The UK Bonsai Association is hosting their 2nd Virtual UK Bonsai Show for 2021 and you can find out more on their website.

There are currently no bonsai shows to go to due to the pandemic so to ensure we all get our bonsai fix they are compiling your bonsai tree photos and this time bonsai pots in a virtual realm. Check out the results from the first Virtual Show which had 120 bonsai tree photos submitted.

If you want to enter the 2021 virtual show then your photo of your bonsai or pot needs to be taken between the 1st Jan 2019 and the 25 November 2021.

The UK Bonsai Association membership will vote for their favourite trees and pots between the 1st December and 22nd December 2021. So you have some time to prepare your trees and pots and select a good time to photograph them if you haven’t already got a photo to submit. If you e-mail them in to ukbonsaiassociation@gmail.com

Good luck and have fun.

Bonsai basically is when you keep a tree in a pot and my preference is for keeping tropical species of trees as bonsai. One species that is a good beginner tree is that of the Ginseng fig, a tropical species of tree widely used in bonsai which are kept indoors in the UK due to the colder temperatures.

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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.

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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.

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