A few trees for sale

Once in a while I'll highlight a few of the trees we have available for sale here - won't be doing it every post as it makes the blog quite boring, just now and again. i use ebay as a marketing tool to spread the word but their fees are getting higher and higher, so by contacting me directly you will get the best deal. please ask for delivery costs. Thanks. just message or email me for more info
info@aqualabs.co.uk 

sold

  002:SOLD

  003: Itoigawa juniper (sold)

 004: Kishu juniper £250

 005: Black Pine £SOLD

 006: Black Pine SOLD

007: Red Pine SOLD

 008: Zelkova SOLD

 009: Zelkova £80.00

 010: Cork Bark Elm £80.00

 011: Satsuki Azalea £165.00

 012: Crab Apple SOLD

 013: Crab Apple SOLD

 014: Flowering Honeysuckle £29.50

015: Itoigawa Juniper SOLD

 016: Chinese Elm SOLD

 017: Trident on Rock SOLD

 018: Korean Hornbeam £125.00

 019: Juniper Rigida SOLD

 020: Trident Maple SOLD

 021: Pomegranite SOLD

 023: Pyracantha £1250.00

 024: Mixed Ibigawa £750.00

 025: Juniper £5000.00

 026: Acer seedlings £5.00

027: Native Hornbeam SOLD

 028: Zelkova SOLD

 029: Cascade Itoigawa SOLD

 030: Zelkova 

 031: Itoigawa cascade (2) £135.00

 032: Beech Raft (Derek Aspinal pot)

This is a 7 trunk root connected raft - Most native beech bonsai don't catch my eye but this one certainly did £950 with pot, £450 without

 Chinese Elms £5, £10, £20, £65 +p&p straight ones, curvy ones

 Hinoki Cypress - 8 different trees £100.00 each

These mature Hinoki are all about 2ft tall, well branched and not leggy. 3 or more for a group planting £85 each. I've bought these to replicate the Kimura valley planting,  I need to make the slabs but until then they are for sale.

Here is the inspiration - watch this space .....

Call, email or message for more pictures of individual trees, sizes etc.

 And the cryptic song - this one takes some beating for a blatant sales page !! for best enjoyment click play then scroll to the top to enjoy the trees while subliminally hearing about shopping every day.....................

Juniper creation pt1

The juniper has to be one of the most iconic and desirable bonsai species for many growers. It is incredible that juniper were not considered for bonsai until barely 100 years ago - there were many 1000's in the wilds but collectors of the time passed them by to find the popular trees that were in demand - Red, White and Black pines, yezo spruce, ancient prunus.........

.....how times have changed and how lucky it is they were propogated, styled, field grown and are available the world over for bonsai enthusiasts to work with.

I stock some wonderful little starter Itoigawa juniper trees - grown in Japan they are started from cuttings, the trunks are twisted then the trees are fattened in a field for a few years by letting branches grow long before pruning back. After a couple of cycles of growing and pruning the trees are potted up and leave Japan - some arriving in Cornwall ! it is an incredibly small world really when you think about it.

Every summer junipers will go through a shedding of old inner foliage - it yellows, browns and then drops off, leaving the tree interior a bit more open . This is just part of the cycle where a tree tries to grow bigger - I've observed this annual cycle on my own trees for 20 years now and have seen how some years lots drops, some years virtually none drops off and it is largely linked to how you work with the tree in previous years. Juniper foliage has an inbuilt time clock - it will fall off - if you have allowed a tree free growth a lot of new foliage will result - the time clock ticks and in a few years a lot of foliage will drop off - it is just a simple cycle. In refinement years we keep growth short and compact so the new foliage mass is less and you've guessed it right.......less will drop off in a future summer.

When you receive a young field grown tree like these (or in fact a neglected un-worked specimen) there will be a reasonable drop of old foliage in the first summer - so the biggest mistake and instant way to set the tree back is to prune back to inner foliage - the worst case scenario is to prune back all newer growth and what you leave decides to drop off a few months later ! You get better results working with the outer newest growth on your tree - just prune off the long 'water shoots' but only to the base where they emerged from new growth.

Here we go - lunch time today

We have a dense ball of greenery - inner yellow and brown shoots - all will need removing - is there even a bonsai in this material ???  when confronted with these trees it can be hard to know where to start - this shows by the fact only 2 have sold in this raw state and yet every single one has sold when i've styled them...all will be revealed ,

Characteristics - what is Itoigawa?

Itoigawa is actually a city where the collected junipers from the immeadiate region were bought and sold - it is not a different species but a different variety. Other locations had wild junipers growing with untidy long hanging foliage but these trees had great trunks the same, just poor foliage for refined bonsai creation. Other mountain valleys and other islands had varieties with tight but thicker foliage - sergentii, kishu etc all occurred in the wild. The visible outer appearance of Itoigawa is finer thinner foliage growing in tight forms and the characteristics are a tree that grows many inner new shoots of juvenile foliage making the inner tree into a dense birds nest of shoots

Here we have old and inner shoots - the tree is cluttered, dense and in need of a total cleaning out with scissors and tweezers

Now, is there a bonsai in there ? looking hopeful 

Oh yes, we have something good to work with

Assess the trunk line, main branches and then pick an angle that works - these multi angle work tables make it an easy job to find the best angle and to keep the tree set while you work - we have 3 sizes in stock, £45.00 - £50.00 + p&p for a really handy item

Now we have a cleaned up tree set at a good angle - it's easy to see the bonsai now. The lower branches on the right were not needed so a section of trunk below them can be stripped of a thin strip of bark to make a curving shari...why?.....it will begin to make the live veins either side swell as they support the crown and it will give the eye a visual contrast, making the curving trunk stand out even clearer.

The initial wiring is very simple as it only needs to define the future foliage masses. The movement in the trunk is so good and the flow into the main branch was so smooth that I've kept the dropping branch as a semi cascade. In future years the new owner may keep it, extend it, shorten it or cut it off totally - When I style trees in stock these days it is a mistake to commit them to just one image as it limits the total number of customers who may like the tree - now I try to make the most of the best features and remove just the branches that are distracting.

The absolute essential key to juniper bonsai is to maintain as much new foliage mass as you can when styling the tree. The tree gains its strength from foliage - they can survive quite hard root pruning and will be absolutely fine is quite small pots with limited room for roots. There are old books and articles where the recommendation is that just about every shoot is reduced to a tiny tuft of green on the end - this may work in the high light level, high humidity long growing season of Japan and it makes wiring really easy and looks really neat......but this method really weakens junipers in the UK and probably elseware too. Above is our demo tree showing how the inner old and juvenile shoots are gone and showing how much foliage I like to leave on a first styling. The tree will remain strong and be happy when repotted into a training sized bonsai pot in the future.

Over the last hour we've taken the little ball of shoots and started it on the route to being a bonsai. the fine shoots are not wired and placed - why risk damaging them at such an early stage. Now we just scissor prune individual strong shoots back while the pads fill out with mature growth. I tend to remove inner needle foliage until the tree just sends out mature scale foliage shoots.

These great little trees are £65 +p&p (£70) unstyled, £80 +p&p (£85) styled in the plastic pots and once potted the price depends on the cost of the pot used.

I fell asleep typing this one so only one song will do !!
great to wire to as well ...............

take your medicine and don't make a fuss............

funny old game isn't it? - I think everyone has a bonsai wish list - be it a species we would love, a style of tree or even a specific individual tree that floats our boat.

Going back to my first bonsai year - 1990 - I was captivated by a needle juniper (J. Rigida) that sat at a commercial nursery near home - it was an interesting tree having been in the UK over 20 years and had been sold to the nursery to fund an engine for a power boat ! Back then I had 3 chinese elms and the usual pile of tortured garden center conifers to practice on so this Rigida was my inspiration but out of my price bracket. Jump forward 10 years - it was still there, still alive, not improving at all but the nursery is one that has a habit of sneaking the price tags up every few years on the existing stock so it was certainly going up with inflation, keeping it out of reach.................5 years later it's still there, still alive etc etc but I decided to do something drastic -  I looked at an old endowment policy that had 7 years to run - they wanted another 7 grand or so in payments and it was forecast to grow by a further 6k !. Easy sum to do - cash it in and be £1000 better off as part of the bargain.

Mandy and I were about to start living together so Ikea and the new landlord got a chunk but with canny shopping skills a bit remained so I visited the juniper to really look properly and see if the object of desire was actually good enough to buy - it was alive top to bottom but only had a handfull of weeping weak shoots on every branch. I started visiting the nursery and feeding the tree as they go unfed here, also turning it every few weeks to let the back see some light. 6-8 weeks into the care plan a complete row of new buds popped open along the main branch so I bought it there and then before the price went up ! It took 4 full years of growing foliage before the tree could be styled and finally 12 months ago the tree was wired, repositioned and repotted. One year on and the tree is coming along well. I dont have the day one picture, they were lost, so my first picture is yr2 - foliage volume doubled since purchase

I love this species - hungry, thirsty and vigourous - and this tree is slowly becoming the bonsai I envisaged 20 years ago.

The above tree was a specific bonsai on my list, the next was a species - I have wanted a prunus mume, Japanese Apricot for a long time - but really the wish list was a little more detailed - black cracked bark, red flowers...........jump back 12 years and it was an easy tree to find and buy as they were freely imported - regulations changed, import was banned and many owners had their trees die off - it is a tree that will attract no end of problems so needs spraying without holding back - moulds, mildews, leaf curl, gals, you name it they will get it !! 

Out of the blue a bonsai trade occurred - I'd put some nice trees onto our ebay shop  Bonsai@16 and after a few emails with a fellow bonsai enthusiast we ended up arranging a swap of an excellent Japanese acer for his prunus mume. In the end a couple of trees went to London in the car and a couple came back to Cornwall - with a quick visit to a wholesaler in the area as well the car was wedged with 8 large hinoki cypress, my new prunus, a chunky Yew, more akadama and goodness knows what else - tools, wound sealer and chinese elms were filling most gaps I remember !

The apricot had leaves on the ends of long branches as old trees tend to be - they seem to refuse to make back buds on old barked wood so always get bigger until grafted back inside again to continue for another 2 decades. The tree had several fruits too ! but i removed most as some thin branch tips had bunches of 2 or 3 fruits that would certainly weaken the shoot or even break it with the weight.

The fruits are used in chinese medicine to cure bronchitis, mouth and throat problems etc and once you eat one you can tell its medicine ! After sharing the first fruit with Mandy ;-) I've read they also soak the fruits in alcohol for several years to make plum liquor.....now this sounds delicious and needs to go on my xmas list haha, they dry and salt them, pickle them and make sour plum juice too - I can't actually find any reference to eating them raw though. 

The tree has red heartwood - showing it is part of the  japanese hibai family, and this red heartwood is also an indication to the flower colour.

A quick application of my bark cleanser is needed .....this will kill off the algae encouraged by the tree loving moisture

I plan to let next years foliage shoots grow freely to make a supply of grafting scions, then we will graft new shoots back on the long branches to see if we can build a great branch structure onto a aged trunk that has great movement and fantastic bark texture. 

In early spring i'll repot into a 75% akadama mix to keep moist, reposition to the new front and I think a wish list tree should have a proper pot so the crackle glaze Gordon Duffett rectangle I've had waiting for a nice tree will be used. Its an inch or so bigger than the Mo pot the tree is in so will be perfect to leave the tree settled over the next few years of growing and grafting. 

It will be interesting to see if the local bees are flying around in Dec or January and are attracted by my sweet smelling prunus blooms so we get fruits again next year.......

now the song...............it was a close thing, you nearly got 'spoonful of sugar' from Mary Poppins
but I don't want to lose readers !! so try THIS, pure UK quality.

The perfect (heat)wave

Wow, UK summer is well and truly here and it certainly makes growing bonsai easy.

 They are loving the sunlight, loving the warmth, growing like mad, making new buds and generally replacing lost energy from a few poorer than average years we've had recently. It has been interesting observing that the healthy balanced trees are responding just like this and are in such good condition - no scorching, no burning, no withering and this is down to healthy roots, balanced feeding and proper watering - basically saying it like that I realise it is down to horticulture rather than bonsai-culture that sees our trees thrive in weather like this. Likewise if there are trees crisping up, losing branches or even dying in the heat it is down to poor care leading up to weather like this and the biggest culprit for this has to be bad repotting techique followed by lack of understanding leading to over watering. Once you tick all the boxes and get the soil mix and horticultural bit right the trees will be doing well with one single watering per day, early evening is my choice, and even the growing stock of shohin sized trees we have here are treated the same

Placement is equally important - you must know your garden and display area inside out so you can place the right trees in the correct places - not everything needs shade netting over it but some trees certainly do - we shade directly overhead but allow free air movement right through the trees from all sides.
Currently there are 5 seperate areas - 2 are shaded with netting, 1 gets shade from the house from lunchtime onwards and 2 areas get full sun virtually all day.

In full sun I have hinokis, the big chinese elm, black pine, zelkova, pyracantha, a couple of palmatums and junipers that have not been repotted or bent in a major way. Under the netted areas there are taxus, tridents, crenata beech, deshojo, all repotted trees and all newly worked material.

I just walked around some of the deciduous bonsai trees in the garden and took a quick picture of the leaves as they are tonight

Acer Palmatum - Deshojo

Crenata - Japanese white beech

Korean Hornbeam

Trident maple - large tree

Acer Palmatum - Kiyohime

All these bonsai are in various locations in the garden - one is in the greenhouse still, some are on the benches and some sat on the gravel fully exposed in the new sales area but they are all equally happy. 

Bonsai is about planning ahead I guess, and it is usually too late when something looks or goes wrong ! Our trees can get through normal years without dying, even if they are weakened by ongoing poor horticultural practices. While striving for small leaves, small needles, tiny buds and then giving yourself a pat on the back when you get them spare a thought to why the growth is so stunted - is the tree weak and semi starved ? if so it will  probably die sometime in the future during a period of extreme stress - be it  excess winter cold, heat wave or cold wet everlasting springs. In contrast by making a super strong healthy tree with perfect horticultual skills you can easily achieve the small leaves, short internodes and tidy needles with correct bonsai methods.

Native Hornbeam

SOIL

I had a few years trying to reinvent the wheel looking back when it came to soils - adding a load of completely unnecessary components like bark, fired clay balls, shredded moss....all looked good, sounded perfect, but looking back I couldn't say what actual benefit each item was making. While getting too side tracked by soil components I was missing the important part - particle size and stability - and it was with a thankful bump I returned to terra firma following a few days repotting trees with Peter Warren. 

Being really honest I don't think i've sieved so much before in 24 years as I have this spring - and like all good things what you actually need is simple - a slightly larger particle on the bottom for better aeration and then a smaller but even sized particle for the rest - I use akadama, kiryu and pumice with more akadama for water lovers and less for 'dry' trees - that is it - boring, non fancy, but totally effective. Sieve size 2 (from the 3 you get in the set - what sits on top is aeration layer, what goes through ends up in a bucket.....add the finest sieve and what goes through is not needed for bonsai and what sits on top is the main planting soil - bonsai basics chapter 1 ticked

This is a much finer mix than popular currently but it is perfect - it firms down well, drains of course but does not go bone dry in the blink of an eye. The real problem i was having with the black fired clay / bark / etc was its tendency for the surface to shift about while watering - and if the soil moves roots will not grow in that area, so that layer of soil is a total waste for the tree - the bonsai pot is small enough as it is so we need to make ever part of it help the tree in some way. 

Pomegranite

Linked to repotting has to be root pruning - It is only once every few years we get the chance to improve the roots by removing strong woody ones and cutting back long ones - the finer and more compact the roots become the better they will work for the tree - root efficiency will maintain foliage quality while poor roots always lead to weak branches, die off and even total tree death. I think as much care needs taking with the parts of the tree out of sight as is taken with the top bit - this has been the second step in understanding real bonsai better - loads of people can make the top bits look 'wow' but it is a much smaller number that can keep 100% of the trees healthy, thriving and styled 

NUTRITION

There are countless feeds, potions, methods and recommendations available to bonsai growers and I'm not the sort of person to run down or belittle one brand in favour of another - My advice is believe your eyes not hype and again it comes right back to visible plant health. At times we hear of very nice trees dying off in times of hard weather conditions - if they were healthy and properly looked after they would not die - there are trees trusted to naturally gifted growers across the world that have lived decades or even centuries in a pot - then there are trees that change hands or get over shown, over fiddled with etc and they decline rapidly.........

All my trees are fed the same way with the natural pellets that were first made in my factory 4 years ago. Now we are in the fine tuning stages before general release and the trees are certainly responding by giving balanced steady growth, great colour and incredible vitality - most importantly it is healthy growth and not weak sappy shoots that will wilt in the high temperatures - if the fertiliser is unbalanced you can get incorrect growth patterns and these are made even worse by poor watering. Whatever feed you choose replace it (or apply it) when needed and if you are not happy with visible results change!! remember though it may be a good fertiliser you tried that did not suit your way of growing 

Native Beech - 95% ok, this one has been in full sun all day on the exposed gravel area

WATER

Does anything panic a bonsai grower more in hot weather ?? the fear the trees will die by morning if not drenched until water is pouring from the drainage holes...we have all been there I'm sure. With age and experience comes confidence I guess - falling back to observation of our trees individually you can soon see if they need water - roots need air, we all know that - if the soil is always wet or worse still waterlogged there is less oxygen - roots hate this.......a tree in a rest period needs less water than one actively growing - our trees grow in spurts then slow - so water is actually needed more by active trees than resting ones - the only way to know which trees are resting is to look at them daily and understand what you see

Over watering can lead to sappy long extension growth and weak 'soft' foliage rather than properly hardened off leathery leaves  -the soft leaves scorch when the soil dries out and the sappy growth wilts and dies back so once you get into the habit of over watering you have to continue of the tree will show damage. 

Have an experiment with a spare tree - see how long it takes to wilt - only then will you know how long trees can go. Many trees thrive without daily drenching and will be better for it - over watering does nothing more than make a rod for your own back  - creating a catch 22 

Trident maple shohin

If you hear trees are struggling or dying off elseware in this weather it is because the horticultural methods used in previous months or years have been basically wrong - the warmth and sunlight is our trees friend but the basics had to be right long before to enable them to thrive in it.

to keep the trend going;

for the entire Uk

Here comes the sun

for the overwaters

Drowning Pool  - feel like i do!

oh yeah baby ;-)

and for all the ravers

We Plants are happy plants

put your hands in the aaairrrrrrrrr

when Yew see the tree hiding within

just a quick post of this afternoons work.

This chunky European Yew came in to our collection as part of a trade  - two trees out and two trees in. It caught my eye  for the powerfull trunk, really healthy strong foliage and striking dead wood.

When i first saw the picture of the tree I instantly tilted the computer to put the trunk a bit more upright as this design was very bold and striking but lacked the stability and power a tree like this could have, and the foliage had no connection to the soil as the living section of trunk is barely visible. With just a slight turn, a repot and a gentle wiring to re-position the main branches I hoped to create the image that jumped out at me from the start, and after describing the potential of the finished tree to a friend he gave me the go ahead to style the tree on his behalf.

An hour or two later the tree has a new potting angle without removing any roots, a series of guy wires have dropped each main branch and a light scissor pruning of the new foliage has given the first shape to the design. no fine wires have been used as the summer growth is tender  - any fine wiring needed will be left until winter when the growth has hardened off.

the final pic is the picture from above with a little bit of photoshop showing where I would allow the growth to fill in over the next few years - the powerful trunk needs a bit more foliage to balance it, hence the bottom branch remaining unpruned at this stage when the first styling was done

a really pleasing days work on a tree with a great future - a lovely unglazed red brown soft rectangle would finish this off perfectly

a day in the life...............

It was a mild drizzly evening, the trees are all very healthy this year, loving the weather we are getting here and looking great after a day being rained on so i took a few random shots - hope you enjoy some 'real' pics taken as the trees sit in their every day positions, no backdrops, just the way they look every day

big white pine dwarfing my 30" tall hinoki that is looking great after a week in the NEC arena - definitely greener than when it went in.  The pine is one of our fertiliser test trees having come in a bit ignored but it has already gone from pale yelllow green to a happier green now. NFS for a good few years as the energy needs directing to the lower branches and I want to return the tree to tip top strength then style it into a potential stunner. timescale.............7-8 years minimum, probably 10 years until the wires off

Buddlia, pot 26", big tree - base 20", an unusual bonsai subject but they respond well, flower, bud back easily and have great potential - there was a stunner at the Bristol show 2 years ago and this tree is now going to a really talented bonsai artist who will make something very impressive from the material I know. 

5 tree Crenata White Beech group in a Walsall Ceramics large oval pot - unusually the trees are leafing out at different rates this year so we have hardened foliage, brand new paler leaves and new opening buds.

This is an important stage in crenata development - letting it grow out for a while so the tree gains strength before cutting back extension growth to 2 new buds (formed at the base of the leaves). If the canopy is still too dense the outer leaves are cut in half to let more light into the inner tree - this strengthens the weak inner shoots  so they don't die off. (this one is off to a new owner now)

Hinoki Cypress -  this is a lovely tree  that was shown at the Noelanders 2013 show. The tree was delivered back to Willowbog nursery after the show so Ryan Neil gave me a hands on lesson in thinning and styling Hinoki - this was priceless as real proven technique with these is very hard to come by and Ryan had the best teacher there is on the species while he apprenticed with M. Kimura. The tree was shown 'dense and lush' but now we have re-positioned the main branches and thinned the entire tree it looks so much older - the foliage matches the trunk image which completes the tree far better than before.

Juniper communis from the Italian Alps - I repotted to a new angle last winter and have started cutting back the leggy branches - the tree is back budding ok but this will be another 10 year project I think to make the image I want from the material.

fingers crossed it likes me and doesn't die like many common junipers seem to do for others  - patience is going to be the key - and environmental stability - not moving the tree here, there and everywhere

The slanting driftwood juniper looking relaxed and healthy - bottom branch is at the wrong angle but the tree has no shows planned for a few years so it can stay put as it is getting lots of light strengthening the inner growth. The crown is now compressed down probably 8" on what it was originally and the tree is filling out fantastically with new healthy foliage.

juniper Rigida - tosho, or needle juniper.

Looking brilliant, super healthy and no signs of distress from the major wiring and restyling job done last year. Now the tree is at the free growth stage - as the extending shoots slow down they will be scissor cut back - this triggers lots of new buds but the tree has gained strength before pruning - if you pinch these as the buds form the tree weakens and branches die off - feed well, water well, let grow, scissor prune, let new buds grow again, scissor prune again, finally let 3rd flush grow as it will be September....I think this regime makes rigida another simple tree to keep and not one to be worried about, just don't treat them like chinensis and don't follow the old book methods of pinch, pinch, pinch again

Mixed rock planting from my demo last week - sitting under the shade net area to recover but this is another one that sat at the NEC for most of the week and looks perfectly healthy

Scotts Pine in perfect health - needle lengh and candle size is even over the whole tree now - pads are fine wired. I treated the top of the tree like a black pine last year and cut off the whole candle, the inner and lower tree was candle pinched to shorten them. This year the growth was very even so all candles have been pinched to the same length.

Pretty in pink - I keep this one outside all year, let it get cold and let it get rained on - this shortens the time the flowers remain on the tree which is a good thing as the trees are weakened by such heavy flowering displays but every other year I let it show off. 

Pyracantha just coming into flower so all fertiliser is removed at this time of year

Large Trident on its second flush of leaves - defoliated fully this year, this started the back budding we need to rebuild the branch structure. This tree will get better and better now it is repotted and budding well - the trunk has excellent taper.

That's about half the larger trees here, we'll do a similar post with the rest soon