Oct 24, 2017 | General
This year we have been the target of an unusually high number of attempts to nick our stuff by thieving bastards using stolen cards and the like. Sadly one of these low life scum bags got away with it. In August we sold a juniper to Mr Darren Deschauer of Clyde Vale, Old Perry St, DA11 8BT (Actually in Gravesend, Kent) – 07484871120. Only now does our payment provider demand their money back and so the little guy loses, that being me. Not to worry because I am big enough to get over it. However I am hoping nobody has been offered this stolen tree for sale. If you do, let us know. You could call the police but based on previous experience they won’t be interested. If you know who has our juniper let me know so I can feed my dogs 😉
G.
Update:
Turns out that Mr Darren Deschauer is the owner of the card in question and not the perpetrator of the fraud so please don’t find him and bash him over the head on my behalf. On the other hand if you feel inclined to pop down the the address in Gravesend and peek over the fence, in the unlikely event you spot my bonsai I have a posse that would like to know 😉
Sep 29, 2017 | General
They always told me when you get older time seems to pass much faster. I have no idea what constitutes ‘older’ but time now seems to pass me by like money slipping through a politicians hands. Bonsai is very good at marking time for us or, should I say bonsai is very good at making us aware of how little time we have. I remember when I started all this malarkey thirty years ago I had real problems getting to grips with how slow trees grow and how long it was taking my trees to develop into bonsai. In retrospect it was the fact I did not have enough trees to work on and those I did have i was intently busy killing, slowly. With two to three thousand pots now there is literally a lifetimes work here for a small band of workers and we will NEVER be done with it. The great advantage of so many plants it that some just lounge around developing really nicely all on their own without my bothering them. Sometimes bonsai need to be left alone and, assuming you kept some piccies, the rate of progress can, on occasions, be quite alarming. These days a lot of trees I had a hand in starting as bonsai are in the hands of good folk who like to look after them and once in a while they come to visit.
One such visit happened today, a sabina juniper I sold last year came back to see me and get a hair cut. To see the original story go back and read – Demo’ Result & A Dumb-ass Deal.
I am still reeling from my own stupidity and now I have salt in the wound. My good mate Tim (aka Uncle Albert ,now 85) does a very good job looking after trees when he’s not torturing them having gone away on holiday for two weeks in the summer. That being the case I was very happy to see this sabina juniper return looking so hale and hearty. Since my demo’ back in May 2016 no work has been done on this tree other than careful siting in the garden and water management. Over that period the tree has had chance to settle itself and recover, make foliage, wood and roots. The result is a tree where the wiring has done it’s job and once removed everything is staying in place. The tree is drinking water and the beautiful foliage is soaking up the sun  producing lots of energy for more growth.
Now that the tree has filled out so well and settled down we can take a small step forward. Today there was insufficient time to prune the foliage as much as I would like but then, in the UK, I have found that taking away too much foliage from a juniper will put a crimp in it’s ability to develop further. Now is also the time to review the style of the tree. We have removed the larger wire and taken out a couple of branches that are no longer required which has helped balance the design. We started thinning the foliage and cleaning the underside of the foliage pads. Finally, as the tree has done so well and been in this pot for five years I was happy to make the move to a more maneagable pot. Early autumn seems to be the best time for this where a sabina juniper is concerned. These is no need to go mad at the first re-pot, it’s not required to strip out all of the old soil, every time I have done this in the past  junipers go into serious decline and often take several years to come back. Just a little tickle around the sides and the bear minimum of root reduction. This tree will never notice the difference and will maintain it’s momentum.
I am very resistant to putting trees into bonsai pots. I have said before that putting a tree into a bonsai pot does not make it bonsai, just like living in a garage does not make you a car. Bonsai pots look nice and help us to slow the growth rate of a tree in order to achieve beautiful refinement. In most instances putting an undeveloped plant into a bonsai pot means it will never develop well or reach it’s true potential. Save bonsai pots for bonsai trees! That’s the secret to this junipers amazing development over the last eighteen months. It’s nice to feel we are getting somewhere with our bonsai and the secret by and large is not to do anything unless your tree is ready, what YOU want to do is entirely immaterial and irrelevant. For me the joy of bonsai is the process not the result but if you fall in love with the process and master all it’s complex elements your trees will be more beautiful than you could ever have imagined. My bonsai came from a love of nature and the magic of our natural environment only exists in the absence of meddling humans. Creating a little piece of natural magic in a pot ultimately means we have to allow it to happen, not get in the way. Once finished there must be absolutely no evidence our intrusive hands were ever involved. Sadly many bonsai we see, and those that get the most attention, are overly affected by those meddling hands creating pretentious, loud and showy images that are far removed from what nature, and time, left to their own devices created that inspired us in the first place. It’s very easy to get bogged down in the noise and clamour and suffocate ourselves in the complexities of technique. The plants we have for creating bonsai desperately want to be beautiful and, by and large, all we have to do is let them. Learn to be a gardener, outside in the sun and rain, and forget the rest!
G.
May 2016, cleaned up ready for working
May 2016 post demo’.
Autumn 2017 and ready for some more work
A very light prune and a couple of branches removed result in a more open balanced appearance.
A little tickle around the roots and into a pot. Amazing what largely doing nothing can achieve.
Sep 20, 2017 | General
In the UK summer is such a precious commodity we have to squeeze every drop of goodness out of it. By and large we don’t work trees over summer except for a few maples and the constant pruning back of fast growing broad leaf varieties. Making the most of that tiny handful of long warm days so our bonsai make the most growth possible, by and large, means leaving well alone other than watering and fertilising. After thirty years of constant disappointment in the summer weather I have come to the point where I am just thankful for small mercies.
This summer started of with GREAT promise, an early spring, beautiful clear sunshine and temperatures ten degrees warmer than normal. Living near the coast the spring is typically much later arriving than it is inland but by June this year we were in the twenties and I don’t remember that happening before. All this bode well for what is traditionally the hottest period of the year here, July to mid-August. A couple of days into July I opened the door early in the morning only to be greeted by a slight chill (normally happens at the end of August), the first harbinger of autumn. Incredibly since that day the temperatures have been falling. In thirty years cultivating bonsai this is the first time I have seen autumn colour in August! I kid you not, we had trident maples turning yellow and red nearly a month ago. The parthenocissus on the garden fence is, as I write, turning red at least five weeks early.
Being a glass half full kind of a fellow ( ?????? WTF) and putting a brave face on the cruel British climate we may have lost some growing days but at least we can get to work a bit earlier this year. Because trees are busy growing in summer we always wait until that’s all over before we begin working lots of our yamadori into bonsai. That way we have a lot of new foliage to use and the trees energy levels will be high. I normally have a pretty frantic autumn trying to get a bunch of trees worked whilst getting ready for ……..CHRISTMAS (yes you heard it here first in 2017). However this year I have started a month early with this evergreen Barbary oak.
Lots more to follow this fall.
Also a nice Sabina juniper from last weekends workshop.
G.
Sep 18, 2017 | General
Anyone who knows me will know that next to bonsai and my family my great passion in life is motorcycles. I have been very blessed to be able to assemble a nice little collection over the last few years. I thought it was high time I put one to good use and so this weekend will be joining thousands of riders around the globe on the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. Raising awareness and funds for men’s mental health issues and prostate cancer. You may not have seen me in a shirt and tie before but if you are in the Bury St Edmunds area this Sunday it’s your big chance 😉
Please visit this great event if there is one near you or donate here.
G.
Had a great day and collectively raised over £12k for a very important charity. SINCERE thanks to those of you who sponsored me 😉 It’s not too late to donate!
Now back to work
Sep 13, 2017 | General
Nothing lasts for ever (except politicians bulls**t) and so it is with the very first line of bonsai pots we ever offered for sale. These plastic pots are seen literally everywhere and it’s a sad day that they are no more. We have limited stock having bought the last of what was available so if you need some don’t wait or you will miss out.
What we have left is listed here Plastic Bonsai Training Pots
On the bright side we have been buying pots for next spring, so far well over a thousand pots have arrived and will be going up on our web site soon. Bonsai pot supply is becoming increasingly unreliable and expensive over the last couple of years as many manufacturers are changing production to more profitable items such as teapots. As a result there are fewer manufacturers, less choice, falling quality and increasing prices. We are buying up all the old stock we can find but expect to see prices rising for the foreseeable future.
If you are going to need pots for next spring start shopping early 😉
G.
Jul 29, 2017 | General
Just in case you missed it I have a lot of video content on Youtube and embedded right here. Most of those were made a few years back before we became as successful as we have now and before we got so busy. It’s not been possible to do anything for a couple of years now. Back then it was pretty much easy to do as you like and so I put lots of, what i think, is cool music on the vid’s. However that’s now become an issue (copyright) and so we have had to remove most of it. That’s left a lot of crap videos with even crappier soundtracks. I am so sick of dealing with Yt and their bullshit and having my content relentlessly ripped off that I will be removing all of the content over time.
One of the issues we had when making these vid’s back then was a 10 minute time limit imposed by YT. That left out pretty much all of the good stuff. A lot of the videos run to an hour or more in their unedited form. By and large we still have all the original footage and it would be nice if we could get that all put into a new production for folk to see. The problem I have is that I hate doing that sort of thing and am crap at it too. I also have full 12 hour days every day and don’t have a minute to give to such a project. Therefore I am looking for help…….
If you are a grown up sensible person with a proven track record of dealing with these matters, know bonsai and can deal with an opinionated asshole like me then we need to talk. Over the years I have been seen off, ripped off and peed all over by a large number of idiots so don’t be surprised if you are not initially welcomed with open arms.
Now theres a pitch for a project 😉
G.
