New scots pine

This is my new Scots pine - it's a field grown tree from Herons. I had a bit of a walk around with Peter Chan and then went to ferret about amongst the field grown trees out back. It had a nice taper and a reasonable number of branches to work with. All I have done so far is stand it out on the benches with the other pines and water it generously. Later I will remove all the dead branches and spray it with SB plant invigorator to kill any bugs that came along.

It's still in the field soil so I need to decide whether to bare root it now or do it next year. I feel its a bit late in the year for a repot - although I may change my mind on that as the soil is not draining very well and seems have have dry zones. I’ve poked some holes in the soil to get the water in as a temporary measure.

 

The soil and feeding regime will be done the same as my other Scots pines. I'm really happy with them at the moment as I'm getting masses of buds all over them which is going to give nice dense foliage pads. I have the luxury of being able to pick a shoot in any direction I want - and this is after removing a huge number of them over the winter.

Once I have achieved this sort of density of growth I will get down to finding a shape in the tree. But first I need to achieve this high growth density and get some growth closer to the trunk. I would guess 3 years based on experience until I reach the foliage mass I am after.

Frost and the jolly green giant

 

My larger maple broke bud early this year as it was under glass. It was growing strongly and looking good. Perhaps a bit too vigorous - hence it got named the jolly green giant. This picture is in early February - as you can see the cat is very dubious. 2 weeks ago we had a sunny day so I took him out to stand on the benches and get some sun. We had an excellent BBQ and some wine and I got a bit lazy. So I though it was such a nice day and a warm evening - the tree would survive the night out. I did check the forecast low for the night was 5.

 

This is the frost damage 2 weeks later. Not a single leaf made it. I wasn't planning to defoliate it this year as it didn't come back very well last year when I did - so I was going to give it a year to plump up and relax. I had planned to give it the hedge trimming treatment mid year if it got out of hand. I had pinched the top branches to 1 node and allowed the sides to grow without restraint. This has improved the shape and will add taper to the main trunks.

Here it is after a complete defoliation. Turned out quite nicely in the end. It will be interesting to see what the second generation foliage looks like - in previous years this second flush has given wonderful autumn color. And smaller leaves with shorter nodes are always welcome.

Morning sun.

For a few hours early this morning it was sunny and pleasant outside - but by 10 the clouds were back. This is my little oak tree looking very pretty in the morning light.

This is the acorn that came up in my vegetable patch 7 years ago. I have re-potted it over the winter into a very coarse soil mix. It started out quite by mistake as I felt sorry for the little acorn and didn’t want to pull it out of the vegetable patch and kill it - so I put in a pot.

Move on up

I’ve been growing some bonsai material from seed for the last few years. Once they reach a certain size it's not really possible to continue aggressively growing them as the average pot can't contain enough root. As I don't own the house I live in I can't make a grow bed for my trees - so I’m left with the choice of getting bigger pots. My beech trees are coming along nicely but have outgrown their pots so it's time to move on up.

The drainage holes weren’t ideal so I added a drainage layer to the pots. A few inches of gravel takes care of that and leaves it well-ventilated and free-draining.

My previous soil mix for the potted trees was OK. It still drained nicely, but it was very low on organics and compost, so it was mostly substrate and relied on my regular fertilising. The roots were nice though - no anerobic dead spots.

I've gone in a very different direction with organic components and a lot of coco fibre. I also added a large spoon of mycorrhiza to the mix. It contains about 50% composted farm manure. It also weighs less than soil which is an important consideration in these large pots.

I have also been using the Canna Bio Vega fertiliser for a while now and it is giving excellent results. Now I am starting to use the Canna soil as part of my mix for the large pot growing.

Getting good results with field grown ( or XXL pots ) involves a lot more than just potting it somewhere with plenty of space for roots and letting it run wild. That will lead to one of those ugly trunk chops with no taper - like so many trident maples that I've seen. I want to create a nice crown and not have to resort to any carving to disguise the faults.

On the lowest branches I have made no reductions in buds and on the apex I leave a single bud. To get some taper I need the lower branches to be very strong. I have added a bit of wire to keep them heading in the right direction - but I still view them all as sacrifice branches.

As beech buds are laid down in the previous summer growing season I will be growing last years foliage this year and may not see the results of the big pots until I get next years growth and the ( hopefully massive ) buds laid down in this years growing season. Each bud should be giving me at least 8 leaves so there will still be a lot of tree at the end of the year.

The large pots start to cost a bit more. Not too bad in the end - about £8 for the pot and another £12 to £15 for gravel and soil.

It seems to me that there is almost as much technique involved in growing good material as there is in refining the Bonsai. Its certainly been very interesting growing these trees so far.

I have recently bought some Scots pine seedlings to add into the collection. For their first few years they will go into normal small pots while I ponder them. This leaves my collection of native trees in good shape. About as many as a hobbyist can handle I think.

Nice Colour.

Took a chance for a few nice pictures with strong direct sunlight to capture the lovely colours.

Midland brooms

I'm travelling a lot with work at the moment. Mostly on trains - but also a few months of flights - if I look back its been since April last year that I've been on the road. One of the few comforts over the last month or two is the early morning views out over the midlands as I make my way up Birmingham. I sit on my train and watch the morning over the midlands and have my first coffee.

These aren’t great pictures - just an impression of the oaks in between the fields. Over the last month I’ve been watching their silhouettes darken as the buds swell.

These are the trees I see and enjoy and I feel that they should be a strong influence I’m what I am growing as bonsai.

To be fair these first 2 are near Durham. I enjoyed them on my evening walks from my cheap hotel. Their internal branch structure is very different - but they are both still brooms of a sort.

I am preparing a number( 4 oaks + 3 hawthorns + 2 beech ) of pre-bonsai trees over the coming weeks. The Oaks will have to be brooms.

The best Oaks have a distinctive squiggle in their branch structure that I want to capture. Some of the features I want to capture will dictate the size I grow for and how I try to move sap around. This will give me plenty to ponder as I travel tomorrow.

Pine in the snow

Still a few years of work to go on this one till its done. I find these big pines quite exhausting to work on - and they take me quite a few weeks to do each year. I’m hoping all the major branch work is complete and is just the detail work that’s needed now.

Looks nice out in the snow.

Friendly Insecticides

I've been a medium/long term user of the Bayer Provado insecticides. I especially liked its safety around animals - as my cat will often be gardening with me. The cat also likes to help me prune the plants and uses them for shade.

Earlier this year (2012) I started to read up on alternatives as the connection between Neonicotinoids and bee colony collapse began to concern me.


I have used the Canna fertilisers for several years and they are very effective. I haven’t been able to get any of this off the shelf in the UK - although I will keep an eye out for it.
http://www.canna-uk.com/cannacure

PS. I see that it is now available from merchants on Amazon so I will try it out next year.


I bought some of the SB plant invigorator on Amazon. Some background reading indicates that it's a foliar fertiliser and contains surfactants (soapy stuff). This seems to be similar to the good old soap or oil based sprays against insects.
http://www.sbproducts.co.uk/

I sprayed my citrus and maples at the beginning of the growing season as a trial to see how well it worked.

I also discovered some aphids on a Scots pine and using the SBPI cleared them up nicely - I hadn't sprayed the pines with anything this year.

My Calamondin has also not had scale or aphids this year - which is a first. Usually its covered with sticky sap and black gunk for the bugs. Perhaps the lack of insects dragging it down explains why it has done so well this year. The maples were clear.

My only concern with SBPI was that I went through most of a container of the ready to use mixture on a few larger bonsai. Its also quite expensive in that form.

The concentrate is well priced ( about £10 ) and will give me roughly 25 refills. This should give good coverage of a medium bonsai collection for a year.