Bonsai Art

I have been working at collecting a new specimen this week. It has taken me a good few days to prepare it for removal from it’s site and transporting back to my garden. The hawthorn tree started off at about 15 foot high. It has good branches at the base and a fantastic trunk. I trimmed back the branches at the top first of all and then decided what other branches needed to be cut before it could be removed. I had a bit of a job digging it up, as you can imagine it had some pretty big roots. Luckily there are many fine roots close to the main trunk so it will be a great subject for bonsai.

Lots of branches have been trimmed already here

Looking at the bottom of the tree

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Since I last wrote about the hazel yamadori I spotted I have dug it up and brought it home. It’s been planted in the ground of my garden for the past week or so recovering from the move. I didn’t leave it there long because I didn’t have to do anything drastic to it like cutting off a lot of roots. All it’s had is a little trim of the roots and that’s it.

Today I dug up my yamadori hazel and begun creating the jins ready for the pot. It took me a good 2 hours to create the jins that I liked the look of. I cut off the top section of the tree as it was a bit too tall for a bonsai sized tree.

I got to work on the tree after cutting the top section off by peeling back the bark from the top downwards. When that got too difficult I went to work on it with a knife, scraping the bark off and gouging out a few hollows and holes. Finally I tidied everything up with my dremel making sure that all the bark was off and that the jins were a good shape.

I planted it into a plastic training pot and painted lime sulphur onto the new jins to preserve them.
All in all I am very pleased with the results so far and can’t wait to see the new growth starting in spring.

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The other day I posted a picture of the latest find I’ve had which I’ve yet to dig up and bring home.
Here is another picture of it with a pair of my gloves next to it so that you can see the size of it. I was going to put a ball next to it but I couldn’t find one! The gloves are quite large but you should be able to get a good idea.
It is a view from the opposite side of the tree.

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A few days ago I found a lovely looking tree which I wrote about at “Naturally Formed Hazel Bonsai“. I went for a search around the same area again today and found other nice looking specimens. I brought home two oaks and two birches which I’ve yet to do anything with yet. All of them need a bit of growing on to look good as they are a bit bare at the moment.

One interesting yamadori specimen I spotted today looks very interesting. It is another hazel tree but is larger than the other one I collected. It’s going to need a good shovel to get it out.
The problem Is I don’t know what to do with it once I retrieve it as it’s a bit of a strange shape. It looks to have had a tortured life so far! I think it’s going to need to be a lot shorter than it is at the moment, but I don’t want to lose the character that it has.

Any suggestions?

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Today I acquired a beauty of a tree from the golf course where I work. It was situated next to a well used path and was found growing in a very twisty pattern with natural jins. I assume golfers must have been hitting it with their clubs as they walk past getting their practice swings ready! It was also growing in a pile of rocks so the roots were quite short and had fine hairs.

As a result of all this, it has had a struggle to survive and this shows in the fascinating patterns in the branches.
It is potted in a 10″ pot.

I cannot take any credit here! All I’ve done with this one is put it in the pot and trim the branches back a bit.

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