bonsai 2 you

been shopping...

2008-02-02T23:11:00.000Z

Had a couple of trips to bonsai nuseries over the last week. Windybank last week and Herons today. What a contrast!

Widybank... what can I say. Arrived just about an hour before they shut was allowed access to a lovely clean loo after having a slow journey then was offered a cup of coffee, brilliant! Clean, tidy, stock small but in great condition, prices increadably reasonable and I wasn't aware of any weeds. Spent over a £100 on bits and bobs, soil, tools and a very inexpensive Jap maple. Picture to follow...

Today Herons, mmmm chalk and cheese... Herons is large and only one person in evidence. My wife used the loo and wasn't impressed, I'll leave the rest to your imagination! As a bonus she did see the great man himself on the leaving, that's a consolation? The lad that served us was friendly but the prices, weeds and poor state of the nursery is a travesty. Peter Chan used to run a nice clean tidy nursery but now (I know it's early in the year so didn't expect the trees to be all out but but Windybank managed it!). If Windybank can do it on limited time and I guess budget I'm dam sure Chan can on his prices and with staff or maybe that's the problem. All this didn't stop me spending a few bob on Kiryu, Kyodama a couple of small larches to increase the size of my larch group plus a few black pine starter plants for an experiment. The consolation of the trip was a nice lunch at the Wiremill pub just round the corner.

I'll add some pictures of all the trees - this time I promise!

Oh dear

2008-01-18T18:38:00.000Z

Well started off well but ended up failing badly!

7 blog entry's in the year with the last in April! There were plenty of promises about pictures of the hornbeam I purchased and no action. Well...

2008 has to be a better year and lets face facts it's not going to take much to beat 7 entries. The hornbeam had 3 air layers taken from it and more this year are planned.

Just returned to work after another 4 weeks off this time with a suspected stroke but the jury is out on that till the hospital can prove it (at the moment they don't have another idea for my 'strange' symptoms. This gave me the chance to read all 200plus bonsai today and Bonsai Europe mags (from issue 1) I have. This really fired me up and this year I plan on hitting the bonsai big time. I've been at it 30 years or so now and, well guess.

Anyway 2007 was all about the launch of my web site on VW T25 www.volkswagent25.co.uk. This has all settled down now and it's all about maintenance, though my wife keeps coming up with more ideas than I have time to deal with!

That's it for now more later.

what still no...

2007-04-01T21:09:00.001Z

Yes I know...

Still no picture!

2007-02-09T21:58:00.000Z

As I've just posted on the T25 blog I started back to work this week :-( This means less free time and more effort to post on the blogs and set up/edit the web site. Oh well got to put bread on the table... Just hope I've not gone back to soon.

I did take some pictures earlier in the week but all worse than useless for illustrating what I want. Couldn't get my new toy (Pentax DSLR) to do what I wanted - must be the camera, mustn't it? If weather holds out this weekend I may have another go but with having to start stripping the van out in preparation for the welding in 11 days time it maybe a tall order.

Trees have been well frosted this week but the sun's been warm by mid day, this is encouraging buds to swell a bit to soon for my liking... The Potentilla Fruticosa has already broken into leaf, last month! A good bit of TLC is going to be required to keep this alive if we get a really bad snap.

it's almost here

2007-01-29T19:44:00.000Z

Got the haircut now have charged batteries up, so... Maybe tomorrow!

No picture maybe but have started working out plan for where to execute the layers and how many I can (should be able to) get done this year. I'm reckoning on two this year (one to split the tree in two plus one off the top) Two trees then for next year and maybe I'll be able to do four layers next year! Or is that in my dreams!
Paul

Picture almost here!

2007-01-27T19:02:00.000Z

OK so the picture of the yamadori I bought the other day still not been taken! Why? Well I need to get a hair cut and get all dressed up to 'pose' with the tree, all to demonstrate the scale you'll understand! Maybe tomorrow, so probably not best to hold your breath!

2007-01-19T15:58:00.000Z

Here's one corner of our garden. It's small and tranquel and houses about two thirds of my trees. Great for a quiet evening chat and a glass or two or bottle with my wife in the summer. Enjoy (we do)!

More in the future

Day 2 and another tree to the collection!

2007-01-19T14:14:00.000Z

Had a good morning...

Weather sunny and cloudy, got my chores done and went off to a specialist tree nursery. Sad I know but what a treat! I could have spent a fortune and if we had a bit of land I could make a fortune in growing on 'potensei' or 'yamadori' (material for developing specimen bonsai), and maybe give up the day job (now wouldn't that be nice!). The best I spotted was a Hornbeam. It had a massive (I mean massive) taper of some 50cm (20" in old money) at soil level, apart from the fact it was some 3mtr (almost 10ft) tall(!) it did have the potential for a number of air layers (up to about ten or more I reckoned), this made it good value (IMHO). The down side to all this was: cost (£200 inc. the Chancellors cut); it wouldn't fit in the car (a Corsa!) and my wife would have gone 'nuts' if she'd come home from work and found it in the back yard (I know my place...). Mind you I did buy a Hornbeam just not the one above;-( It has potential, just not as much as the tree discussed above. I hope to get about 4 or 5 upright style and a 'mame' layers off it. I'll post a picture later and plot my progress over the summer, so watch this space.

Here we go!

2007-01-18T14:01:00.000Z

I'm off work stressed, the weather's 'bad' outside, too bad to do anything to my bonsai, so what am I doing? Well I've spent a day browsing the web and thought OK can't do much to my trees (they'd get blown away in 60+MPH winds!) so why not start writing about them!

Good things grow from small beginnings so here goes... Got the blog, possibly a web site to follow and who knows what else!

Happy bonsai(ing)
Paul