It’s been a cold start to winter this year but a break from the rain has been welcome, and I’ve been able to commence repotting my deciduous bonsai, as I’m sure many of you have as well. Some of the species you should be working on include crabapples, maples, elms, wisteria, liquidambars, flowering prunus of […]
It was good! Really good! Well organised, lots to learn, great demos and a good sale area. Friday was an optional bus tour of a major bonsai nursery and Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens. The nursery was chock-a-block with VERY interesting stock plants and it was hard to say no, but plants could not be taken
This month you can start bringing dormant deciduous species for repotting and styling. If you are planning to put your tree into a bonsai pot for the first time, be sure to bring at least a couple of pots you think might work well with the tree. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, when a tree
Evan has kindly stepped in for June’s demonstration as Sean Hood could not make it. Sean will demonstrate in July.
May has been quite cold this year, but at least we haven’t had too many windy days. Hopefully, you have enjoyed some autumn colour from the deciduous trees in your collections, especially as we have had a bit of a break from the rain. The sun moves lower in the sky during the colder months,
In bonsai, a raft is one trunk along the ground supporting a number of ‘branches’ that have become trunks in their own right. Rafts come in straight and sinuous and are usually developed when a stock plant has branches on one side only. Plants that are good for rafts are privets, figs, crabapples and junipers,
This month we are having two workshop meetings, with our special one in the main hall on the first Tuesday and the normal workshop on the third Tuesday night in the activities room. May continues to be a good time for tidying up the foliage of evergreens such as conifers and other non-flowering bonsai, although
Sean is an extremely talented bonsai artist who has been practising bonsai for over twenty years. From a modest beginning in a small nursery on the Central Coast and a period of study with Lee Wilson, Sean’s skills now, span bonsai of all sizes, from spectacularly massive olives and privets to perfect Shohin pines and
Autumn has finally arrived with cooler nights and crisp mornings. It’s a good time to take a breath for now and take stock of how the trees in your collection have improved during the last year. We’ve had a lot of showery weather of late, so watering thirsty trees has probably not been a priority
Water Gum (Tristaniopsis laurina) is a great choice for bonsai, particularly in the Sydney area where it is commonly used as a street tree and thrives with little or no attention. Shiny, attractive foliage with bronze tips in spring, easily reducible leaf size, clusters of small yellow flowers and beautiful bark which flakes off in
