Perhaps some are thinking of creating a group planting or would like to imply a landscape effect. Graham’s slab-pots have been proving popular recently.
Back in September of this year, the wife of Dennis Henly, died after a long illness. The bonsai club wanted to do something for Trish as she always supported the club when we had shows at the Coleview centre and supplied us with food and drink all day, together with some of the other members wives. A bunch of flowers don’t last very long, so we ordered a rose to go in his garden in the name of ‘Patricia’ in her memory. This is a large flowering floribunda rose. Clusters of scented, salmon, pink flowers are produced freely throughout the summer until the first frost. Flowers are borne on straight stems making this variety ideal for cutting. Foliage is a light green .
It wasn’t due to be delivered until December but it has arrived early and we took it to him this morning. He was delighted and wanted to thank all the members of the club. Although he did try and get me to dig the hole hahaha
I don’t have a photo of Trish and this is Dennis receiving the Best Large Deciduous Award back in 2014 and another of him posing with one of his trees.
Autumn is a great season for admiring the autumn colour of the leaves of your bonsai but also a great time to see them fruit. Some species of tree are more prolific in their fruit production and some have very bright showy fruit. This can be enhanced with a complementary colour pot for an improved overall visual appeal. Offsetting colours that provide contrast is the name of the game here, introducing bright colours on glazed pots is great fun and worth keeping at the back of your mind when shopping round if you have a fruiting bonsai.
One of the things to remember when selecting tree species to bonsai is that you cannot reduce the size of the fruits, so the tree will try to produce fruits based on the full size regardless of the size of bonsai tree you are growing.
This year is a great year for tree seeds and many species have produced seeds in high volumes especially Oaks; so it is a really good source of the trees for tomorrow by collecting and planting up the seeds from today.
I went out seed gathering this season following on from last year where I collected a few conkers from a champion Indian Horse Chestnut and focused on collecting acorns this year from some fabulous oaks. Here are a few examples of my past seed collection and seed growing journeys so far.
Autumn colours this year are stunning and none more so than on our members bonsai trees and in their gardens. Here are a few images of the wonderful array of colours that trees naturally show and we admire so much at this time of year.
This year I came across some 7cm pots of Ginseng Ficus bonsai (Ficus microcarpa ‘Ginseng’) which were very reasonably priced in garden centres so I have bought a few to have some fun with. I started by selecting out some ceramic bonsai pots for them as they were in small 7cm black plastic pots and I was keen to see what the roots were like too as they were growing in pure coconut fibre.
Thank you to all the club members who have joined in with this years project Elm. Sixteen members have taken up this years challenge to grow, develop and style the allocated Chinese elms as per the images below. Will update on this post over the next few months to see how they are progressing.
Graham Simpson doesn’t usually work with glazed pots. He has worked up a new blue glaze which is glossy, inky-dark and breaks to a yellow & brown speckle – and it’s matte.
Tonight saw the first club meeting since March 2020, it was good to be back in a warm hall and working on the trees. Lots of space to spread out, just had to shout a little when talking to someone on the other side of the room. Some members brought in a few trees in Autumn colour.
As 2020 gallops on, the gardens are changing swiftly. The colours are all changing so I took some quick photos before the rain is back. If any members have any of their own colourful photo, either add them or send them to me and I will add them.