Dec 4, 2015 | General
Somewhere along the line I got saddled with the tag of being a wood carver in bonsai. For sure all my first trees were carved but that was only because I was too poor (and tight fisted) to buy good material. Once I got the hang of it everyone wanted to see how it was done and ever since 1999 I have been travelling all over doing carving demo’s …… Thinking about it I guess it’s kind of obvious.
Truth be known I hate wood as a working medium. I got the highest grade in woodworking in the history of my school but never followed it through. I ended up working with paper (I was in print for 21 years) but my first love was metal. I started gas flowing cylinder heads at nine years old. Sure it can be hard to work with but it just does what you want it too and does not care. Wood is finnicky and needs a skilled, considerate and caring hand. So, outside bonsai I never carve wood, I chop a lot up for my fire but I am not remotely interested in making beautiful things out of it. There are numerous incredibly skilled folk out there working with wood who’s work I love to see but couldn’t hope to emulate.
I would not even want to guess at how many trees I have carved over the years. I have always said deadwood does not make good bonsai. My favourite bonsai tree has no deadwood whatsoever. In fact my top three favourite bonsai have no deadwood at all. On the other hand I have a garden full of skip-rat stumps and so carving is on the menu here every week. Having done so much carving over the years I got a good view of the carving tools available and having sold those tools now for close to 12 years I get a lot of feedback.
A few years ago I designed the Terrier carving tool which has gone on to sell thousands to almost every country in the world. That was followed by The Little Terrier which has enjoyed similar success. However there was one massive gaping hole we needed to plug. For years now our customers have been crying out for a tool to run in a small Dremel style machine that actually did the job. Our Weasel did a good job but those are currently unavailable. The problem with the little power tools is that they can only run a thin shaft to mount a cutter and based on experience any tool with a cut rate worth a dam was going to bend very quickly in all but the most experienced hands. A couple of years ago I came up with a solution to the problem. A new carving tool that fitted over the output shaft of the small machines. It took me a while to figure it all out and put it in the hands of a competent manufacturer but today it’s here and ready to go.
After untold hours of testing and modification we believe this is THE most effective and INDESTRUCTIBLE carving tool out there and it eats wood as fast as a starving pit bull can eat a Big Mac.
A fast cut rate is of no value if the tool is unsafe. My better half has never used power tools in any form and yet with this in her hands she took to carving like a duck to water. If you have never used carving tools for bonsai before we have absolutely NO hesitation recommending you start right here. There are two versions available to fit Dremel machines and another to fit 99% of all to look alike versions out there.
For the first month only this tool is available at a small introductory discount but will have to go up to the full price early in the new year.
There are more new Terriers coming in the new year, stay tuned!
I think everything else you need to know is on the item listing. Let us know how you get on with it and please send us pictures of your projects. I’m off to do some stump work…….
G.
Nov 11, 2015 | General
It’s been a busy few weeks around here. We did a couple of shows and some demo’s. I also finally got our new Terrier sorted out, it’s a ground breaking new tool that turns your small hobby tool or Dremel into a wood eating monster. Watch this space. Primarily however we have been working some of our trees. This time of year is always a bit quiet on the order front as everyone braces themselves for the silly Christmas season. Living on the coast the weather is very mild at this time of year and with leaves falling it’s time to get some styling work done.
It is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to source good bonsai trees. Gone are the days of unlimited cheap Japanese imports as the government tries to wreck the business. As a result we are increasingly having to focus on producing our own bonsai. I have written here before I am forever amazed that so many folk do not buy raw unworked material considering the initial cheapness of such plants. Also the sense of satisfaction and reward of creating your own bonsai is immense not to mention the fact it’s entirely possible to double the value of a tree within a year. I do appreciate a lot of folk feel they lack the skills to complete such work but if you don’t try you are guaranteed to fail. In my experience most folk with a modicum of experience can do much more that they might initially think. The trick is to start on something cheap and go from there. Buying a £40 stump won’t financially ruin most of us and even if the results are appalling and you throw it away the lessons learned are worth much more that the price paid. Failure is not a reason to give up. I used to make some pretty ugly trees and killed more than a few but I just kept going, every tree worked is new experience in the bank and after a while it starts to add up.
We have a lot of raw material here. There are normally a couple of hundred trees listed on our web site but we never have less than 1500 to 2000 plants on the nursery. After a while I get fed up with looking at some of it and we make a concerted effort to get plants worked. It never ceases to amaze me, we have a beautiful piece of raw material sitting around for years and they never get a second look. We spend a few hours roughing out the trees shape, the price goes up and folk clamour to buy them. I suppose what’s even more odd is that I don’t make more time to get the work done, it’s my living after all. Having written this I think I should shut up and go do some work!
Anyhow, Rammon and I have been busy these last few weeks roughing out a few of our trees so here are a few images of some of the work.
G.
Oct 5, 2015 | General
Apparently the “Bonsai Group, Enfield” now have to be referred to as “North London Bonsai Group. What ever you call them they can put on a good show. I like this event it’s small enough to be a friendly accessible affair but still manages to maintain a good quality standard. Unfortunately I was way too busy talking nonsense and working to have a chance to take any pic’s of the exhibits to show you.
The demo’ tree I put up last week came out Ok for a three hour session. A short stint is always a challenge to get a significant result but overall this chopped off cupressus made a good step forward I think. Sincere thanks to everyone for their kind comments and encouragement. I expect we will be back again next year.
Heathrow show next…..
G.
Nose art is result of fighting my dog. He gets me every time 😉
Sep 29, 2015 | General
This coming Sunday (4th October) we will be at the Enfield Bonsai Group’s autumn show. I got my arm twisted a bit and will be presenting a demonstration over the day. I thought it would be interesting to let y’awl see the material we will be bringing. This Italian cypress has been cluttering up the place for a few years now and seeing as nobody had the stones to get into it I figured it might make for an interesting project. I have a rough idea how to take this forward, after all it’s a stump with some branches as is the way with bonsai material. I have about four hours to get this done so no pressure then 🙂
This event is a really good friendly little affair and you should make the effort to be there!
G.
Sep 23, 2015 | General
I have been very good all summer. I kept my hands in my pockets and didn’t buy any new trees. We really do need to reduce our inventory to some degree and have in fact managed to relocate a lot of stock. I am pleased to say I am now in full relapse and buying again. 7am this morning we took delivery of the first shipment of yamadori, several are on the way.
Once I get this lot sorted out it’ll be hitting the web site. For now you will have to make do with these few snaps.
G.
Sep 16, 2015 | General
If you live outside the UK the following post might not be relevant to you, especially if you are lucky enough to live in a warm climate.
In my own head I am about as patriotic as it’s possible for a guy to be. Unlike certain ignorant beardy weirdy political figures I will stand up and sing our national anthem with pride. I love what my country is and what it stands for and will fight to the death those that seek to bring us down. One of the things I love about us (Brits’) is the spectacular fashion in which we embrace mediocrity. Modern Britain is no place for extreme views, plain speaking or being too good at anything. Over the past two hundred years Britain has given the world some of it’s most significant technological advances right from the steam engine to the most advanced semiconductors. We come up with incredible advances in every field and then, by and large, lose interest and go do something else. Unlike the Americans who manage to monetize everything in every conceivable way and produce unprecedented wealth as a result we daft Brits’ just give our stuff away to the world (says me sitting here writing this for free). The action avoids the awkward situation of having to ask for money which is always a little hard for us. It also avoids the problem of having too much money because that what would we do with it, we hate a show of wealth and as soon as a person or company amasses too much we turn on them in pretty short order (Tesco?). We love to back the underdog so long as he does not end up doing ‘too’ well. I noticed during my time in America they love a winner, everyone will back a success and want to be a part and share in the glory. Brits love to get close but not too close because it saves all the embarrassment of having to stand in the lime light being the focus of attention. Success is good but too much is vulgar. There is a certain comfort in mediocrity that we revel in and are proud of, we are good at being average and are proud of the fact.
Another thing about Britain that is mediocre is the weather. It’s never cold, it’s never hot, it’s often wet but not too wet (like a monsoon kind of wet). There is not usually much difference between spring summer or autumn. The winter is a little colder and very dark. Considering we are on the same longitude as Goose Bay, Canada which is a “borderline subarctic climate” experiencing close to 170″ of snow a year and an average temperature of -5 Celsius I guess our weather is pretty good. However consider this, Goose Bay gets 10% more sunshine than us which brings me to my point….
The weather is the central preoccupation of most Brits. Ask a Brit how he’s doing and the answer will be a ‘fair to middling’ kind of response. Stand next to us in a bar and pretty soon a discussion about the weather is imminent. Moaning about the weather is another way of grumbling about our lot in life. It’s rude to burden others with your problems so we deflect by pissing and moaning about the climate instead, it’s really complicated being from here.
If you grow bonsai the weather plays a vital role. If you can’t rely on the weather you never know where you are going to be at any given time. Many years we bust our humps to get trees ready for the summer growth period and put in endless hours to set up our plants for a big leap forwards and then, like this year, summer entirely passes us by. This year there was a week of real nice sunshine in June where, even here on the coast, we saw 30 degrees. The following week we had single figures. The spring was nearly two months later that the previous year and August was again back to single figure temperatures and days on end of cloud locked skies. This year I managed as much growth in the entire season as my friend in Spain achieved in 10 days. Where I can grow an average of 12″ on a tree outside he can grow 12′. The logical conclusion is to give up and go fishing but as a Brit I am a sucker for a lost cause.
Our lack of warmth, summer sunshine and light just highlights the need for exemplary horticulture. It’s a mistaken belief that plants get their energy from the soil, probably bought about by calling fertilizer “plant food” which it’s most definitely not. Plants ONLY get their energy from the sun, a lack of good light weakens a plant severely. In the UK plants compensate to some degree by making more chlorophyll thus plants appear greener than their southern cousins and probably gave rise to the collocation “England’s green & pleasant land”. We need light for plants to make energy and when it’s warm that traverses the plant structure faster and cell division happens much more rapidly. More rapid growth means bonsai trees improving in quality much faster and seeing as none of us are getting any younger that can only be a good thing.
So, we need good horticultural technique. We need a larger root mass compared to growers from sunnier climes, a bigger pot works wonders every time.
We need good soil quality designed specifically for our weather conditions and selected to suit the needs of the plant as well as the type of growth we are looking for.
We need to control the moisture content of the rhizosphere in order to maintain oxygen levels and temperature. This may mean protecting a plant from excess rain, even in summer.
We need a good steady supply of nutrients in the form of fertiliser. The daily needs of a growing plant are best served using an organic product like Green Dream Original.
And finally we need a strong source of direct sunlight and if you live where I do that’s a problem. Put simply light intensity is measured in LUX. Even on a clear sunny day here in blighty the light intensity can be half of what it might be in Spain and it’s ilk. At either end of the ‘summer’ light can be in pretty sort supply. We don’t really notice the difference but our plants do. Just a pane of clear glass can cut down light by 50%. To the human eye it looks the same but not to your green friends. Half the light means half the photosynthesis which means half the growth. So, more light is better. The problem is just how to increase the light a plant gets without bringing the national grid to it’s knees.
There is an ever increasing section of society that has this problem licked but our plants are in general not worth what theirs are and justifying electric lighting is tough for bonsai growers. However there is one element our growing compadres use that we can employ at very little cost.
This week I had to empty the poly tunnel in the process of cleaning up and moving trees into their winter quarters (a month sooner than normal). In doing so I took the opportunity to cover our benches. I have been using this silver foil insulation product now for a couple of years with excellent results. The benefits are significant. Firstly it increases light around the plants by up to 50%, I know I measured it with my light meter. Secondly it keeps the wooden benches dry thus preserving them indefinitely and finally it stops all the crap falling through and seeing as I have thousands of pots under my benches saves a very tedious clearing up job every few months. Over time the light transmission benefits do reduce but even after a year or two it’s still making a difference. It only cost about £70 to do all the benches in our 70′ tunnel so the average 8’x 10′ will only cost a few pennies. Well worth the effort and a little leg up for your bonsai that need all the help they can get.
I bought the foil product in B&Q for £8 a roll.
G.
