Shohin JBP Summer Maintenance

Today I pruned off the strong new shoots on my Japanese Black Pine shohin tree. Growth on this species is a lot slower in Scotland than it is in Japan due to our unpredictable weather and the shorter length of our growing season. It’s not guaranteed that you will get a second flush of growth at the base of pruned shoots in a single season, as far as I can tell, with only one tree to work with at the moment.

This is how it looks at the moment

and this is how it looked before todays work

I will thin out the old needles at the end of the summer and open out the new growth with some wire

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2 Japanese Pots from My Collection

Here are 2 new pots which have been added to my collection recently.

The first is a lotus shaped oval in a complex lilac glaze by Heian Kosen. It measures 8″ x 6″ x 2″.

The second is a basket weave round pot by Bigei. It has a diameter of 6″.

Getting Ready For The Show Part 2

Here are some more pictures of the other trees that I will be taking to the Scottish Bonsai Show in Troon this Sunday.

Japanese Black Pine in a new pot by Bigei.

Dwarf Hinoki Cyprus in a pot by Hokido

Zelkova Serrata in a pot by Watanabe Ikkou

Another Zelkova Serrata in a new pot by Walsall Ceramics

The first three will be in our club’s display and the last one will be entered in the separate shohin competition.

Re-Potting Some Shohin Pines

Although the weather, so far this year in my part of the world, has been less than ideal for working on my trees, there is still a lot of re-potting to be done. This week I have started work on my pines.

The first to be tackled is this small Japanese Black Pine, which was imported from Japan last year. It’s a lovely little tree and it is growing very well at the moment but I would like to put it into a slightly larger pot to ensure that this vigour continues. The left hand side of the tree needs to fill out a little more to complete the image and the new pot should help to achieve this in the shortest possible time

Here it is in it’s new pot by Bigei

This white pine needs a new planting angle. It was styled last year and put into this Yamaaki semi-cascade pot. I have noticed since then that although it continues to grow the needles are a little more yellow than they were last year. When I removed it from the pot, I saw that there was no micorrhizal fungus in the soil, which might explain why it’s looking slightly off colour.

I have changed the planting angle and re-potted it into this slightly larger Bigei pot, having first given the roots a good dusting with micorrhizal fungus, Hopefully this should improve the foliage colour.