apparently tends to flower before the foliage appears, but I will also have to say that it hung on to its very large and not very pretty leaves all throughout the very cold winter we just had.  I'm not quite sure who the potter for this one is, so let me do a bit of digging first.  In the meantime, if anyone recognises the pot, do give me a shout.

This is one of my experiments at making multiple-plant groupings for a longer period of interest.  This is one of the first Snowdrops (Galanthus) that has flowered for me in a pot, so I'm feeling a bit more encouraged to try different plantings.  The rest of the composition looks like it will need more summer interest.

Oh, and before I forget - here's the blue Primula from the last post, but just two weeks along and its pompom is all out.  Well, almost.

It's Partayyyy Time!!! Bonsai Club night tonight...

And everyone's decking out in their finest - at least the bonsai and accent plants are.

And since we've been through an unseasonably cold winter for this part of the world, everyone in the club will be mad keen to show whatever has come out of hibernation.  Of course I'm no exception, duh.  But being the generous and giving (showoff - errr, wait, ignore that) person that I am, I thought I'd give you guys a sneak peek of what I'm taking to the club.  And if the light at the club hall is kind to my Sony Ericsson, I'll take home some more pics to show you later this evening. 

Here is a shohin Chinese juniper that started its life as an informal upright at least 10 years ago.  It wasn't a bad-looking tree then - as a matter of fact, when someone saw it a year after we had acquired it, he suggested we enter it into a very prestigious national show.  But we had already decided it would be better off as a semi-cascade, and since then the invitation to display the tree has never again been tendered.  Heh. But we still feel it was the right thing to do - if a bit drastic.  Achieving the change in shape also meant a lot of wiring (I did say I had gotten a lot of practice in an earlier post), and sometimes Junipers can sulk when treated this way.  Because he did get the heavy metal thing going back then. Yo.

He was also moved into this unglazed Walsall pot, which gives Teacher-san kittens every time he checks our trees, as the cylindrical shape is one that he feels is difficult to keep watered correctly.  Walsall have since stopped using this clay, so I do regret not buying every single one of these that had come out then.

Here is the detail of the rear of the tree, showing 2 jins which are the remains of rather heavy branches.  Had they stayed, we would have wound up with a pronounced lump in the middle of the tree, I bet.

This is one of our larger shohins, measuring 8 in / 20 cm from the feet of the pot.  I don't think it has ever gone out on public display - as it has taken forever for the juvenile foliage to sort itself out - but we have taken it out to the club a couple of times.  Club nights are more like family to us, they don't really count as public, if you see what I mean.

And here's the detail of the Primula in a Japanese pot.  I believe I have the plant's label somewhere, but there's bound to be someone at the club who'll be able to tell me what it is.  It will look better when it's fully out in flower, and even better in 3 years' time when it will have filled out the pot a bit more.

I did mention on Twitter that I would be bringing the microscopic Aquilegias, and I am.  And on the other end of the scale, I am bringing this Kusamono which is a green Ophiopogon variety, a tall bronzey grass whose label has gone the way of the wind, and some other nondescript grass that is only kept within the planting on sufferance (I just keep pulling it out when I have nothing better to do with my time).  Here is what it looked like in summer:

And these are the Ophiopogon fruit which have stayed all through the winter:

I took the Kusamono out of its pot nearly 2 years ago and it has spent all winter outdoors, albeit protected by a whole load of other potted plants around it.  Still, it was covered with snow like everything else.  One day I will find a suiban which will complement the colours of the planting better than this one. (In fact I do know of one potter who has this shade of blue... :D)  But still, this one is the right size, so it will have to do for now.

Unfortunately my Hepaticas and Soldanella are not quite fully out in flower.  My double Hepatica 'Mrs Elison Spence' is only just starting to come out and it doesn't look like anything much at the moment.  What a bummer. 

We are bound to have lots of accent plant lovers tonight, even some people from other local clubs.  Will be great to see if they'll have brought their stuff.  Maybe we can even start doing some barter.  Because boy, do I have some nice stuff coming out... Any takers?

Charcoal in the Growing Medium

At our local bonsai club meeting sometime back, a couple of guys had an interesting discussion on the merits of using charcoal as part of a bonsai soil mix.  I can't remember what the outcome of the discussion was (probably more concerned about getting myself coffee and biccies, as usual) but this blogpost at Yamadori Passion may interest some of you:

http://yamadori-passion.blogspot.com/2010/03/carbon-carvao-charcoal.html

Have a gander over there.  Loads of great photos from his travels.  My recent fave is his series of posts on the tools he uses for his yamadori.  Good stuff.

Anyone up for a guessing game?

Our friend Robert gave us several of these seedlings last year and they promptly went into these thimble pots.  Think you recognise what sort of plant they are?  No, they are not baobabs.

Okay, here's their big brother.  Does that give you a better clue?  No, it's not a cabbage either.

Just to give you an idea of scale, I've included the moss accent plant, which as I've mentioned in a previous post is about 1 inch / 2.54 cm high.  So although the 'trunks' look chunky in these photos (and I suppose proportionally they are), the plants are really rather minute.

I believe TOH got the two 'square' thimble pots from one of the potters at the now-defunct Southampton Balloon & Flower Festival, but cannot say for sure.  The moss planting is in a Japanese pot that we got at the Green Club during one of the Kokofu shows.  Absolutely no clue who made the larger round pot.

So a lot of our accent plants are starting to come out of winter dormancy.  And a lot of the trees as well.  Which will mean moving everything around in the cold greenhouse and making space for the more vigorous varieties.

Oh yes, I suppose you're still wondering what these plants are?  They're not a dwarf variety so here's what they'll eventually look like one day; well not precisely like these ones as this is a photo of my flower bed:

Yup, Aquilegias.  Don't ask me what colour - I'll either have to remember to ask Robert or wait to see what will happen if they do eventually flower.  Which will either be spectacularly great or spectacularly bizarre, as flowers or fruit don't reduce in size...

Not Quite a Starting Line-up...

Well, I actually did forget some of the other plants I had put on display at the Swindon Winter Image show in my earlier post.  Not that I could've posted them on this blog any earlier due to my recent monitor problems, but better late than never, I suppose.  So here we go with the rest of my starting line-up of display trees and accents for 2010 - and then some.

Our accent plants are starting to wake up now and some of the compositions I put together last year are starting to show signs of rejuvenation.  So more photos to come in the next few weeks, hopefully.  But for now, this photo is the collection of accent plants that went with us to Swindon Show; all but one went out on display:

The Ranunculus ficaria 'Coppernub' (rear upper left hand side) is a slight disappointment to me, as it didn't flower any more profusely than it did last year, although the plant has bulked out considerably.  The other guy to the right of him is also a Ranunculus (another lost label jobbie, so don't expect a variety identification anytime soon from me) and still hasn't flowered.  Leaves are funky, though.  This second Ranunculus is in a pot by Alan Harriman.  The lighting in this photo is brighter than last year's so the colour of the Coppernub's Bryan Albright pot is a lot closer to the original.

This picture of a Shohin cascade Cotoneaster frigidus 'Cornubia' was taken before clean-up and show prep:

We've been growing this guy for at least 4 years now, and this Walsall pot is now its second home.  It started out with quite a large rootball, hence the slightly over-potted look; however as it only has come out on show when either the flowers or berries are out, then it also has these over-long branches which slightly compensate for the whopper of a pot.  Being a cascade, this is a difficult one to give dimensions to, so if I say that the pot is about 4 in / 10 cm high, that should give an overall indication of the size of the tree. 

This isn't one in our collection that comes out in public very often (although I have taken it to our local club several times), partly because we aren't 100% satisfied with its ramification.  Although the trunk is rather interesting.  Here it is at a slightly different angle, showing the trunk line and the berries:

 A little later in the year, I'm going to give this guy a massive prune. 

As an aside, the winter colour on our cotoneasters was gratifying this year.  However, we didn't get a lot of flower and fruit out of our shohin cotoneasters this time, although the larger ones did all right in that department.

Again another shohin that went through the popsicle stage this winter.  Here is how this Picea looked on show:

And here you can just about see it on the left-hand side in all its frozen glory.

The pot is a Tokoname, apparently by Bigei.  As I can't read the markings, I have no way of confirming this but I'm sure someone will give a shout if it proves otherwise.

And this last one is a shohin Japanese White Pine which will only go out on show if I'm really, really desperate as the branch structure still needs so much work done to it.  Plus that trunk line sometimes strikes me as being totally dire.

Another small tree that we've had for several years but really only a WIP for the past two.  This one also went popsicle during the winter freeze, and you'll see it on the right-hand side of this photo.

The reason I've got this White Pine in here is to illustrate a couple of things.  Rather than buy expensive trees, our bonsai acquisition strategy has been to pay for trees that - by our guesswork - will need about 5 to 8 years' work and fall into a medium (or more) price range for that type of bonsai.  We have been lucky with some and they have literally only needed a couple of years before they've been deemed ready for show.  We have also acquired dead cheap / unwanted trees that showed their potential in a relatively short space of time.  Others, like this White Pine, will need both time and patience - in spades.

But if you are mad keen on getting a 'finished' bonsai to go out immediately into competition (and win), then expect to pay the full market value of that tree. Whatever that may be. Because - in bonsai just like in everything else - you get what you pay for.

Missed a Milestone, did I?

Just realised something.  As of the 26th February, this blog has been going on for a year. 

And why I should think that's significant, I don't know.

Unfortunately I have no stats to show for this sort of thing, as I only started using a stat tool in October.  So no Month-on-Month, Quarter-on-Quarter or Year-on-Year figures to show you.  Which is no fun really.  No Powerpoint slides.  Hurrr.  What would we do without Powerpoint slides to justify our existence?

What may have changed over the year is the raison d'etre of this blog.  While I had originally started it to keep a record of bonsai shows we attend, the reality is there isn't always that much newsworthy (by my definitions) to say.  Post photos of the trees on display?  A pure line-up of bonsai tree photos is one of the most boring things I can think of to do, and if you're looking for these, then there are bazillions of other websites already doing them.  For nothing am I going to run a blog to bore myself to tears. 

And while it may be amusing and controversial to do a 'Hello' magazine type reportage on bonsai personalities, there really isn't anyone in the bonsai world that I can think of who is on par with Paris Hilton for this type of 'newsworthiness'.  Underwear notwithstanding.  (And please - if you do know someone who fits the bill, please don't tell me. Oh. Wait. Hmmm....)

So this blog has evolved into something a bit more like a personal record of events.  What have not changed are the tools I use: all my photos are still taken on my Sony Ericsson phone, most of the staged photos are either taken in my kitchen or in the front room.  I don't use any professional photographic equipment as I can't be bothered to do any complicated set-up.  Little or no manipulation is done to the photos, the most I will do is try to enhance brightness or contrast; again as I have neither the time nor the inclination to learn how to use the software.

So to the old friends who have been on this journey with me for the past year, thanks for sticking 'round.  To the new friends who have bumped up my stat numbers, thanks for dropping by.  Don't bother looking for the stat analysis, do you really think I'm going to get up off my bum to look the numbers up?  Hmpfh.

Looking forward to another year with y'all.  Yeee-hah.

Bonsai Streaming by on Twitter

Over the last couple of days, I've followed several interesting 3-way Twitter discussions on various bonsai-related topics:  the use of colour and glazes of bonsai pots, choosing a bonsai pot, the position of a tree in the pot, soil contour in a pot to complement the flow of the tree, etc.  Protagonists of these discussions were @MoKusa, @bonsaibanter  and @ExtremeWork.  A minor and boring detail called the day job prevented me from joining in tweet streams that sometimes spanned a couple of days.  Unfortunately I don't have software that allowed me to copy and archive the streams either. 

But, Plan B - I haz one!  Iz called a blog! Dis blog here, even!

So here is my version of coming late to the party, but sticking my oar in nonetheless.  Mixed metaphors, I haz dem too.

One of the early discussions reminded me of a lively interchange between TOH and myself over the right pot for our Satsuki Azalea 'Kinsai'.  We are pretty much agreed on the (approximate) shape, depth and other dimensions of the pot but where our opinions diverge (and boy do they diverge) are on what we consider a suitable colour and texture for Kinsai's new home.

So backtrack a bit to where we are coming from: TOH's visual composition background is rooted in photography; mine is in a traditional Western Art education, particularly painting and illustration; as for the Kinsai, it's coming out this pot:

I'm also coming from the standpoint of a person who doesn't like the colour of Kinsai flowers.  TOH utterly loves it.  So my choice of pot colour is driven by a desire to mitigate an effect, TOH's goal is to emphasize and provide a frame to that colour.  Damage Limitation vs Enhancement.

Most people would say Kinsai has red flowers (and that would be true); but I would like to qualify that this is a warm red, i.e. veering towards orange rather than towards violet.  Whether you can see that from the photo will very likely depend on your screen resolution.

My point of view is that our interpretation of colour is very subjective, even though quantifiable (so to speak) definitions exist for various pure spectral colours, for example.  So the definition of the colour 'red' in approximate frequencies (in terahertz) and wavelengths (in nanometers) would be a frequency interval of ~ 430–480 THz  and a wavelength interval of ~ 700–635 nm.  (Source: Wikipedia)

But that doesn't quite tell my brain and naked eye if they should be looking for the red of a postbox, the red of a child's crayon or the red of (fresh) blood, for example.  So my brain tends to refer to the crayons of my childhood when I envisage the primary and secondary colours.  Because really, who can see all of the 7 colours of a rainbow with their naked eye anyway?

So back to our Kinsai and its warm-hued red spider flowers (because yes, the great majority of its flowers are the thin spidery kind - at least it's doing one thing right) and our colour choice for a pot.  My damage limitation tendency leads me to balance off the 'orange-red' with its colour complements, i.e. a glossy two-tone glaze of blue-green.  TOH, with a 'if you've got it flaunt it' attitude, is leaning towards a contrast using a matte black glaze.  Our compromise?  We asked the potter to make 2 pots, one in each glaze and  we'll decide come re-potting day by holding each one up against the Satsuki.  Not quite the dramatic flair of the wisdom of Solomon, but a practical solution that was arrived to in less than 5 seconds.  We've obviously had disagreements like this before.

What we haven't agreed on either is whether a high-gloss glaze will advance visually so much that it would overpower a tree, no matter how strong the visual weight of said tree.  My contention is that a balance can always be achieved, TOH feels that would be unlikely and the extreme gloss would always call attention to itself and overshadow the tree.  But, until we have the physical evidence before our eyes, we'd never really resolve that one, would we?

Just to make things more difficult, the political question of who the potter should please becomes a tricky one: I paid for the Kinsai but I also gave it to TOH as an unbirthday present.  So the tree is technically TOH's but I am also very likely going to pay for the pot.  So as far as customer satisfaction is concerned, who is the potter's customer anyway?

That aside, if you are on Twitter and are inclined to follow more erudite discussions on the art, craft and science that is bonsai, then add these guys to your follow list.

PS: What's an unbirthday present?  If you can't be bothered to read Alice in Wonderland, there's always Google :D

Bonsai Trompe l'oeil

We once had a prominent bonsai professional stay over during a workshop we were running during our club's Summer Show many years ago, and he did his utter best to persuade us to downsize on the number of trees we were growing.  While he may have made many salient points, this past winter has also shown me that having a very wide selection of bonsai on hand means that pulling out a half-dozen or so for a winter display means neither headbanging nor panic.

So here is the line-up I dragged out of the garden for the Swindon Winter Image Show, warts and all.  My first post on prepping a display for a show is here.  The only thing that's changed for me in 2010 is that, due to the really hard winter, we still aren't able to say what trees (and accent plants particularly) will be likely candidates for future shows this year.  So you could probably say that this is my 2010 starting line-up.

This shohin Kiyohime maple on rock has been shown previously on this blog and is in a shallow white Walsall pot; over time the white has faded to a very light grey, with a tinge reminiscent of celadon.  The tree has come out of the winter without incident.  The moss, on the other hand, is way more than manky.  Prepping this type of composition is a real pain, as I try to use as much of the old, established moss as possible. 

So I took 2 different types of moss, trimming off the back soil / leaves / crud to have as flat a moss 'sheet' as possible.  Then I broke it all up into randomly sized patches, some of them maybe only 2 mm wide, others several centimetres in length.  Then, using a toothpick, I 'patchworked' the pieces together onto the old moss.  The effect I was looking for was an established planting rather than a freshly laid-on topping.  The final result is this:

Work still needs to be done to this shohin to improve the trunk line and shorten some of the branches. 

And in this post is this Chaenomeles japonica just after Swindon show last year.  Fast forward to 2010 and just a few days before this year's show, the moss decided to give up the ghost and crumble off the pot, leaving this:

Again out with the toothpick and the mossy bitty bits.  A whole evening spent in a crate indoors brought out a bit more colour in the flower buds.  And just so you know, the plant cost a fiver about 4 years ago:

Here's a close-up of the moss 'weave'.  You can clearly see the 3 different types of moss used:

This Ivy was dug out of our last garden over 15 years ago and is planted in what we call the dragon's egg (potter is unknown, unfortunately).  In this post is what it looked like in the summer last year, and below is how it's come out of a winter in a cold greenhouse heated to 0 degrees Celsius. 

Later in the spring I'll try a bit of defoliation on the Ivy so I get some nice spring colour (and possibly smaller leaves).  Again, some patchwork retouching had to be done to the moss on this guy.

This Satsuki Azalea (damn if I didn't lose the bloody label somewhere so don't ask me what variety) lives outdoors all year long and had its head buried in snow like the rest of these guys.  It's come out of that with tons of new growth as you can see from its back...

...and from its front.  How do I tell the one from the other?  It's hard to tell from these photos, but the tree actually does 'bow' pronouncedly to you from this angle.

This is one of TOH's earliest Japanese White Pines and it started life as a formal upright.  Unfortunately the wrong instructions in a bonsai book led to the loss of both lower branches and it is now a literati.  It has also been knocked out of its pot twice in the past year, so it is now slightly overpotted. And in what to me is one ugly, clunky drum pot.

This view is not the precise front of the tree, but IMO it illustrates best how the trunk line runs up and 'bows' toward the viewer. 

I'll also have to say that my fave way of prepping a tree for display is straight akadama as it is dead simple.  I've now gone off the half-akadama (or soil) / half-moss look as I find it can look rather contrived.  So I either go whole hog and do a full moss weave thing or I do pure soil (like when I'm fed up of prepping trees and just want to get it over and done with).  I tend to let myself be guided by what the tree looks like before the blackbirds get to it.  Hurrr.

Swindon Winter Image Bonsai Show

By now there are probably lots of photos and write-ups out there floating on the Web on the Swindon Winter Image Bonsai Show; and a rather precise synthesis done by @ExtremeWork on Twitter.  So I'm not going to try and duplicate any effort here.  But I will share what photos I took.  And tell you what I did (other than stuffing my face).

So of course I will mention the cakes at this point.  Top of the list.  Because anyone who is in the know will agree that Swindon Show is also about the cakes. As the show is a fund-raiser for the club, the cake sale is one of our favourite ways of showing our support.

After that show of team spirit, the bulk of my time today was spent catching up with people; some were at the Noelanders show last month but most of the local club people I hadn't seen since last year.  So it was good to catch up with the Welsh lads again (nope, no karaoke this time) and the guys who got back from Japan, although not to the depth of detail that I would've liked.  Also met up with @grumblemouse, and we had a good natter during the day. 

I also need to mention that John Pitt got snowed in and didn't make it to the show, so I didn't get my dose of annoying the Pitt-boss which is also part of the show ritual for me. Snow nearly prevented the Walsall lads from getting there,which would've been a right freak-out as they had made the trophies.

Food in general (and Japanese food in particular), being one of the big loves of my life, I always used to spend a great deal of time talking to both Bob of Dai Ichi Bonsai and Ken of Windybanks about food.  During this show, that important part of the ritual got chopped down so drastically I didn't even get to grill @AntiqueNetsuke about the nosh during his very recent trip to Japan (nor did we talk about the Kokofu show either).  So if I didn't get to do all that bit, you can imagine that taking pics fell way down in my list of priorities today. 

Lots more snowdrops in today's show than last year.  Examples from the Phoenix Bonsai Group display and from Chie-san's Kusamono display:

 

 

An accent plant on the Artistic Bonsai Circle display. As the owner wasn't around, I wasn't able to ask what plants were in the composition but it looks to me like Ajuga, Ophiophogon, Equisetum and a rush.

Bulbs are big at this time of the year.  A fine set of Irises was on display at the Phoenix stand (sorry, missed that opp) and some yellow Crocuses were on the Eastleigh Bonsai display.

Here is a Chinese Juniper (AKA Shinpaku) on a rather unusual display table. The owner got it in its raw state at the Westonbirt Festival of Wood - for a fiver.  A bit of elbow grease (and just a little bit more dosh), transformed it into an unusual bonsai accoutrement.  He reckons a total of 20 quid spent.  Not bad...

And more from the same person, a mame Lonicera (about 3 in / 8 cm high) that was dug out of a hedge.

Going up in tree size, here is a Trident maple on rock.  If you look closely, there's a dragon nestled in the interior of the cave.  Over the years I've seen this bonsai displayed alone as well as with all sorts of figurines inside the cave, possible a tiny beer can even, if I recall correctly.  Proof that you don't always have to take everything seriously.  But you can if you want to.

And this is the winter image of this Alder.  I have heard varying views on this particular tree at this time of the year, and I will confess to having a preference for the tree with its summer foliage on.  Simply because I find it particularly impressive then.

And yes, I need to be impressed.  So I'm shallow.  Sue me.

But as I am of a generous and giving nature (coughing fits at this point) I will leave you with @ExtremeWork's beautifully compact summary that went out on Twitter earlier this evening.  My thanks to the author for allowing me to use their text.  And if you're not familiar with how the Twitter timeline goes, you'll need to start reading from the bottom and work your way to the top.  Otherwise, feel free to read this synopsis backwards.

- Swindon & District Bonsai Society as always were excellent host & made all welcome. Cake was up to usual high quality and met expectations.

- Chie-san had a very nice selection of kusamono on display and was taking bookings for her workshop on 16 April

- Ken from Windybanks had some very nice material and small trees to show and is expecting new stoock imminently.

- Dai Ichi Bonsai had imported Japanese pots and stands on offer with a few very nice Satsuki Azalea.

- Chris Thomas had some fine Larix and his usual collection of accoutrements on offer.

- Andy Pearson had a range of his pots including some unusually large pots from his kiln.

- Paul Goff had a very nice range of scrolls and was gathering interest for the Bonsai Review that he publishes.

- David and Mark from Walsall Ceramics Studio made early calls to check weather in Swindon and arrived with some very nice pots.

- Weather up North seems to have hampered some from arriving. John Pitt (John Pitt Bonsai Ceramics) was redirected with heavy snow.

- Phoenix, Solent, Newbury, Cotswolds and the Splinter Group had good society displays. Artistic Bonsai Circle's trees to their normal high standard on display

- Dragon Bonsai and New Dawn Bonsai had some exquisite trees and some old friends on display to very high standard.

- British Shohin Association and ABBA's displays were well presented.

- A good show of very finely ramified Chinese Elms, Ian's Hornbeam group has recovered well from its trip to the Noelanders Trophy in Belgium

- Some of the really nice exhibits at the Swindon Bonsai Show were the mame There was a good range of varieties & the trees were small.

- Back from Swindon. Bonsai were of the usual high standard. Met lots of friends and caught up on the gossip. Great day of bonsai ...

First Bonsai Re-potting Day of the Year....

... and it was bloody cold.  Whatever body parts that could've frozen off - did; or at least it felt like it.

Teacher-san came down and we worked on whatever trees we could.  It should have been a mega re-potting day but we were slowed down by a lot of frozen rootballs.  Several got started on in the morning, put into the cold greenhouse to thaw, then picked up again in the afternoon. 

Never realised either what a funny sound a frozen rootball makes when you thunk it (to check if it's really frozen, not just for the sake of thunking, OK).

Anyway, here's one of the smaller guys that got re-potted.  A Lonicera nitida (normally a hedging plant here) which is one of TOH's WIPs.  This was bought at a club auction for a couple of quid last year.  The horizontal jin was shortened by about 6 inches (15 cm) and I believe TOH has plans of re-working the jin at the front to make it look more naturally weathered.  This is a shohin-sized tree, probably about 7 in / 18 cm from base of the pot.

The other bonsai we worked on yesterday are a bit too big for me to photograph at home, so if they're ever taken to a show later in the year, maybe I'll post photos here.  The long cotoneaster cascade will have to wait until we find a better pot for it, though.

So, on to other smaller stuff. 

This is an overpotted Cristata Davallia fern, which I got last year.  I was told it goes dormant in the winter but it's held on to its one frond despite the cold.

Here is a group of cyclamen in flower, plus a moss accent.  To give an idea of scale, the moss in the thimble pot is less than an inch (2.54 cm) high. The cyclamen self-seeded in the greenhouse about 3 years ago and this is the second year they've flowered.  Their corms haven't grown much bigger, nor do their leaves get any larger, or any more numerous.

I'll tell you what I should've taken a photo of, though - TOH's Peach Cobbler, which was an absolute delight.  We did linger over lunch with Teacher-san, talking about pots and going over the latest issue of the Nippon Bonsai Association's magazine.  Anything to stay out of the cold, as far as my interests were concerned...