To Sphagnum or not to Sphagnum?

That is a rhetorical question, for in no way do I wish to emulate the Bard. (Well, only a little :o)

Nor do I wish to make this a 'how-to' post.  That was never the purpose of this blog.  Loads of other sites on the interwebs for that, some with people advocating their way or no way.  And they probably do it with a lot more brio and conviction than I ever will. 

Once in a while, though, I will answer a question or tell you what we do and why.  What you do with that information is all up to you.

This one is a result of a remark a friend made, when TOH said we top-dress our newly re-potted trees with chopped sphagnum moss.  This protects the top layer from drying out, since this is the layer where the feeding roots tend to be most active.  The contention is that, this would encourage the roots to grow into the sphagnum (i.e. up towards the surface) rather than down into the soil (i.e. towards the bottom of the pot). 

The only time we've ever had the experience of roots growing towards the top of the soil is when we used to lay down the large cakes of rapeseed fertiliser.   This acted like some sort of root magnet but we have long since gone for other forms of fertiliser, since the decomposing rapeseed cakes are a blackbird magnet as well as a root magnet.  The blackbirds used to chuck the rapeseed cakes off the bonsai and go for the grubs that would inevitably come with the decomposition factor.

So, going back to the chopped sphagnum layer.  What we do is blitz the stuff in a food processor, so that it comes out in relatively fine flakes.  We first started out by grating it over a fine-meshed metal sieve, but ditched that for a more high-tech method.  'Cos I'm all about the user friendliness, y'know... :D

A thick-ish layer (about 5 - 8 mm) of this finely-chopped sphagnum is laid over our top dressing of fine Akadama, then tamped down and misted well so that the whole lot doesn't go flying off at the initial watering.  The newly re-potted bonsai is then given a VERY thorough drenching, then left alone until the layer of sphagnum starts to show signs of drying out.  Then it gets drenched again, then only re-watered until the sphagnum does its show-and-tell thing again.  And so on ad infinitum for the rest of the life of the bonsai (or until real live moss starts growing over the existing sphagnum layer).  Which is basically the same way we water every potted (or not) thing in the garden - accent plants, kusamono, et al.

To illustrate the sphagnum business, this is a 7-lobed Japanese maple (previously featured in this post) that was re-potted at the tail end of this Winter.  The top dressing of sphagnum moss is lighter in colour before watering, thus making it easy to identify which trees are in need of a drink:

And after watering (check out the water mark on the bark of the tree), it goes a darker colour (and so does the Akadama; click to enlarge the photo).  The moss also clumps together when it's wet:

Before watering, the top layer of akadama just beneath the sphagnum is only very slightly damp while the lower layers of soil deep beneath will still retain more moisture; hence the feeding roots will naturally find their way towards this source of water.  Another person I know used to call this 'making the roots work'.

The sphagnum moss layer prevents erosion of the top soil layer, particularly for people like me who use a watering hose.  Here is where we haven't bothered to replenish the sphagnum dressing on this exposed-root Trident Maple, which of course is not the most energised of bunnies at the moment:

I suppose, if I were less careful with the watering and kept the soil evenly damp all the time, the roots of our bonsai would probably work their way to the top layer of sphagnum moss.  I would probably also have lost lots of trees by now.  Still, we have been using this top-dressing method for the past 10 years at least, so there must be some merit to our madness.

Some people say the moss should be taken off after a time - I've never bothered as the birds tend to do that for me, either through boredom, foraging, nest-building or just the desire to cheese me off.  If anything, we wind up having to renew the moss layer after a few months as it gets eroded by watering and bird activity.  And it is fairly easy to tell if moss has started growing due to over-watering; it has this sort of manky look to it, plus the surface would always be wet to the touch anyway.

A word about the sphagnum-blitzing business, though: it really does tend to get blown away by the slightest breeze once it's finely chopped.  And watering - either with a hose or by dunking - is another quick way to lose the lot when it's freshly laid.  Hence our utter reliance on a good nozzle that has a 'mist' feature.  Never say you haven't been warned...

BTW, did anyone notice the gratuitous pun embedded discreetly up there?  Energised?  Bunnies? Yes? Yes?

Then and Now: Larches on a Slab

There is a plus side to blogging, I suppose.  While blathering nonsense to the ether, I've also wound up with an inadvertent photographic history of the development of some of our trees.  Take this European Larch group, for instance.  TOH created this planting using a bit of fake slate.

This was part of a blog post which dates back to the summer of 2009.  Almost two years later and - wonder of wonders - the roots have stabilised enough that moss has started to grow of its own accord on the surface of the planting. 

Which now looks like this:

The slab is faux slate, so actually not all that heavy (not that anyone is carrying this thing around).  The soil mixture is akadama, some organics (peat substitute of some description) and Keto to bind it all together.  The planting was top-dressed with some chopped sphagnum moss, but the birds made away with all of that almost immediately, and we gave up fighting a losing battle after a couple of seasons.  The Larches were some not-very-expensive saplings bought from one of the Bonsai nurserymen at a show, and TOH keeps threatening to add a few younger, thinner ones to get a bit of difference in trunk size (the close similarity of the trunk diameters make the planting look boring and a bit contrived, IMO).  I suppose it will happen one day, when we find the right size saplings. 

The curious thing about the whole thing is that the group is just sat on top of the slab.  There are no drainage or wiring holes.  Initially, wire was wrapped around the whole lot to keep the planting from falling apart.  Years later and the roots have knitted themselves together, moss has grown naturally and the birds have (fingers and toes crossed) ignored all that freebie nesting material.  Or they have decided that our nicer-looking, more mature trees are better objects for vandalism.  And gravity just keeps the whole planting sat on top of the slab.  Double-click on the photo to enlarge, you will notice the Larch roots sticking out of the bottom edge of the planting, just under the moss.  OK, so some of it is dead Larch needles (so what if I didn't tart up before taking the photo; bite me), but most of it is roots that have given up any attempts of encroachment.

Had we been a bit more anal about clearing out the dead needles, I suppose we would have more moss growing in the centre of the group.  As it is, I'm quite happy to see that what moss we have is thriving without any assistance on our part.  I will occasionally pull out the odd weed, but that is only when my conscience actually wakes up and takes notice of the world around me.

And one can only hope a big, fat pigeon doesn't decide to land on one edge of the slab.  Otherwise, boy will it be in for a suprise :D

The first photograph is courtesy of our friend Stef in the Netherlands, to whom BTW I still owe an e-mail along with a few hundred other folks.  Join the queue, Stef...

Red Japanese Maple - in flower, no less

Last week ended with a Spring re-potting and pruning session with Teacher-san.  Almost a whole day gratifyingly consecrated to the trees - not just those that needed root and branch work but also those that just needed their top dressing refreshed; plus some weeding, clearing out dead branches, checking benches for pests, etc.  Everything in a pot got looked at, Accent Plants as well as this ornamental red Maple in a very large patio pot.

Although this would be considered a patio plant rather than a 'true' bonsai (unless you are one of those nitpicking purists so PLEASE let's not argue semantics here, OK?), the lessons learned are what are of interest.  'Nuff said.

This is the first year where this Maple has produced so much flower - you'll notice the little dangly things running all the way along the branches, right up to the very edge of the extending shoots.  Teacher-san took one look and said, 'pot-bound.'  Apparently when there is that much flower, particularly when it goes up to the leader shoots, then that's a sure sign that the old root pruners need to come out.

Sure does look pretty, though - a bit like an ersatz Christmas tree.  And when you think all that flowering effort is all about reproducing... oh yes, an oversexed red Maple.  Oh my, oh my , oh my.

Swiftly leaving that topic... in the background, visible through the Maple leaves, are rows of Accent Plants on shelving propped against a wall.  Although this gives them some protection during the Winter, the last couple of years have been pretty hard and we have lost a couple of the more fragile plants.  Even among the plants we keep in the cold greenhouse, we've lost some Shohin bonsai and Accent Plants.  This coming on after a holiday taken during a very hot May in 2010, where a lot of the smaller trees had dried out.  Lesson learned: when you have someone come to water your trees, make sure they REALLY REALLY understand what it is to water bonsai properly.  *sniff, sniff*

WIPs: Pseudocydonia and a Malus

Well... if you could see them, these are a couple of trees that TOH has been working on for years.  Both of them sit side by side in front of our patio doors and are protected somewhat from the worst of the weather.  Not that we think they particularly need the protection.  It's more a case of finding enough space to fit them, as they both have quite a spread when they are in leaf (and flower, as we just found out).  As it is, the trees don't look like much but their flowers do, so that's what you're getting.

The Pseudocydonia sinensis has been a Work In Progress for at least 10 years and last spring was only the second time it was re-potted since we've had it.  The first time, it was planted into neat akadama, I think this time some black (Fuji) grit was added into the mix.  It must have liked the root intervention work because it's never flowered so profusely before.  Either that or it was thinking of flowering big time this year anyway and the root work just shocked it into doing something.  Either way there are about 15 flower buds in various stages of opening.  This picture was taken a week ago and the warm weather has caused it to move on a bit since then.

It's actually a rather large tree (nearly 3 ft / 91 cm) from the base of the pot so you can understand why I didn't lift it out of its space to take the photo.  When the branch work is looking better (which could take years so don't hold your breath) I probably will, as there is an interesting hollowed-out feature in the trunk.  TOH discovered that when it was first repotted about 10 years ago, and finding tons of rotted trunk was not the best surprise at the time.  We don't know much about the habits of Chinese Quince and this guy has sort of been our guinea pig for the species. 

I can't say Pseudocydonia is the Speedy Gonzales of flowering trees but it does seem to be a fairly forgiving tree in terms of neglect (i.e. tough as old boots).  The flowers take weeks to open, so you do get a fairly long display season.  Getting good ramification is still a bit of a challenge for us, so I can only imagine how long it's taken for the guys who get to show off their Chinese Quinces at the Kokofu-ten, for example.

This Malus has been with us for about seven or eight years.  It's possibly a halliana or something similar and is also what I would call a butt-ugly tree at the moment, so it could be a WIP for a looooonnng time.  You can see the Chinese Quince's bright blue pot just behind it, and the legs of a couple of chairs as well, through the patio doors :D

As usual, we've lost the label so positive ID is a bit of a challenge.  Similar to its neighbour, this is the first year since we've had it that it's flowered as heavily and the flowers are rather pretty (which is why we got the tree in the first place) and a slightly stronger pink than the photo would suggest.  If only I could focus my phone properly.

I don't recall ever re-potting this tree, and it is in a rather boring unglazed dark brown pot which will get changed at the first opportunity as far as I'm concerned.  Our focus for the past two years has been to get it as healthy as we possibly could, so I've been more cautious with the watering and it also got fed heavily (like way heavy) last year.

Apparently the flowers are scented as well, so I guess I can't focus my nose either.  Hurrr.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

... or it could even be for Popsicle Bonsai

In this post I showed you pics that Stef took of our bonsai in the summer.  Well, scrub that from your mind and replace it with this:

and this:

The big freeze has been upon us, and the garden hose broke just before the snow fell.  Which of course happened overnight without anyone knowing anything about it until we looked out the window and saw these:

 Frozen accent plants

 Frozen shohin Picea, Chinese Juniper and a White Pine

And another frozen Chinese Juniper.  All the popsicle shohin have been moved into the cold greenhouse and have started to thaw out.  Fingers crossed. 

Everyone else (of the bonsai, that is) is sitting outside in the snow.  Ah, the joys of the holiday season...

Sum Moar Bonsai Trees? I Haz Dem!

So it's not quite the most seasonal set of photos.  So what?

Call it an autumn clear-out, when I've been going over the e-mails and photo folders to catalogue all the stuff people have sent me over the year.  All photos courtesy of Stef, who came to visit us in the summer with Joke, his other half.

This is the staging where a mix of shohin and bigger bonsai live.  There isn't a lot of science involved in our placement of trees - more like finding enough space to fit the things in without using a crowbar.  However, if something starts looking unhappy, then a new home has to be found.  Take the Trident Maple on rock (upper left-hand corner) and the large White Pine on the opposite side of the staging: they've been in the same spots forever and somehow seem to be doing all right, even if they don't really want the same growing conditions.  Somehow their little microclimate seems to work for them, and they've been there ever since.

 

A section of the central staging showing a large collected Scots Pine, some Junipers and whatnot.  And my favourite thing in the whole garden - the Pushpins!  Which are actually things that prevent the watering hose from bumping and coiling around the bonsai.

A shadier section of the central staging: another large collected Scots Pine, beeches, oaks and maples.  The guy at the very top is a triple-trunked Japanese Maple 'Chisio'.  Slightly to the right of him is a Weeping Willow that we have been working on for yonks....and we're still at it.  Oh - another Pushpin at the bottom right-hand corner :D

One of TOH's experiments - a group of little larches on a slab.  The variation in trunk sizes still needs working on (among a whole load of things), so this forest may not go on show for another decade or so.  Hurrr.

This group of small Chinese Elms somehow never goes deciduous in the winter, which probably just goes to show how mild our climate is.  Ignore the weeds though.  One problem with this group is that, although the pot is so large, the whole thing is really quite squat; so any display table it goes on needs to be both wide and tall.  Not many of them walking around, and the very few times this planting has gone out on show, we've had to borrow one of Robert's stands.  The group started with 7 cheap Chinese Elms and went through around 3 subsequent 'additions' whenever we found trees of the right height and girth.  The tallest tree stands probably no more than 7 in / 18 cm high, and we've probably had the group for at least 8 years now.  I think there are 19 trees in there now, but it really is a bit difficult to count them...