Peter's Bonsai Page
A few inexpert thoughts on bonsai
My interest in bonsai started in 1982 after moving to a town house which had no garden, but a shared courtyard and a small patio. I have always enjoyed trees and after seeing a bonsai display at a local flower show I thought that I could have trees in my own small space. I bought a small trident maple at the show, but this died after a few months. I discovered a bonsai nursery about 50 miles away from my home town and bought a few japanese trained trees along with 5 young untrained japanese larches which formed my first group planting. Progress was slow over the next few years with successes and failures (I blame pressure of work and too much fishing). My visits to bonsai conventions and exhibitions made me a little depressed when I compared the standard of my trees with those displayed at the shows. I am trying to improve. Most of my trees are from garden centre stock and cuttings. I have not attempted collecting from the wild. Since retiring I have spent more time training and trees show definite signs of improvement.
Click on thumbnails below to see larger pictures
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Juniperus Chinensis.
Bought from a local nursery in 1988. It was a little
sparse when I bought it but I spent lots of time in summer finger pinching the new
growth, which is very therapeutic with this species as it
makes your fingers smell nice.
I have no idea what the variety is as I lost the label.
I took it back to the nursery a
couple of years ago and the proprietor
thought it was Blaauws variety, but it does not
have the shaggy reddish brown bark and the foliage is the wrong green.
so I am still in
the dark.
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Cedrus Atlantica Glauca.
I bought this tree from a garden centre early in 1995.
I inspected the roots and decided that I could
transplant it into a bonsai pot, which I did
in April. I read in Harry Tomlinson's book
The Complete Book of Bonsai that this species
is very likely to drop all its needles after transplantation.
He was quite right as all the
needles had gone by early May 1995 even though
I sprayed the foliage frequently. All was well
as new buds were opening, and now it looks very healthy.
The flaw with the tree because it
is a grafted plant is the ugly neck below the graft
which I treated by beating the trunk with a
blunt instrument with no sign of improvement.
I posted a query to
Bonsai Forum
a US site which is well worth a visit, and was advised
to try the bark piercing method.
I tried this method in 1997, but there is no sign of improvement yet.
I must be patient!
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Larix Kaempferi group. This was my first attempt at a group. I bought the small trees at Middletons bonsai nursery in Salmesbury and planted them up with some enthusiasm in October 1982; Probably the wrong time of year. I love to see it in the Spring as the buds open to produce those tiny star like leaves.
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Four mame trees
Not having much room on my patio (backyard) I am trying out something
a little smaller.
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Malus Halliana
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Nothofagus Antarctica
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Ulmus Jacqueline Hillier.
I bought this at a specialist alpine nursery in 1983,
and thought this was the bargain of the year priced at £2.
When I came to pay for it
the proprietor was more than a little upset and said it should be £10.
I protested and
said that all the other J. Hilliers were priced at £2.
He wouldn't sell at that low price
so we haggled and I got it for £5.
Afterwards he told his wife what he thought of her
for wrong labelling. Sadly I lost the top one-third of
the tree one winter a few years ago
probably due to my neglect, and it now looks nondescript. |
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Trident Maple over rock. |
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Acer Palmatum - Deshojo |
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