Merry Christmas 

27 Dec

While I have been not keeping the blog updated, I have been busy on the YouTube side. Have a look at my channel and let me know if you would like videos on a theme or other ideas. I will be at the World Convention next year and hope to visit many nurserys.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Bunjinboy1/videos

Subscribe to my YouTube to get instant notice of new videos.

Happy New Year to you all.

Andy

Zig Zag bridge project.

8 Nov

Yeah I made it with 2 days to go, although I have been working on the next project as well. 


We started with clearing and levelling, well I say we it was Karen really. Once it was clear I had a mock up of how it would be.


Walking this felt a little narrow, I say we Karen really (although she was right) so I decided to put old reclaimed fence posts down the sides to widen it.


This felt better and Hazel gave it the appreciation resting position. Now the next problem how to strengthen the corners. I made H frames to support them.

We had to deal with putting the gap through to the office and the veranda. 

Yep that should do all I have to do is concreate them in.

I added some more strength on the corners to make sure. So with all the dry fit done, I removed them all to paint I say we Karen does like a bit of painting so I let her carry on.


It was felt that the centre section (yep you guessed say no more) may be a devil to weed. So I dug it out and laid a concrete slab.

Next we put new membrane down so we can get the stones back. I have also put 3 monkey poles in for display.

Final assembly.

Just have to wash more gravel to fill area. I hope over time to wear back the centre board to give it a used look.

Over the winter I will concentrate on the Tokanoma.

Capel Manor Bonsai show 2016

27 Sep

Sunday saw this years Bonsai show at Capel Manor, Enfield.

A very good standard of trees on show again this year, and after the summer lull in sows it’s great to have an event to attend. 

Pictures are all in the you tube clip below. 

Next up is Heathrow show.

Garden project. 

13 Sep

I am still alive, although the second half of this year is not going to plan. 

I wanted to have my outdoor Tokanoma project finished by now but I have had to delay that one you can see it in the background. 


This area used to be my koi pond, but now filled and settled its time to develope it into the garden. 

We had a good length of fence replaced in May, and I managed to rescue all the old fence post well I couldn’t see them go in a skip. So project is to build a zig zag bridge to link deck from office through bonsai area back to gate, to avoid walking on the grass during the winter. Something like this I have in mind.


I have a dead line in October to get it done, but the Tokanoma will have to wait.

Looking forward to getting on with it and the looming winter show time.

O and I just booked a flight for the world bonsai convention. ✈️🇯🇵🌊

Gallery

TWTWTW Part Three: And the winner is ….

21 Apr

//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({
google_ad_client: “ca-pub-8791604141960353”,
enable_page_level_ads: true
});

British Shohin Bonsai

As photography was allowed at the show,  pictures of the winning exhibits are already out there on this interweb thingie.   So for this article we thought we would take the time to explain our system of judging as well as posting the official show winners images.

I think we’d all agree that judging at a bonsai show is always a fraught experience.  In the past, judging was often left to one or two people and of course the issue of subjectivity raised its head on many occasions.

For the Spirit of Shohin event, in the pursuit of a much fairer and more transparent method of judging, a panel approach was adopted to the judging process. Under this system, individual judges nominated their top three tree/display in each of the categories.  They did not even have to rank these – i.e. there was no first, second and third “placing” of…

View original post 529 more words

Gallery

British Shohin Bonsai exhibition at RHS Wisley Gardens

7 Apr

Bonsai & Yamadori from Tony Tickle

dsc_0309_mod My Cascade Olive displayed with a Bronze Heron and Scroll by Sonia Stella

Last weekend I visited the British Shohin Bonsai exhibition at RHS Wisley Gardens in the South of England.

RHS Wisley is without doubt the BEST laid out gardens I have ever visited plus the fact that’s it’s HUGE and really required two days to take in all aspects of the garden.

The exhibition took place in a building within the gardens and was hosted by Sutton Bonsai society with workshops led by Taiga Urushibata(more on this in another post).

The quality of the show was OUTSTANDING, and a good collection of traders made the show a must visit event, and I was happy to take the journey south and accept the challenge that’s the M25.

I was invited to present a tree and did so with my cascade olive. NOT a shohin tree but…

View original post 16 more words

2015 in review

30 Dec

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Spirit of shohin 2016 traders announced. 

18 Dec

Now just a few short months away, the spirit of shohin show at the Wisley RHS gardens has announced its trader line up. Also last week applications for display started, if you want more details please ask me. 

  

Warm and confusion

16 Dec

This spell of warm weather has really got things confused.

  
The Chinese quince are pushing out 

   
 
Chouyubai are well away but they flower all winter anyway but look good already.

  
My biggest problem is berries they seem to be going over quick this year which will spoil the effect come show time next year.

   
 
We will have to wait till closer to shows to work out what is going to work. Glad it’s not Noelanders year for shohin. With the national shohin show in April it’s just to early to plan what I will use. Just a case of eat drink and be merry time. 

Happy Christmas all.

That was close. 

1 Dec

It has been really windy on and off the last couple of weeks. This time I got away with it.