Gougane Barra

Recently went for a walk with the family in Gougane Barra. It is the place where the famous River Lee begins its journey into Cork City and the location where St Finbarr built a monastery on the little island situated to the left of the lake. This was constructed during the times of Penal Law. One of the items within this law which was prohibited, was to celebrate Roman Catholic mass. Being so remote meant it was very popular with Irish Catholics who could celebrate mass with possibly less of a fear of being apprehended and punished for doing so.

When people ever visit cork i always say you should take a spin down to Gougan Barra. The scenery is suberb especially on a clear and sunny day. And it is a photographers dream for capturing beautiful shots with so many elements in one place.

What is really interesting is the forest walks. Now being with 6 children there is only so far you can venture. As what is always in the back of your mind when walking with kids is, how far you travel, it seems twice as long on the way back. Everyone is tired, looking for hiddybacks, plasters, water. You swear you were traveling through the Sahara. So taken the short distance we could travel I managed to capture some nice shots on the phone of the walk into the woods. I didn’t take any pictures of the lake or church. As I have done so many times in the past and with the chaos of walking with 6 kids all under 6, you can imagine you are pulled from pillar to post. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the walk as it was a lovely day and they love looking at trees and letting their imagination run riot of bears and wolves in the forest. Now myself and the wife may have had something to do with that, but its all part of exploring the woods as kids.

There are many native species of flaura and fauna and over 20 species of trees. Notably Scots pine, Japanese Larch, Sitka Spruce and Lodgepole Pine. On reading more on the woods i discovered that in 2014 the woods was temporarily closed to allow for the felling of over 16,000 trees mostly larches, infected with or susceptible to Phytophthora ramorum a pathogen responsible for Sudden Oak Death (Thank you wikipedia). Some of which you can see in the below picture.

If you ever manage to get to Cork in the south of Ireland I would definetly recommend a trip to Gougane Barra. I hope you enjoy the pictures of some of the trees and landscape.

Some sheep finding shelter, on the banks of the lake.

Inspecting a little waterfall.

Watering with Noah

So with my job being quite demanding time wise and with the birth of the newest addition to our family Maria, I have found it difficult the past while to get into a proper routine with my trees. But yesterday my son and I decided to go and give my trees a bit of TLC. So when I went investigating some of the wire on one or two of the trees Noah decided to jump right in and grab the watering can.

After getting stuck in and getting more wet than the trees themselves we decided a smaller can would probably be more appropriate.

And there we have it, now my little man is looking after my trees when im at work. Now my wife will have to listen to the two of us wanting to water the trees. Well done small man.

Tree full of Jins

I have passed this tree many times on the way to a local nursery and have been meaning to take a photo of it for a while. While out yesterday with my son, i decided to pull in and get a shot of it. Looks like it was taken in the middle of winter not the start of July.

Noah Looking for Trees

So yesterday myself and the small man decided to go for a spin to our local nursery. He was delighted trying to grab all the shrubs and plants he could. Hes getting a great start. Next stop an apprenticeship in Japan and he can come back and teach me everything he knows 🙂

Here he is ready to get stuck in.

 

Checking out the Mugo Pines

In the Jungle

oh that looks tasty…..

 

And next to his favorites, the Japanese Maples

 

 

June Meeting MBC

So on the 23rd of June which is also Bonfire night in Cork, we had the June meeting of the Munster Bonsai Club. A small gathering but a gathering none the less. And peter back from his honeymoon, Congratulations.

Heres the substitute room ready for the night.

Now with a few of the lads after arriving.

 

It didn’t take long before we moved the operation outside.

Piotr looking fine and relaxed, again 🙂

 

 

Peter tipping away.

And now some of the trees we worked on during the meeting.

Piotr’s Trident Maple

 

Peter’s Black Pine

Mark getting the lighting just right 🙂

 

Mark’s Beech grouping. Still deciding which is the front. Option 1

And Option 2. I like this one.

 

My little juniper got a Jin.

Mark’s Silver Birch, which he grew from seed.

And Piotr’s Little Pine. looking lovely

So it was decided that we would meet during the summer to keep our club alive 🙂 We will be meeting next on the 14th of July.

 

Himalayan Ceder progress

So this is my Himalayan Ceder, which i bought last summer 2012 from a local garden center. It was there for quite a while i say. It was a lot taller than what it is now and decided last year to cut it back, Since then i just shortened the branches. Next job is to decide what branches to select and allow it to grow freely untill next season as it could do with a repot then.

Here is the ceder when i acquired it last year before i shortened it.

This is it now, after being shortened and is growing quite well.

Still has a lot of filling out to do.Especially as one side is quite bare compared to the other

I was thinking as there is practically no movement in the trunk as going with formal style. There is quite a lot of work and time will be spent on this tree but i can see the end product in my head, nearly 😉

So in march 2014 i decided to bring the ceder along to our club meeting to give it some wiring.

 

As it turns out i only got half the tree wired that night, me taken my time as usual 🙂

So i have been looking at it since march and haven’t gone near it except to water it. So in June 2014 i decided to finish the wiring. This is the way it has been on the bench for nearly 3 months.

So get wiring

I could tell the top was sucking all the energy from the lower branches. So gave it a small haircut also. And finished off the wiring

 

So thats how the tree stands in June 2014, just want to get plenty of ramification on the branches now. Will keep an eye on it 🙂

 

 

Juniperus Procumbens Nana Part 1

This little juniper was in my local nursery, not far from my house. I have seen it for a while now and was considering picking it up. A few weeks ago I met the owner of the nursery and he gave me a discount of the already reduced price of 8 euro i think ( I strike a hard bargain 🙂 ). So i decided to pick it up as I read that they make nice bonsai. Anyway the past few weeks I have been looking at it during watering not knowing what to do with it.   The reason i liked it and had been watching it in the nursery for so long, was for the little twisting of the trunks. But each time i gazed at this tree from different angles, i was lost as what to do. So today I decided i was going to grab the bull by the horns and just get wiring. I am usually quite conservative when it comes to making decisions with my trees. But I feel just getting stuck in, while taking the health of the tree into consideration is the only way to go. Its the only way I will learn. So I decided to have a look and see where to go. Here is a look from one angle A look with out the pot And another   First bit of wire to go on the tree.     And a closer look And a second helping of wire to help with the bending.     Continuing with the natural bend of the trunk.   Another angle   While bending the tree I heard the dreaded ‘crack’. It turned out not to be too bad. On further investigation my dear Watson it looks as if my lack of wire on the first run may have been the reason for my crack. Maybe if I had continued with the wire it may have protected the branch where the crack happened. 

So out with my trusty wound sealer. Hopefully will do the trick.

 

A few different Views.

So this is the tree now, with the pot cut down to size and a lighter for height comparison. I think I will look at wiring the other trunk into semi cascade and some of the smaller branches over the next few days. I didn’t remove much foliage, but will be looking at that the next day as well.

Before

 

After

Japanese Maple

Heres a little tree i picked up a few months ago in a local garden center. It wasn’t grafted and I liked the movement in the trunk so i said i would pick it up, Heres a photo of it at the march meeting of the club. 

 

 

After a bit of discussion I wanted to do a bit of chopping with Marks nice new branch cutter. So we cut of the branches we didn’t want and sealed what we cut. Here is a photo of the tree a few weeks later repotted in the same pot but with different medium.

 

 

And here it is last week

 

My Hinoki Cypress Update

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 6 or 8 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

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

At the Munster Bonsai Club workshop, i had the oppurtunity for Ian and Phil from NIBS to have a look at this and see what they thought.

After some discussion it was decided to remove the lower branch and begin to wire it.

It was decided the whole tree needed to be wired in the end, with help from Ian it finally got done, Here me grooming my balded tree 🙂

The before image

The after image, Finally 🙂

So that’s where the tree stood after our workshop in January 2014. And heres how it looked after a few weeks..

 

And here it is in May 2014. Starting to fill out a bit.

 

 

Here is the pot i have recieved from Phil In the Northern Ireland Bonsai Society.

 

So after a bit of deliberation we decided to have a look at the roots and see what can be done to get one step closer to this pot.

 

 

There was quite a lot of long roots wrapping around the pot. So we removed any heavy roots that we didnt need,

 

Me and Piotr getting stuck in.

 

When we got through a lot of the roots we could move out of the way the main tap root was quite strong and hindered the potting chances of going into a shallow pot. Just like what i have. The decision was to remove what we could without compromising the health of the tree. As we removed earth and roots we discovered what we had originally thought was the nebari was just the beginning of the nebari. It turned out to be quite powerful. A major bonus. Although what i had originally set as the front may be changed due to the find.

Here is a shot of the newly discovered nebari.

It was decided to cut down the original pot and place it back in their untill new roots had developed and we could look at removing more of that heavy main root. Probably next season. Anyway i was able to put the tree into some nice akadama i had recieved also from Phil (Major plug for phil, top man for supplies in Ireland)

 

it turned out we had cut the pot too short so we had to put some of the trimming back on.

So here it is after stage one of root trimming. Quite happy to have found that inside the pot.

 

So thats how the tree looked after the club meeting. A few days later i decided the time had come to remove the wire that was on the tree since january as i was quite close to biting in. Here was the tree in the end of may 2014. Ready to remove the wire.

 

A look at some of the wire

 

 

 

I think this is the first time I can truly say that i badly need proper tools. I have seen how nothing compares to proper concave cutters or wire cutters that snip right at the tip of the cutting blade. It makes a massive difference and I am in the process to get my hands on a decent kit, especially after the time it took me to carefully remove the wire without damaging the branches. I should have known from being a mechanic that the right tools make all the difference.

 

 

Heres the tree with the wire removed

 

And a look around the side and back

 

 

A closer look at a jin that hasn’t recieved any lime sulphur yet.

When we removed the hinoki from its pot and rmoved some roots and soil, we discovered this lump of nebari. since its not wet and dried since the last photos i said i would take some photos and show you it a bit closer.

 

 

 

So thats the newly acquired nebari, that we didnt even know existed. That were the tree stands at the moment.

 

 

Next step now is to re wire the tree the coming week. Should be fun 🙂

 

 

Cherry Blossoms in Kitakami Tenshochi

Yet an other amazing video from Discover Nippon. I have been passing all the cherry blossoms around cork the past two weeks and have never taken as much notice as i have now. They are absolutely beautiful. Great video yet again. Enjoy