Merry Xmas!

So it’s been some time since my last blog. I got a little disheartened with the online community as you can probably tell from my last post. However on reflection I’ve only got to avoid a select few to continue to enjoy discussion about this, my passion.

Enlightenment seems to be coming in various guises at the moment; patience is becoming considerably easier with time (ironic, that!) and the things I liked least about bonsai have sprung little surprises. Namely, that the Winter season is in fact, packed with really cool stuff to do, and also that contrary to what I thought, there are some amazing people out there with some amazing advice who are only too willing to not only share it, but to spend hours online with you giving you the extensive benefit of their experience. More on that another time….

Regarding winter, I’ve spent some time planning and evaluating my deciduous and evergreen trees and am forming clearer and more specific plans for them. I recently pruned back both of my Zelkovas and ideas popped into my mind for them, which is as close to a ‘eureka’ moment as I’ve had.

A pretty poor  Carpinus with no real potential that I was given gave me another eureka moment and I’m really excited about it. It won’t ever be a show tree, but it will give me the best opportunity yet to gain deeper experience in developing deciduous branch structures from scratch as I have a go at an informal broom. I learned a great deal about how to get the best out of something and to try and realise its potential, no matter how poor the initial material.

A few light bulbs have gone off in this regard over the past couple of months, namely the timing of pruning in deciduous trees and the importance of having a clear plan of monitoring new growth and understanding WHY I’m pruning back new growth. It’s made me take a leap forward in confidence and made me really look forward to the new year, new growth and more importantly, it’s made deciduous trees slightly less intimidating.

Over the next few weeks I’ll post up some pics and plans.

Thanks for reading….til next time.