New arrivals

As per usual it has been a while since the last post. I have been working, mainly at home as work continues apace at saruyama towers...or should that now be saruyama-en? When I say apace, I am comparing it to a snail...and a particularly lazy one at that. As many in the UK will agree, the weather has just not been very good this year. A washout of a summer has made it difficult to build up a head of momentum and progress has been stop start. Still, the workshop is up, half the benches and will soon be finished. Next week should see big progress...which is just as good because I am at capacity on the tree front already. Up until recently my tree collection had been scattered around the country, now they are all together and in one place and I cannot remember buying half of them. There is also a definite theme running through my trees, lots of tall thin trees, some strange ones and a lot in needs of working.

Although there is little room at the inn, a recent trip to Spain and a trip round the UK has added a few more trees to the collection. I have recently imported a few trees from a collector in Spain, mainly Sabina's which seem to have a bad image in the UK and there are very few who can successfully grow them. Im going to give it a crack as there is plenty of good priced chuhin sized trees around that will make great little trees...watch this space. A few olives came over as well and they are just getting acclimatised to the miserable weather.

A few snaps of the material...

A cracking chuhin scots pine, a large sabina and a few mystery trees in the back

 

Picked up some lovely maples, lovingly grown from seed with great nebari and a superb future. Shohin sized sabinas as well...both will make some pretty funky cascade trees...might need a unique pot or two.

One of the more refined trees. A fatty boom batty shohin olive...what was it I said a while back about elegance rather than power??

Thats more like it...a wild olive as opposed to the sylvestris shohin. As you can see its still a building site.

Hoo-har...old silver birch group. Mochi-komi a-go-go. If that makes sense then you are speaking my language.

The special shohin sabina. Will it fit into a pot? Has an err....individual character in the root/live vein region. The joy of working with yamadori.

Still, the thing I am most proud of this year are the giant Daikon we are growing...The slugs have been defeated, the soil fertile and the possibilities for such a massive thing are endless.

On a serious note...trees up and down the country are suffering from nutrient deficiency, most likely magnesium, but also others. The excessive rain has washed it all out of the soil. Recommended course of action is a dose of calcified seaweed, or a few regular waterings of seaweed extract. Let the soil dry a little, then water with seaweed extact. If they are really bad then a dose of epsom salts and lay off the high K fertiliser. Like rock on scissors, K beats Mg...so if you have yellow leaves, lay of the fertiliser and go for the micro nutrients. Organic where possible...coming into the second part of the year we must make sure our trees are green, healthy and able to get through the winter.

I believe the sun will be making an appearance shortly, so take care that tender foliage which is still fleahy and juvenile does not suddenly get sun burnt. As half the year has been a wash out for most trees, take care of them and dont push them too hard...they cant bounce back.

On that bomb shell, I will leave you with my favourite karaoke number....

 

Posted with Blogsy