In the box

Ok made you wait long enough to see what’s in the box.

The two pots were very safe in the box all very well warped and tied into the bottom of the box.

Pot1
Ito Gekkou
I could not resist this pot as it is not the usual landscape and pavilion, don’t get me wrong I love them as well (one day). The artistry is superb as you would expect and both sides are as good as a front. With one having left movement and the other right. This is something that can get overlooked sometimes as well as the tree having movement so does the pot design and you want it all flowing together.

Pot 2
Bigei

I have a few Bigei pots with 3 different chop styles. Does anyone know if like Koyo different stamps were for better quality.

Inner light.

With a couple of my maples that had some protection they have fully leafed out and now are just a mop. As you can see no light can get into the inside and we need to look after those inner buds and weaker areas.

Having pinched the extension growth earlier as soon as I could get to it, I now remove one leaf from every pair leaving the stalk. I don’t touch any of the inner leaves as these need more energy. The stalk will fall off in about 3 weeks.

As you can see into the tree now so can the light. I may revisit the tree in a day or two when the leaves level out again, any dense areas I will cut the leaves in half to open up further.
I also did a smaller one but this will need a further look at for sure.

When I got back down to the house the postman had been.

If you want to see what’s in the box then your have to wait for the next post.

Shohin bonsai at Kokufu 88

Just a few of the super Shohin trees at the Kokufu.

Sutton Bonsai show at wisley RHS gardens 2014.

What a difference in the season.

These two pictures were taken on the 16th April 2013.

And these are the same two trees on the 16th April 2014

Project water

This one started a year ago, during our extension build I had them put me out a pipe from the house to the other side of the patio. So last spring I dug it up the garden to get it near where I wanted it and past where the new fence was going.

As is often the way when you have small helpers they get distracted.

So now with the pergola in place its time to get the water sorted. As well as the tap on the pergola for my trees I am taking it all the way to the end for the vegetable plot. So we dug it up a bit and put a T in, then took it across to the post and mounted the tap.

After purging the air from the system it was all done, and now I can get rid of the hose all up the garden. That’s another good step made.
Next to sort out the electrics.

Euonymus Hamiltonianus

New tree today nice to have a project tree to play with.

My Echizen Hosui pot.

Benching time

Phase two of the pergola build is to get the three walls built level and upright, easy if your a builder but I am not in fact I have never
laid a brick before. Still I have watched DIY SOS and they make it look easy what could go wrong.

With the first row in I realised I could not lay them with sharp sand as they would not move around. I put a fillet all around the bottom to set them well on the foundation, I had all the muck knocked up so had to use it. So back to wicks to get some soft sand and another 20 blocks, I need 18 so have two spare! The pictures don’t quite show that the levels are all over the place.

Two more rows up now and the levels evened up, now to get the first timber in. The right hand side is the back and going to be my pot store with a larger shelf at the bottom and a small one higher up. I decided to let the two timbers come through the wall so I have a large shelf to put something on.

This row had to have the blocks cut to go around the timber, doubling the time for this row.

Nice simple row of three blocks to finish off the day.
Only had half a day on day two as had to do some of the day job. So I spent two hours cutting and chipping away at the blocks to fit in the second pot shelf this time it was not to pass through but stop within the wall.

I also was getting a bit to high so decided to take a third off one block to keep it down a bit. This is where I broke my first block.

Hooray all blocks up and level (ish) to make use of the time I decided to paint what was dry from the previous day.

Home straight now so this morning it was back out and paint the rest
.

With it all painted it hides my laying skills or lack of them, last job is to get the timber on.

A good sense of achievement getting all the timber on, just one thing missing trees. Just at this point my Steph came up to see me and decided the low bit was hers so off she went to get her two trees and claimed it.

Bet you would like to know what it looks like with trees on, so would I as other things got on the way. O well bring on tomorrow and let’s fill it up.

Today in the garden.

With the good weather that’s been with us for a few weeks now, things have started to bud up well.