Best of British - set up day

A busy day was in store for everyone involved with the set up of the show today. We were issued car passes that got the cars and vans right to the door that was adjacent to the bonsai event and all I had to do was collect an access all areas pass and the tree id tags - the trolley arrived at my car and bingo the trees are parked right next to the show bench a few moments later.

Walking into the main building the first thing that hits you is the size - it is massive, and yesterday was a hive of activity in every direction. A few familiar faces were tending trees, helping others and on hand to assist where needed which was really good and the general buzz of excitement and pride was easy to pick up - BBC Gardeners World Live, The BBC Good Food show and the Best of British Bonsai 2013 all under one roof - 40,000 people due to attend and Saturday tickets were sold out early last week. I can't think of a UK event that has introduced this number of show quality bonsai to so many people before, and usually there is a knock on of raised interest  following high profile events which is the true reason to do them.

I'm not going to upload individual pictures of every tree as it seems a shame to do a spoiler before the event - others will document all the trees and accents once the show opens I'm sure but here are some over view shots and my trees. I think there are about 60 trees and shohin displays  - 4 long runs, large trees on each end and a 5th run was being built as I left.

The hinoki has been substancially thinned since winter and it looks even more like an convincing old tree and less like young bush foliage on an old trunk now. Special thanks to friends for having a suitable stand very much at the last minute !

The RHS run this event and the entire stand is being judged as one single display. Everyone involved has lent their trees in effect to the Federation to make a collective general entry - just like putting together a show garden. This was also apparent in the way people were all pulling together to get the whole stand looking perfect -on Tuesday the judges are not singling out individual trees in the same way they would if each person was entering their own trees in the RHS bonsai category - that is a totally different thing all together. It was very refreshing to see the collective friendly side of our hobby yesterday - the BOB stands wins or loses as one and we all felt it was certainly GOLD standard.

My accents were all in Gordon Hunt pots - oops only took 2 pictures - iris and something out of the garden with little flowers !

Home now, busy 3 days here then back to the NEC for Friday, Saturday, Sunday............

Best of British 2013

The biggest British bonsai show is on and the date is fast approaching

BEST OF BRITISH

I'm extremely proud to have 3 trees selected for the main show and even more excited to be the demonstrator for the Friday. 

In the main demo area near the bonsai exhibition I'll be working for the full day on hopefully a piece of work that will appeal to the audience of mostly gardeners and general public. I managed to get a fantastic piece of Japanese rock with this years import shipment and this will be used to create a mixed planting 'scene' using some mature Itiogawa Junipers, Dwarf Birch, Satsuki Azalea, plus other fitting plants

Demo will be running from 10am until its finished - between 4pm and 6pm I guess

Hope to see a few friends and familiar faces there - this is the largest, most high profile British Bonsai Show that has ever been held so I'm very proud and happy to be part of it.

Cornwall Bonsai Society & the National Trust

This weekend my local club organised their annual show at the National Trust property Trelissick Gardens near Truro. This was actually the 10th consecutive year of the show and we set up as usual in the stable block (no horses in residence).

A very sunny weekend saw a constant stream of people coming in to see the trees and chat and it was brilliant that the bonsai display was free to see as we were on the car park side of the pay desk. Here are just a few of the many trees and accents - I think there were over 100 in total and something to interest everyone for sure

 Scotts Pine in the archway to greet the public as they came through the door.

A very nice Quince showing the new growth before a prune back later in the season

Variegated Serrisa broom style - about 5" high and beautifully delicate

A stand back view of one of the stable blocks 

                                                                     miniature Berberis in full bloom

Lovely little accent - if the right person reads the blog they can tell me the species via a comment

Large Hawthorn raft - it looks like 2 trees but they are most definitely connected

Zelkova - Japanese grey barked Elm, broom style

Mixed planting that has been together a few years now and has taken on a very natural appearance

Pencil in 2014 as a diary date as we are moving to the main house orangery so a few more of the big guns may come out to make an appearance !

Great weekend and really good to spend some time sharing the hobby with the public.

Masahiko Kimura comes to Cornwall.......or at least a tree from his nursery does

This little stunner was bought from the nursery of Mr Kimura last year and has now cleared QT in the UK and has become one of the high quality trees available from my Bonsai@16 outlet. Today we cleaned the bark with an electric toothbrush and clean water, trimmed back the extension growth in the stronger parts of the tree and moved the tree outside to a sheltered part of the garden to acclimatise it. The change in conditions a newly imported tree has to go through is an important and often ignored part of our bonsai hobby so sometimes a little effort and understanding is needed to help a tree settle in. The tree has lived all its life in the climate and latitude / longitude of Japan, then it spends several weeks in a container on a ship before being unloaded into a wintery United Kingdom. There they are tucked up nice and safe in tunnels until all the paperwork and inspections are complete then this one was moved from one of the coldest parts of our country to one of the mildest - no wonder a tree can be unsettled.

It depends on the species how they cope, and it depends on what work needs doing  - I am very cautious of major styling on newly imported trees and have reserved most of the bigger projects to trees that have been in the country for a few years at least- It is very common that newly arrived trees are in desperate need of repotting but i feel doing this the same year as import is unwise unless the tree is in risk of deteriorating.

I brushed off the moss and watered the tree until the water pooled so I could watch  and was pleased to see the water seep into the pot. Checking underneath there are roots visible in the drain holes so repotting in spring 1014 will be planned. Until then pruning will consist of taking extension growth back to 2 or 3 leaves depending on the direction wanted for the new shoot and if need be a defoliation of the outer tree to let light into the inner tree. This actual variety seems very user friendly - the leaves are very small and are tinged with a deep red colour - I think we will get good Autumn colour from this tree as it often follows on from nice spring colour. It will be interesting to see if the leaves stay small - I think they will as the Zelkovas with much bigger leaves are also a very pale green so are probably a different variety of the same species.

I have 3 smaller Zelkovas from Taisho - en here too - pics to follow, and a whole selection of other species too. Talking of Taisho en we have a very showable tree from there as well - pictures tomorrow though as it's dark now

Bank Holiday fun

Today was one of those brilliant days where I got to style one of our specimen stock trees for a customer and friend. I have been itching to wire this tree for a couple of months now but have been saving it and I'm really glad I did it that way round as the new custodian came down for the day to be part of the trees creation from high quality material into a very nice bonsai with a very promising future ahead.

It is a mature White pine, grafted to Black pine base and judging from the white pine bark flaking along the branches it will likely be a 50+ year old tree. (More about the best way to guestimate a pine bonsai age at the end.

Here is the tree we started with at 8am

And here is the tree after a first styling session - lots of care was taken as the tree is waking up so branches were raffia'd and all wiring stopped short of the needles and new shoots. Today was about placing the branches and starting the tree on its first stage - refinement and fine wiring to the tips is a thing to do in a couple of winters time

I'm over the moon with the work - we have the widest trunk base visible,  trunk movement going left flowing into the  longer branches on the left also. Then we move up the tree, start going back to the right and have shorter branches this side. The super powerfull trunk is framed beautifully by the foliage and as first stylings go I think we have a winner.

It was such a good day to see the tree forming from the mushroom mop we started with - styling time 6 hours and now the tree has moved on to a new owner but I do get visitation rights !

How to try and put an age to a white pine bonsai................

The trees are originally grafted - by researching and looking back through japanese bonsai history the earliest know records of a nursery mixing black and white pine seems to be 1928 - there are no mentions or records of this technique being done before this date. This gives us an oldest possible age for these types of trees of 85 years, but the chances of the first trees being exported are slim to none existent but we know for certain the 100 yr + age tags sometimes seen on these trees are using more than a bit of artistic licence !  Now we can add a few more facts into the mixing pot - the actual variety of white pine often used commercially for the top is selected to be very user friendly - it produces 'many buds' so the dense pads form quite easily and the tree makes some inner buds too, so the shoots can periodically be cut back to new inner growth. We can look at how the trees were initially shaped too - curves going up through the trunk and added movement indicate a tree designed to be a definite commercial bonsai and as there was a huge increase in interest following the second world war after westerners started encountering the captivating miniature Japanese trees many such trees were started in greater numbers and grown on in fields.

This gives us a realistic age bracket for all the large exported white pine bonsai of between 30 and 65 years  - the physical size of the tree means very little too - a 2ft one can easily be twice the age of a 3ft 6" one - so our final clue to best guess age is bark formation - the black pine flakes from a young age but the white pine seems to stay a smoother silver grey for much longer.The older the tree the more the white pine bark flakes and shows maturity that matches the lower trunk until the oldest trees have bark that virtually matches all over.

young trees have smoother silvery looking bark above the graft - (10- 20yr)
slightly older trees show the flaked bark starting to creep up the trunk but the upper tree and branches still appear smooth (20 - 35 yr)
As the upper trunk and primary branches get texture the tree is moving on through its 40's and a fully barked tree will be in its 50's - give or take a few years either way but you won't be far off using your eyes and observation to best guess a white pine age.

Diamond in the rough ?

Where did the month go? We've had a couple of really good Saturday bonsai drop in days at the shop and worked on a larch forest creation, a large Itiogawa juniper first styling and various repotting excercises. Week three was spent with the South Devon bonsai society doing a club workshop which was attended by 9 members with trees plus observers. The variety of species was excellent and a very full day was spent working with the members and their pines, junipers, maples, spruce and cedars. There was lots of tweaking, refining and thinning plus a common theme running through many trees was addressing the balance of energy. Strong dominance (on most trees in the apex) was making so many trees top heavy and making the all important lower branches weak in comparison. An easy way to show a quick comparison was to hold your hand under a branch and see how much was visible....lower branches show lots of skin while top areas you could rarely see and hand at all.

The large raw material juniper has had some attention....I was attracted to the tree as a project to produce a large showable tree from a piece of material that had been sat at the wholesaler for years and must have been considered and rejected by countless bonsai dealers. Japanese import trees don't sit around like this unless there are some challenges involved - usually the obvious trees are snapped up very quickly while its the hard ones that just sit there for years on end. I try to hunt out the tricky ones - the price is better, the finished trees can be unique if all goes to plan and it is so satisfying to get a tree to show standard that others have dismissed.

This was the tree as bought back to the unit

Total height above soil 110cm. 

The trunk is more than a meter long and has a straight parallel lower section then a few nice subtle curves in the upper bit - but it has nothing mind blowing even though it would make a traditional 1980's tree of a few large foliage pads, a round top and a triangular over all shape....it intantly reminded me of the large Peter Adams juniper he documented in many early books.

What did I see? I saw a potential compact bonsai with far more sever bends in the trunk so the tree becomes  shortened without cutting the top off. The curves would not only bring the foliage down but they would add drama and a sense that the tree had been out in the wild ( I now know these are actually field grown material that receive some rough styling in the ground to make a few jins and to form some defined live veins by hacking off sections of the trunk and primary branches - a type of simulated yamadori)

I probably studied the tree for an hour of so visualizing what bits would move to where with the bends in place and it looked like a potential goer so I saved the tree until Peter Warren came down and we repotted it on the Monday as it was in desperate need, then I talked through what I was hoping for. It needed some hardcore bonsai techniques I'd never done before so Peter gave me a shopping list and off I went in search of two 28-30mm thick rebars a meter long, 1.5 - 2mm stainless steel wire and some shackles. To stop the tree moving we secured everything to a pallet and built up a framework of 4x2 timber to support the rebar - now we had a very solid base to work from and could add a quadrupled 2mm steel wire to the upper trunk and to a standard tourniquet tensioner. 

Tightening it up moved the tree top a few cm and all was left overnight. Next day I measured the tip of a jin to the pot rim - 60cm and wound the tensioner right in over the course of the day. By 5pm the jin gap was 50cm. A second stainless wire had to go on to keep the tension so the tourniquet could be unwound, the main wire tightened up and the process started again. The tree was left like this all weekend and monday I carried on tightening until the gap was 45cm - now I could hear a few pops and cracks so stopped for a while - it was funny that over the next two hours you'd hear little pop noises coming from the tree. Tuesday & Wednesday the tree was misted well and Thursday I tightened some more until the jin to pot gap was 42cm. This was tied off with a stainess wire to the pallet and a second rebar added at a different angle to the upper trunk and this time I ground out an area of the upper trunk that had a thick section of deadwood.

This shows perfectly the tree secured to the pallet, the rebar secured to the frame and the two opposing tension wires running through garden hosepipe for protection. Bend one is tied off ( but is tensioned another 2cm over the next few weeks) , bend two is well on the way too. Now the tree is 82cm above the soil from the original 110cm. 

Next dilema is the branch on the right - I don't want it there, dont really want a random jin poking out away from the rest of the tree so decided to cure two problem areas in one go. By cutting down with a jig saw towards the roots the live vein and branch was seperated from the trunk......Then I rotated it, moved it upwards and inwards and popped a small screw through to hold it in place.....now we have sorted the parallel line of the lower trunk and added depth, interest and made a lot more of the original jin visible.

While the dremel was out the solid flat main trunk was hollowed here and there and textured a bit to add interest. I know there will be 4 or 5 years work at least to get the tree to Noelanders level so there is no point wasting hours on fine carving tiny details and detailed texture as the next 5 winters will put all the cracks in place naturally - and they will be far better and convincing than anyone could produce with tools.

Here is the tree today

79cm tall, nothing at all yet pruned off as the foliage is the engine that gives a juniper its strength so all is kept to boost the trees' inner strength ready for the wiring and styling this winter. It's amazing how the 5 blobs of greenery in picture one that were disjointed from each other have now come into one very useable foliage mass just by compacting the trunk in two spots and guy wiring the crown towards us. There is so much foliage in the right place that the first styling will create a very respectable tree by the end of the day I feel - certainly it will make a relatively large show worthy specimen in time as the first styling will layer long shoots over each other to make pads and time will fill them out so the original shoots can be cut off.

I love junipers ;-)

My best Bonsai week...........ever

Here we go. My count down and lead up to the EBA final

My EBA pictures are just some snaps on my phone but I have included a link to a french bonsai site that has lots of nice pictures of the exhibition, lots of pics of people talking but alas no pictures of the talent contests yet. English visitors were very few and far between - Malcolm and Kath Hughes were there as event judges, Reg as chairman of the EBA and John Pitt was in the traders area. There were lots of photographers covering the event, a japanese Bonsai TV crew, plus a journalist for the french bonsai magazine taking lots of pictures and doing interviews.

Expo pictures :     http://www.matsugawa-bonsai-club.fr/evenement-2/
More EBA 2013 coverage on Bonsai Eejits excelent blog

SUNDAY
Sunday was spent at the Failand shohin show seeing how all the nice big trees start off their life ! haha -  It was a really good day out and the variety and quality of the shohin exhibits was good to see - it showed me there is more to shohin than a stand that looks like the mother in laws sideboard with 5 or 6 trees sat in their little spaces too so food for thought for the future........ the social day was great too - catching up with many friends and seeing quite a few west country club members there was really encouraging. At the end of a long day we set off home with Peter Warren following an hour or so behind me back to Cornwall for his second series of South West workshops.

pre final lesson learnt - classic lines and shapes please the eye so hopefully please the judges

MONDAY
Workshop Day (1) This was a day spent repotting and styling big conifers - fellow club member Colin and I shared Peters' full day and we worked through Colins hinoki, pine and yew before all tackling my big cuspidata yew which needed quite a bit of intricate root work to get the new potting angle I wanted and the smaller pot proportions needed for a future show tree. We didn't have a pot the right size yet as we didn't know until seeing the roots what was possible so we added polystyrene sheet to the existing pot to make the soil space smaller. Now we have the perfect proportion a perfect pot can be hunted out at leisure.
 Second repot was the big raw material juniper that I see a total masterpiece hiding in  :-)  ). In the afternoon we started styling  - several of Colins trees and one of the two big white pines I picked up as eye catching specimen trees for the new shop stock.

pre final lesson learnt - wiring with correct technique and neatness is better than just speed

This little lot was squeezed in my car the week before ! The raw juniper 110cm tall+pot and two big grafted white pines imported a few years ago but not worked on since. Both will make really good trees at surprisingly reasonable prices  ;) haha!

TUESDAY
  Workshop day (2) - the full day was shared by 4 club members and a great variety of conifers were brought along for advice, potting, styling etc. I was assistant / soil siever coffee maker etc and in between making sure the attendants has all the stuff they needed I carried on working the white pine from the day before. Another superb day was had by all and the cars went home with many improved bonsai sat in them, plus everyone had received plenty of information and help. The proof of how good these days are is given by the fact know-one has time to take pictures ! either that or it is because we all learn really big secrets hahahahahaha  ;-)  ;-)  ;-) . I feel the best way to get the most from a day like this is to listen to as much advice as possible on all the trees and not just your own, then you can learn about 5 or 6 species rather than one or two.

pre final lesson learnt - it is easier to complete the wiring quickly if you realise not every branch needs moving to form our design

WEDNESDAY
Peter and I had a really good day making a start on the big juniper - I had a vision of a future masterpiece and let Peter work out how to make it possible - but that is for another day.

The before image.....................remember this one !

 Then i got back into the white pine while Peter thinned the unnecessary bits from the cuspidatta to make my wiring simpler and neater in the coming weeks. The day was spent chatting away about bait, bonsai, music and fertiliser - with so many hints and much helpful advice coming my way both for the final and for getting trees to proper show standard. The evening was Cornwall Club night and we were entertained by PW superbly before he set off home at 10.30pm to drive through the night....I can't repeat enough how good his service is. So far 4 days had been spent doing bonsai tasks - the wire was going on really well and my work was looking neater added to the fact I had learnt more efficient ways to work so things were taking less wire and less time to get the same results.

pre final lesson - even guy wires have a right and wrong way - the convenient way is not always the best or strongest way

THURSDAY
Made some bait, wired some of the yew for a change and sharpened my tools. The tool kit was packed, checked and some screws and a screwdriver were put in just in case.
I had 7 sizes of top quality copper wire from Willowbog Online shop  in the tool kit plus 2 sizes of turntable, my trusty masakuni tools and of course raffia, wound sealer plus all the other odds and sods that lurk in the bottom of my bag.  We left Cornwall that afternoon, dropped the dog off at my Mums and we were soon waiting at the Euro tunnel for our 3.20am train......it was a bit delayed due to the bank holiday but 5.30am local time we were on french soil but very tired. I pulled over for a sleep and 2hrs later was ready for proper coffee and breakfast.

pre final lesson - it's too late now to worry so time to relax and enjoy the experience - a weekend in France woohoo

FRIDAY
The venue was in the North East corner of France close to the Swiss border and we were under no pressure with time so after a bit of motorway driving we dropped onto smaller roads to enjoy the changing countryside - soon the vast fields became vines and then the vines became steep wooded hills dusted with snow.
We signed in at the venue 'La filature' and collected passes etc  -  another wow venue - amazing floor area and brilliant lighting - I'm liking European bonsai events more and more haha

We were doing a friend a favour and had a delivery of wire and tools for one of the French traders in the car so an hour was spent checking out the trade stands until we found the man - I wanted a Rosemary (wonder why :-) or an olive with good potential. The were 2 rosemary in the exhibition but none for sale and the olives felt way too expensive for one little green shoot on a lump of knobbly wood so my pocket money stayed safe. After dropping the wire off we spotted Malcolm and Kath Hughes and said hello so they knew we were there safe and sound before driving to the neibouring town Belfont where we were booked into the Best Western hotel. A quick stroll and we'd found a place to eat dinner that evening so went to our room and promptly fell asleep until after 9pm - the missed night of sleep finally caught up so dinner was skipped.

pre final lesson - nerves or ego will beat you before the tree does so go with the right frame of mind

This was my favorite tree in the exhibition - and later I found out it was judged best in show so the eye wasn't letting me down - hope it keeps that way for tomorrow

SATURDAY - EBA FINAL DAY
We arrived at the venue first (bit keen I guess) and spotted a pallet being wheeled across the far carpark with some really big juniper bushes - surely not!! they were in nursery pots that looked 15 or 20 liter size and tree plus pot must have been close to 3ft. Mandy & I thought they were for the all day workshop so we just got on with our morning.
Soon a room packed with contestants, well wishers and organisers were assembled and we had lift off - I picked a table at the very back of the room and there were the great big junipers we'd seen earlier ! I drew tree 12 - it was very straight and very bushy but I purposely had not looked closely at any of the trees so was not worried that others may have better trees. The original 3hr contest was instantly extended to 4hrs due to material size and complexity and I could see every minute would be needed. The organisation was brilliant - the public were allowed to enter the far end of the room a few at a time to watch but not to walk around the competitors.

I did go with half a plan

• hope for a juniper
• keep 2 low branches and do semi cascade with branch 1 and a nice layered crown from branch two
• find a dynamic and unique angle by using my 'British Bonsai stands'  ball socket turntable 

So much for a plan !

•  it was juniper -tick
• I had a very thick low branch then a straight upright trunk with thick branches mostly pointing up - no tick
• the pot was bigger than my large ball socket turntable so No Tick in that box either

With hindsight i'm glad the tree didn't fit my plan as it required a fast appraisal to see the materials' best and worst features.  I had to draw the eye from the trunk as it was the ugly bit - the opposite really of drawing the viewer to the trunk - so I decided to make a dramatic dropping branch going one way and a leaning trunk going the other way - it made the design feel "European" (those at the Ryan Neil demo will know what i mean).

 

Its funny how a 2D picture makes a tree look as the odd little branch that seems to come from inside the trunk is actually the back branch and it was raffia'd, curved around a jin and placed so it framed the lower jin a bit. It looks a bit odd in a picture but gave some depth to the tree in real life.

Soon time was up and we were sent out to let the 16 judges do their bit - glancing around as you do I could see 4 other trees that looked good so I was hoping to make top 5 with luck. The results were not going to be announced until that night so time to relax and mooch the trade stands before a wash and change before the dinner.

some of the trees had lovely curving trunks

The gala time came and all the contestants took to the stage - 3rd place was announced (not me) - that left me well in or well out basically - then Reg said "no problem pronouncing this name" and I was second ! What a great sense of relief, pride and just pure joy. First place went to Martin from the Nertherlands and what a nice guy - and he did the tree i liked the most too so all was good. We were actually at the same table for dinner so it was a brilliant evening for our group.

The spoils of war :-)

Quite a path to get here - Tredegar House in Wales for SW heat, Capel Manor for the UK final and then to Audincourt for the EU final 

special thanks to Malcolm and all at Fobbs for putting on the competition, providing good material and supporting me to the final and to Peter Warren for the advice, help and wisdom passed on along the way.