New pine

The collecting season has started. It's still a bit early but I can't wait any longer. This tree has a very nice nebari and lower trunk, but it will take some serious bending to shape the upper trunk.

Elm repotting

Here is a small elm I shaped earlier this year. Today I repotted it. It's not the final pot. I will look for a better one.

Repotting

This Tilia cordata is about to start growing so it's time to repot it. It has benn stored frost fre in my barn during winter.
























It had a relly dense and nice rootball so I only reduced the sides of the rootball so ity would fit the new pot.

















Here it is in its new pot. It needs more brances on the lower left side, but in time it will get more brances there. There are some buds on the trunk that I will let grow to get more branches there.

The giant

Last weekend I went collecting again. It was a bit early beause some of the trees I found was still frosen in the ground so I couldn't collect them. (I'll go back later ). I did collect one tree. It's the largest tree I have ever collected. It's currently about 160 cm tall, but I hope to reduce the hight to about 1 meter in the future. The trunk diameteris about 45 cm.
It was so heavy that I has seious doubts that I could carry it to my car, but in the end I managed to get it home, the next day my whole body was sore, I had pain in places I didn't know I had muscels.
I got a lot of roots so I think it will live even though big, old trees like this (it's probably at least 200- 300 years old) are weak and more difficult to collect successfully than smaller pines. I will know if it survives within a few months. I keep my finges krossed.

While we wait for spring

When I started doing bonsai it was all about indoor trees because I was liveing in an appartement. This succulent was bought on Ikea in 2000. I think the trunk has almost become twice as thick since then. The trunk is about 12 cm thick.
Since most of my trees are still under the snow and my hands itched for some bonsai action so I pruned and wired it.
This is how it looked before. It's not so easy to see, but the tree was very dense.
After pruning and wiring. The branches on the upper left were brought down. It doesn't respond so well to wiring as it preferes to grow straight up. I have tried to wire the trunks but they just pop back.
It needs to be repotted and maybe get at bigger, more masculine pot. I'll do it when the snow melts as the bags with substrate is burried under snow right now. Sorry for the bad pics, they are take indoors at night. The tree is about 45 cm high.
Virtual with new pot.

First catch of the year 2

As Rune said we did not find too many good trees but we had a good time. I found this large pine, not much to look at in this picture but more will follow tomorrow (it is still outside in a plastic bag)
As you see, Rune is inspecting closely before digging. He is also posing with my tree.
All in all a good day with a good friend.

First catch of the year

This weekend I went collecting for the first time this year. I went along with fellow blogger Jan Olav. The cach was not much, but I got this large pine.

Gigantic spruce no 2

The bark is really rugged and coarse, almost like a pine
























Deadwood will have to be an important part of the design due to the big branch that is cut off






















The last pic is taken last august. It had started to bud back on older wood and is regaining strength after the major cutting back. I still havn't collcted this tree and and I might leave it for another year or more to make sure it is in as good health as possible when I collect it. The trunk diameter is close to 35 cm!

gigantic spruce no 1

I found this spruce in 2007 and has been preparing it for collection since then. As you can see in the first picture I fertilized a lot, and I have done that several times later

























The trunk is unusually thick for a spruce. The reason for the fat trunk is the big 'branch' that I have cut off. It was the trunk of the tree and it was 4-5 meters tall before I cut it off . The remaining foliage was growing in the shade and the needles started to drop off after a while because now it's suddenly in the sun and they don't like to go from deep shade to direct sun quickly.