Developing Bonsai in the ground

I visited a club members garden yesterday and was amazed by some of the trees he has been developing in his garden. I have added a few pics here but if you want to see the rest of the 40+ photos I took during the visit, then have a look on our club website by following this link.

http://www.nibonsai.co.uk/?page_id=930







Some unusual varieties being developed as bonsai.

Great photos and a lot of interesting trees there (I visited the other photos too).

Morten

Bravo to Josh and his vision!
Thank you, Ian!

Howzit Ian,

That was awesome!! Mahalo for sharing.

A Hui Hou,
-Tim

Wow, you are a lucky man to have such a good friend that has such beautiful trees and seems to have alot of bonsai knowledge.

Hi Ian,
I would love to see a closeup photo of Josh's cascading tree in the bench group shot; the one on the right, which looks like it hangs down, with lots of drift wood. Any chance you have a photo of it to share? Thank you, Todd
\P.S. I enjoyed your article and photo magazine of Josh's nursery.

Ian this is fantastic! Thanks for sharing. Josh gets some really nice nebaris and trunks with this method. I have been thinking about turning an area of my garden into a growing bed for a while. I think your post helped me make that decision for good! Wait till I tell my wife about it

MACH5 wrote: ... ... Wait till I tell my wife about it

You can always make her to propose it!!!

....if you are ingenious enough you can make it happen!

Thanks Morten, Alexandria & Tim.

Neil,
I am indeed a lucky man. Friends/Members like Josh are welcome in any club.

It takes all sorts to make a club work. Some clubs are solely focused on exhibitions and competitions others only cater for beginners while others don't want the newbees at all. I feel a club should offer something to everyone but not force its own ideals on people. People who do bonsai can be very private about what they do and you can loose members easily if you force participation. It's a hard balance to get right and one clubs worldwide have struggled with over the years. I would love Josh to teach more at our meetings but he teaches for a living and it would be a grind for him. If I request something in particular, he always comes through for us. His acquired knowledge over the years in working with this sort of material is invaluable. I, on the other hand, love teaching the basics to new members and this is what I get the most satisaction from. I'm not bothered about getting a tree into a top European Show and getting sucked ito the politics that lie hidden in the background. I do bonsai for me! Rant over

Todd,
I can't seem to find a photo of that tree. I'll have a look through some older ones and get one scanned. Its an ivy cascade. The deadwood at the top, from a certain angle, resembles a woman washing her her. I'll get back to you on that one.

Mach5,
Just go for it My wife went to work one day and when she returned I had fenced off 1/3 of my back garden and created a benched area for training material. The grass was already covered in plastic and 6 tonnes of stone. A week later, when she started speaking again, I managed to negotiate a peace treaty. I always say I could be done the pub but instead I play with wee trees in the back garden. Surely that's a better option

Todd,

After rooting out a few old discs from past club shows I have found the cascade for you. Taken back in 2003, but it hasn't changed much in that time. The tree was collected from a wall in the school where Josh works.



and for scale, someone standing beside it.

I also came across an old photo of the big beech shown at the top of the post. Here's the 2003 to 2010 progression.

Thanks for the detailed insight into Josh's collection and methods. I enjoyed your article on the NIBS site too.

Todd,
I can't seem to find a photo of that tree. I'll have a look through some older ones and get one scanned. Its an ivy cascade. The deadwood at the top, from a certain angle, resembles a woman washing her her. I'll get back to you on that one.


Thank you Ian. I appreciate your help in this. I looked through the web site, saw more beautiful trees, but only the "bench" shot.

I saw the photos. It is a lovely tree! Thanks again!

I was back at Josh's Garden again today and took more photos. It was nice to see them naked.

Here's an Elm developed in the ground, never been in a pot.


DSC_1449 by Bonsai eejit, on Flickr


DSC_1446 by Bonsai eejit, on Flickr

And a Field Maple.


DSC_1451 by Bonsai eejit, on Flickr

More photos of my visit here and some further explanation.My Blog

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing Ian, and thanks Josh for doing what you do.