Bonsai Art

A car boot sale is a great place for bargains. Today I went to have a little look at a large one in Swansea for an hour or two. I ended up buying two bonsai books called “Pocket Bonsai” by David Prescott (and Colin Lewis as consultant editor!) and “The Essential Bonsai” by Ken Norman.

Both contain some great pictures and information. It’s always good to have a bit of extra knowledge to read up on or just to have to hand if you need it. They came for the huge price of 70p for the two! One has 9.99 on the cover so it’s a big saving.

It’s always good to check out the car boot sale for bargains on the weekend whatever sort of things you are looking for. One guy was even selling a motorbike…

For the non-UK visitors, a car boot sale is a place where lots of people wanting to sell things meet up every weekend. They all park their cars in the car park or field and set out their junk on tables. People come around and check it all out and if they like something they ask them how much it is. This starts at first light on a Saturday and Sunday morning (about 5:30am)

Explaining it here it sounds quite odd but to us British it’s a normal weekend!

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I’ve acquired a few new trees in the last few weeks which are (hopefully) the last ones I will get before the growing season. I have to stop myself now that its spring, from buying or digging up any more..!

New berberis styled over deadwood (from a serissa that died on me!)

Blackthorn Yamadori - 20 years old. By the way this is not what I mean by stump, note that this tree has got taper already in it.

Cascade Chinese Juniper - Bought this beauty at the Birmingham Bonsai Boot Sale.

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Quite a few people turned up to the bonsai boot sale in Birmingham this morning but I’m sure there would have been a lot more if it didn’t rain so much early on! I was in two minds about going myself listening to the rain through the night.
To be honest I didn’t sell very much at all, everyone seemed to be hunting down that ‘one perfect tree’ for the day. I had quite a few comments along the lines of ‘nice shape on that tree’ or ‘that’s a pretty one’. But frustratingly nobody would commit to buy one! I guess it’s only my first time there and didn’t know what to expect or what type of trees to bring.

I was expecting a lot of tourist types who had never bought a bonsai before so took a lot of small trees along.
I was NOT expecting a group of 10 enthusiasts huddling round the boot of my car as I arrived ready to snatch aged specimens for bargain prices.

Some trees there were very cheap and very nice also. The guy next to me who everybody knew (called Malcolm) pulled a fantastic larch out of his boot which I fancied, but it got sold within a few seconds! It was easily 60-70 years old or more and it sold for a measly 65 pound! Bargain. I snapped up another of his trees - a Chinese juniper for myself and in doing so, ended up spending more than I made the whole day…

All in all an interesting experience but one which would have been better had it not rained and I took more aged trees.

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