Few pictures of my Dwarf Hinoki

This is my Chamaecyparis Obtusa Nana Gracilis. I acquired it just over a year now from a small garden center in the middle of no where, it was just sitting in the corner minding its own business until i came along. The garden center owner was more than happy to sell it cheap, I think I paid ten euro in the end for it.

I have not attempted to style it in anyway, only keep it alive and healthy. When I first got it I reduced the size of the pot it came in by cutting the top down and removing a small amount of top soil. On doing so I revealed the second trunk and a nice enough small natural shari. I reduced it further this year to get to the base of the trunk.

I just pinched the new growth to allow sunlight to penetrate to the inner branches, as I have heard a Hinoki will never back bud on old wood. I was hoping to maybe begin to style it this summer and repot it next summer as I don’t know how long it has over stayed its visit in the pot it is in. Anyway here is some photos I have been meaning to up load a while since starting the Blog.

I really like this shot from underneath

Some growth I am trying to protect and encourage

From above

Small natural shari

Just need to decide now where to start with styling. Plenty of thought and research before hand 😉

NIBS Promotional Video

Had to reblog this, well worth a watch and a free plug for the Northern Ireland Bonsai Society. Good stuff Daniel, might have to get you down to us after while and do a documentary on us. That’s once we take off  😉

Bonsai Eejit

My son Daniel is just finishing off his Creative Media course at Tech and part of his course was to create a promotional video. Thinking, what’s in this for me 🙂 , I suggested that he do one for my club, The Northern Ireland Bonsai Society. It’s taken a while to get all the bits and pieces together and it took a deadline for my son to get his act together :-), but he has now produced this 10 minute video looking at the history of the club and what we have to offer. We had a few technical issues along the way, and some of the video content isn’t as good quality wise and it should be. However, as a freebie, I think this will work well for the club.

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Learning the hard way about defoliation

On defoliating a maple wrongly i discovered the adverse affects it can have on a tree. I thought I could remove all the leaves of the tree whilst in the start of summer, not realizing their was a proper way to carry out this procedure, and that there were guidelines to follow. This is something I am becoming aware of pretty quick in Bonsai, that there is a specific procedures for specific trees at specific times.

I was not aware that the tree needs to be in full health before this procedure can be done. Also when defoliating trimming the petioles was the right way to go. Not trimming branches as i did with most of the tree (this was a big mistake as I didn’t do the relevant research as to what was the right procedure to carry out) Something I would most definitely be doing from now on.

Now even as disastrous as this may sound, I have three new buds emerging. Also The branches that suffered die back had very long internodes and was something i wanted to address anyway. So in the end i am hoping this Acer can come on over the next two months and regain vigor and strength for next year.

Heres a look at one of the new buds on the Acer

The Lesson here for me was not to carry out something i had yet to research. Even though this is a learning tree and a learning curve, it is a good lesson to learn early on in my journey.

Hope this may help other beginners with a simple lesson. Read, research and read again to gain knowledge before carrying out any procedure.  

My new Little Bench

Ok so since i moved house , i had been struggling as to know where to put my little trees. Eventually a bench was made out of an old shed and old decking boards (thanks dad). Its just a nice size for what i have at the moment. Hopefully soon when i run out of space 🙂 i will be making a bench two tier around both walls. Will keep ye updated.

Anyway here is how its looking all on its on.

A close up of the top which were the old deck boards

And with my newly rescued sageretia from Aldi

Full House

Maple Defoliation

Just realised how to reblog something properly. Anyhow, thought this was really interesting as i recently defoliated one of my potential projects, but got a lot of dieback, I didnt research into how to do this properly before hand, big mistake on my behalf. But i recently have discovered three new buds which i will add to the projects page soon. Good job lads.

Bonsai Eejit

Stephen came down to my place on Saturday to get his Maple sorted. The canopy was extremely full and the inner branches would start to suffer unless we did a partial defoliation. This was it before we started.

As you can see we had a few other with us making the most of the day.

Look at the mess he made of my carpet.

Is that them all?

The after shot. Light now penetrates the canopy and will help maintain vigour on those inner branches.

This video shows this tree back in February being repotted.

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Walk in the woods

These are some pictures taken in Ballyannan Woods, Midleton in County Cork. Me and a friend went their recently as we missed the opportunity to catch the blue bells last year. Hope ye enjoy

Some lovely Blue bells on display

Light breaking through the trees

Love this shot

Probably my favorite of the day

Nice path through blue bells and some lovely tall trees

Another nice little path, very lucky as the sun was just about to set

Another one of my Favorites

One more for the road.

Irish Bonsai Club

So the time has finally come. Bonsai Ireland are currently looking for enthusiasts to join in Ireland. There will be a club in Dublin and in Cork. Me and Piotr are currently heading the recruitment drive for Cork.

If you are interested we will be having our initial meeting in mid September, date to be confirmed. This will be the Cork Club of Bonsai Ireland.

If you are interested please don’t hesitate to contact me at lyonsbonsai@gmail.com you can also leave me a message after this post. We will be hoping to start regular meetings and get a club established for the Cork region. It is badly needed to have a club in the Munster region.

Hope to hear from plenty of motivated bonsai enthusiasts in Ireland, we know ye are out there.