Kifu Acer Shishishigira in Autumn

My lion’s head maple in autumn colour

Chuhin Larch in Autumn Colour

The autumn colour in this chuhin larch has reached its peak today

Some Seasonal Berries on My Cotoneasters

Maybe not the best show of berries I’ve seen on this species this season but welcome nonetheless. I think the birds got there before me.

Some Inspiration from the Barnsley Show

Posted by Robert's Shohin

Here is a gallery showing some of the trees in the other club displays at the Barnsley Show that inspired me. Enjoy!

: Scots Pine

: Juniper

: Potentilla

: Pine

: Hawthorn

: Juniper

: Juniper

: shohin Juniper

: Black Pine

: Ilex Serata (Ithink)

: shohin display

: Trident

: Pine

: Juniper

: Cotoneaster

: Acer palmatum

: Yew

: Our shohin display

Our Club’s Shohin Display at the Barnsley Show

Posted by Robert's Shohin

I am still recovering from what was for us, a very satisfying but tiring 2 day trek to the BTA bonsai show in Elescar, Barnsley. Guess what? To our great surprise and delight, our shohin display was awarded first prize.

Here are a few pictures of our display at the event. I must apologise for the quality of some of these images. Lighting in our part of the hall wasn’t ideal for photography and the public interest around our display, throughout the day left very little time for me to take pics of each tree individually.

The Lanarkshire team from left to right are myself, Robert Porch, Jim McMaster, Andy, Maurice Maidment and Ian McMaster

The following 3 pictures are courtesy of Robert Porch

Individual images of most of the trees displayed can be found in this earlier post

I managed to take quite a number of pictures of trees that inspired me in other displays, which I will include in my next post

Getting Ready for the Show at Barnsley

Posted by Robert's Shohin

I mentioned in an earlier post that my local club, the Lanarkshire Bonsai Club, were taking a group shohin display to the Bonsai Traders Association show in Barnsley this Sunday. Today, I have been preparing the 4 trees I will be contributing to that display in readiness for the event.

The first one is this zelkova.

I was asked if I would consider defoliating this tree for the show. I wouldn’t normally do this at this time of year, preferring to wait until the leaves drop off naturally but I did agree so here goes. The next picture shows the tree immediately after defoliation

and then after a trim and tidy up

Thankfully, the others did not require such drastic preparation

Gardenia

Hinoki

Itoigawa Juniper on rock. The next picture show the tree from the selected front. This side shows the best face of the rock. For the purpose of this show it will be displayed from the other side

Front

Back

Shohin Trident Maple (Autumn Update)

Posted by Robert's Shohin

I am very pleased with the progress my trident has made this year and I am looking forward to the winter when I can compare the ramification made this year with the photographs I took last year. Meanwhile here are a few pictures of the autumn colour taken today.

Front

Back

Literati Pine #2 First Styling

Posted by Robert's Shohin

I dug this Scots Pine out of a friends garden about 12 years ago. It started life as a self sown seedling and at the time of collection I estimated that it was about 4 years old. For most of its life in a pot, it has had very little attention other than the wiring of a lateral branch to create a new leader. It was planted into the pot you see now in 2011.

The first picture shows the tree at the start of the current work

I put a lot of thought into how I could incorporate the lower right branch into the design but eventually decided that the lower trunk did not have the girth to support a very full branch structure, so it was removed. The next picture shows the tree after the preliminary branch selection.

And the final picture shows the tree at the moment after its first full wiring. Next year it will be re-planted into a smaller round pot

Buxus Sempervirens Autumn Update

Posted by Robert's Shohin

This tree was re-styled and re-potted at the end of June. Despite all that work, it has continued to put on a reasonable amount of new growth over the last 3 months. This is a reminder of how it looked at the end of June 2014.

And this is how its looking at the moment in October 2014. Oddly enough there is no new growth in the apex it’s all in the lower branches.

I won’t be doing anything else to it until the additional new growth that I expect to see next Spring has hardened off

Lanarkshire Bonsai Club Meeting 05/10/2014

Posted by Robert's Shohin

The monthly meeting of the Lanarkshire Bonsai Club was held at Watston Bonsai this afternoon. The theme for this month was to try and put together a display of members shohin trees, which we can take to events that will be coming up in the near future. Here are some pictures of the layout that we agreed on along with a gallery of the photographs of the individual trees. The first event that we will be taking it to is the Bonsai Traders Association Show in Barnsley on the 19th of October.