The bonsai club Kitabi has already held two meetings. The first contained the ordinary annual year meeting stuff, you know the going though the accounts for last year, deciding members for the board and all that. After that we worked on a quite big Chinese elm. The second meeting was held today, and Teemu Oja showed two Zelkovas and what spring work they were in need of, and a "Jaqueline Hillier" elm. I and Kaj Simberg had also a couple of trees with us, I a Japanese maple 'Kiyohime' and a satsuki azalea, and Kaj a mountain pine. We had several new members on both meetings, and that was great! I hope we will see all of you at next meeting too! The next meeting will be held on April 17. For more information closer to the meeting, see Kitabi's home page.
A. palmatum 'Seigen'
A. palmatum 'Kiyohime'
An other Kiyohime
Unknown A. palmatum
Atropurpureum
After having discussed this tree with some Swedish bonsaists I think it is a A. palmatum ¨'Katsura'.
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Japanese maple 'Seigen' (growing new branches, and thus looking a bit undone) at Kitabis meeting
On Saturday held the Finnish bonsai association Kitabi the first meeting for this autumn. Unfortunately Teemu Oja, who had planed the program for the meeting, got a cold, and we had at Friday to come up with something new. The sunny afternoon was spend going through some members' trees. Warming coffee and superb apple pie was enjoyed before we parted for home. Thank you Asta for your hospitality!
Larch forest in autumn colours at Kitabi's meeting
And to the theme for this posting. Needle plucking season is here. Or so I think, but I have ponded a bit over when it actually should be done, and perhaps it's something that could be started even earlier, in late August - beginning of September? That way would the dormant buds benefit more from the plucking, perhaps. The main idea behind needle plucking is to balance the energy in the tree, by allowing more needles to be left on the weaker branches, and removing more needles on the stronger branches. But needle plucking should also strengthen buds that start to swell in the autumn. It's a time consuming task, since you have to be careful not to rip away both needles in the pair (I have only Scots pines and one mugo, with five needle pines you have to cut), which could damage the potential bud beginning to grow between the needles.
I have nine Scots pines and one mugo. I started needle plucking last week, and I have three trees finished. My goal is to be finished this week. The mugo is pretty strong, with only one branch slightly weaker than the rest, and one slightly stronger than the rest. I left 3 needle bundles on the strong, four on most and five on the weakest. On the Scots I have left four bundles on the strongest branches, and the weakest branches have been untouched. The differences between the strong and the week branches on the Scots are much more pronounced, and I think needle plucking is really making a big difference for them. On the mugo is needle plucking more a haircut, allowing light to reach the inner parts of the tree, and making wiring the tree easier.
And last, but not least, a picture of an old Scots pine I bought some years ago (needles unplucked, and you can clearly see the colour difference between this year's needles and last year's darker needles). It had been planted in a quite dense soil, but had survived being in a pot for about twenty years. Some of the branches were very long and lanky, lacking side branches. Still, cutting them off is not an option, not yet at least. After three summers in my care I'm happy to see how new buds are forming on very old wood on these branches. A couple of years more, and I think this tree will look very good. It will after a couple of years go into a slightly smaller pot, and needle reduction will be on the agenda from next year.
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Autumn 2005
In 2006 I repotted the tree in kanuma, but didn't cut it back at all, I just tried to nurse it back to health. In 2007 it flowered with beautiful pink flowers and was after that cut back.
Summer 2007
The azalea was again repotted in 2008, in kanuma again. The pot from 2008 is utterly unsuitable, a terrible colour that would have fought against the colour of the flower in the most ugliest way, if the azalea had been allowed to flower. The pot in itself is not bad, it's a very good work by German bonsai pot artist Peter Krebs, the colour is lovely, and very well suited for an other tree. But at the time it was the only one in the right size I had available, so I decided to use it. It was cut back heavily in spring 2009, but has grown wild for the summer. It will be cut back again in 2010, and repotted. I hope to be able to cut the roots more in order to enable me to repot the tree deeper in the pot. I think flowers can be allowed in 2011. Right now it need everything to build new branches, not to produce flower buds.
Autumn 2009
The first pot is an oval greyish glazed pot, the size is about 21 cm x 19,5 cm. The pot is 4,5 cm deep and the height from feet to rim is 6 cm.
The second one is for my azalea that will need a new pot in the spring. The tree is right now going trough a quite heavy redesign, it had some ugly scars where the former owner had lost/cut some branches, but the root base is good and it has beautiful pinkish flowers. I ordered this blue pot with the azalea in mind, and I think it will suit the tree perfectly. There is a little pink under the blue, you can see it in the second picture. The pot is round, the diameter 17,5 cm, it's 4,5 cm deep and the height from feet to rim is 5,5 cm.
As you can see, all Andy's pots have plenty of holes for anchoring the tree, and good drainage. Andy is also a very nice fellow to deal with, answering his emails fast, and you have the pots in the mail almost as fast as you type paypal on you computer (I think my pots have always been mailed the next day from payment). Thank you Andy for your good service and lovely pots!
]]>The hosta flowered with beautiful lilac flowers. These pictures are taken in August, and today there are still flowers on them!
You might wonder about the language I have chosen for the blog. A Finnish bonsai blog written in English? The reason is simple, I think a lot more of my friends are able to read if I write in English. I have bonsai buddies who speak Finnish, Swedish, English and German. I find blogs written in several languages a bit hard to read, and, speaking out of experience, it takes a lot of time to write good blog texts in several languages. I myself is Swedish speaking, so Finnish wouldn't be my native tongue anyway.
When you read about my trees, take into consideration that I live in the south of Finland, zone 5 in Europe, and when looking at just Finland zone 1b. Here is a good climate zone map on Morten Albek's Shohin site. The climate in other parts of the country might require different time schedules (and those will vary from year to year too) and different measurements for for example winter shelters for the trees.
Then who am I? My name is Maud and I'm a mother of four teenagers and owner of two dogs. I take a deep interest in Japanese cooking, but Italian cooking is also close to my heart. A lot of my free time is dedicated to my dogs and work for their breed club, where I function as secretary. I'm lucky enough to live in a house with plenty of winter storage space suitable for trees in the cellar and a with Finnish city standards taken quite big garden. I have been interested in bonsai since the mid 80's when I came into contact with bonsai while living in Munich, Germany. I have been an active enthusiast since the beginning of this century, and I have visited several big bonsai shows in order to see and learn more than what is possible in this country. Right now I have between forty and fifty trees, most of them native Finnish trees, but also a lot of Japanese maples and other more sensitive trees.
Well, I hope you find interest in my site and will return again! Until then, bye!
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