Videos for cold winter nights or a boring day at the office

My bonsais are knee deep in snow so there is not much bonsai action these days. Some videos might help to soothen the cravings. Many have probably seen Lindsy Farr's outstanding World Of Bonsai Video Series. A clever guy took the time to put them on a playlist at You Tube so you can watch the whole shebang in one go. Nice!

While we wait for spring...

Not much bonsai activity in my part of the world right now, so I thought I would show you an example of how I prepare my spruces before collection. The first pic is from summer 2006 when I started to prepare this spruce for collection. I cut off unnecessary branches and fertilized it heavily. The second pic is from summer 2008. The spruce is much healtier and stronger now and wil have a much better chance of surviving collection next august.

The making of Nils Arnes larch pot

Here is a photo series from the making of Nils Arnes larch pot. I made it in 2007 and completely forgot all about the update. Well, the pot made a trip to David`s garden and then over to Nils Arne so I consider it updated.
Here it is The making of a wheel thrown pot
Here is the larch and the finished pot Larch and pot

Here is another pinus sylvestris. I had it sitting around looking like a sling shot, no clue whatsoever what to do with it. I decided to give it a pot last year so I went for this rather deciduous looking pot. A week ago it became clear what to do with the tree. I will give it a new pot in a year or two. I do not have a front for it, I am trying to style the tree to look good from all angles. 60 cm tall from rim of the pot.

Before, "the sling shot"


This week

Maple last year - today

This is a dwarf maple. Tiny little delicate leaves. I love this tree. It is the first tree to wake up after winter, it has green buds that are just starting to burst. I pruned the tree heavily just after leaf drop and repotted today. This is not the final pot but I wanted the tree in a round pot for a while just to make it easier to style the tree from multiple fronts. I think this tree works much better now, more in proportion in my eyes.
Can hardly wait to see the little leaves unfold.

Scots pine before and after

This is a scots pine collected in 2006. It was very healthy and grew fine from day one in my garden.
It is 78 cm tall and 55 cm wide. It sits in a bunjin style pot made by me, a bit to large but I will put it in a smaller pot at the next repot.
I styled it to be seen from all sides, I think it will work just fine once it has filled in in a couple of years.
Hope you like it.

Collection day.




Today.

Noelanders trophy X

Here is Udo Fishers winning trident maple!

Noelanders trophy X

Last weekend I visited Noelanders trophy in Belgium. The exhibition wasvery good. More then 150 trees were on exhibit. Here are the nominated trees (winning tree in next post)

Carlos van der Vaarts nominated scots pine


















Tony Tickles nominated hawthorn

















Graham Potters nominated Bougenvilla

















Mauro Stembergers nominated japanese yew

Just a couple of pots...

I have been making pots like mad over here. Here are just a few. I am planing on putting most of my trees i my own pots this year. Most of the pots are therefore occupied or destined for specific trees in my garden. Very satisfying I might add.
Hope you like them. Lot of pots out there and lots of pots in the drying room.

46X34X5 cm


Blueish matt with a korean hornbeam steadily seated in it.


24X8 cm


Unglazed bunjin with ash drip


Round 35X7 cm

Hawthorn update

Here is an update on one of my collected hawthorns. The "pot" was full of fine feeder roots so I slip potted and cleaned of the last of the old soil. I will keep the tree in a heated bed at around 10 degrees celsius for a month, then it will be ready for the growing season. I will let the uros and deadwood dry out for a while before a treatment of lime sulphur and coffee. I think it looks like a promising project. It has buds on all the right places so branch development will be an easy task.






The front



The back

Hornbeam

This is a european hornbeam (carpinus betulus) collected next to the highway. It is a decent trunk and very good growth and budding all over. I will carve the cut off end this year and start developing the branches. Any ideas out there? 55cm tall (to the cut off part).

First creation 2009

Here is the first tree of 2009 to be wired in my garden 2009. A lot more to be done. This is a small tree (48 cm) but I enjoyed working on it. This is actually a tree I collected while carrying some larger trees down from the mountains. I fell and grabbed whatever to stay on my feet. The thing I grabbed came up immediately and I fell over hitting my head on the collected trees. This is the tree I had in my hand trying not to fall over. It came out pretty nice considering it was an accident.

Back in business.

Ok Nils Arne, point taken. Spring is soon on its way and the oh so enjoyable tasks that this hobby brings. Here is a lonicera with a new pot and some carving done to it. 55 cm tall. I had to carve off most of the branches but with this species it will not be a problem to get some nice budding all over the trunk. Updates will follow.

Larch from David Prescott UPDATE!

The same evening as I posted the larch from David Prescott fellow, but o'so layz blogger, Jan Olav called me. He was convinced that the pot was not a John Pitt pott, but one he had made.
So next day I had to go out and check. Sure enough, the pott was signed Jan O.
It's a pretty good testimonial that both David and Rune thought it was a pott by John Pitt.

Jan Olav also told me he is making lots of potts these days and he's going to post pictures. So watch this space!
Pott by Jan Olav Olsson, not John Pitt.

New bonsaiforum

A new bonsai forum is up. It is called International Bonsai Forum.
I think it's the very active Croatian bonsai sceene who's behind it. Here is what they say about the forum:
" Our purpose is to create a site where bonsai enthusiasts from all over the world will meet each other to exchange their knowledge and experience in friendly enviroment. It seems that not every grower speaks an excellent English, so we came to the conclusion to make a simplified forum concept by dividing it into only 4 main categories. Much of that can be expressed with photographs, drawings or the like - so it´s not essential to have perfect English acquirements."
Look out for Walter Pall, he's all ready posting.

Does anyone knows whats going on with the IBC? It's been off line for a long time now.

Larch from David Prescott

David Prescott was kind enough to sell me this lovely larch. He said its about 10 years and it's grown from a cutting. He have never used any wire on it.
It was a little week when I got it, but it was fed with all kinds of tonics and green dream so it bounced right back and is now very happy tree. I let it grow so it looks a bit messy on these pics from September 08. Hight 70 cm.
Pot by John Pitt.