At last a little sun...

I hope dear reader, that absence has made the heart grow fonder, if this is the case, then I will quit the blog altogether and enjoy England's attempts to regain their recent former glories on the cricket pitch.  I must say there is nothing better than working in the garden, sun on your bald spot listening to Test Match Special.  I have been able to do a little of that recently, and the garden has seen a few newcomers to Saruyama HQ, including this reprobate very welcome visitor. It dawned on me as well, when I was tidying up the garden that I hadn't actually put any pictures up yet, so here is an introduction to the very humble Saruyama HQ.

It started off looking like a bit of wasteland in Feb 2012 when we moved in,  fences had been blown down, it had been neglected but it was just what I had been looking for.  As secure as you will find around London, big for the rent and an empty canvas...

View from the gate

 There was an old shed which was still usable and that was about it. A dead tree covered in ivy, no fences and a load of rubble around the garden.  Fast forward a year and a half and there is now a workshop/shed, polytunnel, benches, bbq area (for her indoors) cum outdoor workspace and benches, lots of (but not enough) benches

View from the gate now

The sunny bench, Gets sun all day long....when we see it.

The covered bench...kept things dry over the winter.

The shady bench...Spruce, taxus, Larch all like it here.

View from the workshop...including BBQ area, complete with some new arrivals from some little garden centre.

The deciduous bench, Gets shaded during the midday sun from the massive tree behind it.  the grass was all resown last year and is there to improve humidity.

The biggest problem with the garden is that we are not connected to the house and so there is no running water or electricity.  Rain water collection worked to a point, but the blue water butts sprang leaks over the winter and so I had to invest in a pair of massive water tanks...

 They were off the shelf tanks and they couldn't have been any better dimensions.

2150 Litres of water...enough for a month of hot weather?

It's all powered by a 80W solar panel and a 12V deep cycle battery, with a pump that gets to a decent pressure.  Where there is a will there is a way, although there have been a few mistakes on the way...and some trees suffered because of it.  

To be honest, it is only a small garden and it is full of trees, not all of them fantastic, but I am happy with it.  Any more and I would be struggling to keep up with it.  I do not have the energy to run an operation as big as International Bonsai Mirai, so there is no point me trying.  It is hard enough fending off the wildlife that surrounds me, including a pesky fox and several cats.  They seemed to be attracted to a fertiliser which I am trialling. Any ideas other than a shotgun are welcome.

So along with the new tanks, which I somehow managed to install myself (I knew that physics degree would come in useful one day), there have been a few new arrivals to the garden. Some great, including this...possibly the holy grail for sabina? Look at the tight Itoigawa like foliage on this.  I will be taking cuttings and hoping that it doesn't flower.  Fingers crossed.

The tree is ok, but I will be looking at this as a donor tree more than anything, or at least as a subject to understand sabina a little more.  The ones I do have all seem to be of a good foliage type and seem to be growing very well, except for the one that is planted in Akadama....so this one is in an akadama free mix.

This is an unusual Juniper, I was told it was a Juniperus repens, I am not sure, but it is definitely a needle juniper with rigidia like foliage.  Roots may be a problem though. We shall see.

Also got this Phoenicia. It is not the greatest tree but it does have a big bulging live vein in a good place, so grafting practice is an option.  Phoenicia will be a difficult tree to get compact in the UK I feel, due to the incredible lack of sunshine we have been experiencing.  This is a test tree as opposed to one which will make a masterpiece.

I have quite a few trees in the poly tunnel to compensate for the poor weather, including these two azaleas, one you may recognise with the black choker on the left, the other is a recently pruned Aozora I have been working on for ages with no joy...just not thickening up, so it has gone in the ground for a while.

Yes that is four bags of Kanuma they are sitting in.

The tree cascading down next to it is being fertilised.  In the sense of it is being...tickled at the moment. 

An oriental bittersweet which is currently flowering and being sprayed with an artificial pollinating spray in order to set some fruit.  Hopefully it will work this year again.  I have high hopes for this tree eventually.  It may not be thick, but it is fruity.

Anyway, there is a bit of a view into what I get up to when I am not on the road. There is plenty still to do and I need some time to work on my trees, but slowly slowly I am getting there.  As a nursery, I am not open to the public, I'm not at home enough to do so at the moment, and so it is by appointment only, and only to people who I know...can't be too careful. Get in touch if you fancy a visit.  Am in the Blackheath area of SE London.

Anyway, England are back at the crease, hopefully we will see another Joe Root century tomorrow...come on Yorkshire! Onwards and Upwards

A little polish fun...

For not the first time and sadly not the last, I find myself waiting for a Ryanair flight back home. Still, I come back having spent three days of bonsai fun and three nights of stress due to leaking water tanks at the almost forgotten Saruyama HQ. Due to the efforts on the home front, disaster should have been averted, so less of the stress, more of the fun...

I have been visiting Ibuki Bonsai for a number of years now and seen it improve and expand. Many of the trees I have worked on have improved and only a couple have died...So I take that as relative success. On my latest trip it was still on the verge of transplanting trees so we had a day of repotting including this white pine which although is not an awesome tree, it is still a pretty little thing worthy of some attention. Apologies for the poor photography. I was there to repot, not to do a photoshoot.

A fairly standard looking literati-esque white pine from over grown material...the branching is poor in places, especially the apex but it just needs to bud back and fill in, which under the excellent horticultural care it is receiving, is doing nicely. So it needed a new pot...I asked Mariusz to go and get me one, and he went for a nanban style pot. Not too dissimilar in size to the existing pot...to which I replied, "Try and be a bit more imaginative...lets create a scene" (As in a vista rather than a domestic in a supermarket). After a little cajoling, he came back with a couple of pots, as did I. Now for those of you who think that you know my taste and style and haven't seen Mariusz's facebook page, you can try and guess which one it went in...answer at the bottom of the page.  The present is...the satisfaction of being right.

 Maybe it was this kokagami or antique mirror shaped pot? A little on the funky side I know. The name certainly is. Size wise ok, unglazed, feminine...not bad. Especially as it was made by Mariusz himself....

Or maybe this? Shallow, long and excessively off centre planting angle? Pot too large? Certainly not too powerful. A well made modern chinese pot.

Or maybe the corner on square approach? Now I love squares at an angle. One foot forward, thin end of the red wedge and all that. It certainly is the right size, creates a different appearance and does not overpower the tree. A definite candidate...and another Ibuki original pot.

Answers in a minute folks...

I did come back from (or is that am coming back) Poland with two fantastic presents...one is a bag full of meat.

My breakfast on day two. I didn't eat meat again for another 48 hours...although it was some delicious local sausage. The other present was this...a little accent plant which will soon get planted up into something more appropriate.

Or maybe I should wire it? It is a Cassiope of unknown origin. I will be getting a few in soon for sale. Lovely little bell flowers on the ends.

So...for the reveal...which pot was it?

Oh yes...the excessively off centre planting position, or as Akiyama calls it Shochiku-en style...referring to the previous owner of the old school garden in Tokyo, Mr. Shinkichi Koide who loved to go classical. Negative space in planting position is essential for creating a scene, so if we wanted to display in a tokonoma or exhibition and want to create a flow in what is essentially a cylindrical up and down tree, then we must push it to one side or the other.

As it happens, we had a tokonoma to put it in...

Isn't she lovely?, isn't she wonderful?...

My flight is boarding soon...until next time...

A table or two...

For those of you who are interested in funky rocks or old pebbles, then this article in the outstanding California Aiseki Kai newsletter may be of interest. In another shameless self promotion exercise, (or should that be "sharing the wealth" exercise?) it was written by me. It is a seriously abridged version of the 90 minute lecture I gave at the Stone Show in October of last year. I was at the time struggling to think of what I could talk about, but lo and behold, I was able to waffle on for ages about tables for rocks. The convention is the only one of its kind and I always learn something there, even if it is to not line dance after a few too many gins on a crowded dancefloor of super serious rednecks.

Much of the information is equally as applicable to the similar field of bonsai display and many of the table makers mentioned and aesthetic ideas discussed within are from the bonsai world. The two, suiseki and bonsai, are wheels on the same bicycle, to quote some old bloke. Where that bicycle is going and who is pedalling it, nobody knows. At times it has a flat tyre and at times it speeds downhill before crashing into a mangled mess of trees and rocks.

Enough of a tired metaphor...here is the article in jpeg form for you to squint at, or you can read it as a pdf here...

The Californian Aiseki Kai is probably the best non japanese stone group out there and under the leadership of amongst others, Nina and Larry Ragle, they attempt to practice and embrace stone lovin' in a true and dedicated manner, be it pure Japanese suiseki, American stones, stone appreciation, suesok, scholar stones or pebble polishing. Recommend regular reading for real rockers.

(If you think I have a rather glib attitude towards suiseki, then you really don't know me, I do in fact consider it to be a supremely interesting pursuit, but I tire so much of the endless arguements about names, categories and all that nonsense...)

 

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Winding down...

As you can imagine, the silence has been deafening. The American trip was a busy one, but interesting in many ways.I had a great time in the middle of the atlantic and the triumvirate of Akiyama, Ryan and myself went down well at the show.  It was an interesting line up for their 30th anniversary, especially as I was the oldest demonstrator at the ripe old age of 34.  We cranked out some trees and did our stuff though.  Akiyama was a little nervous before hand, perhaps due to some interpretations problems, which caused both Ryan and I to demonstrate and translate as the day progressed...still it all worked out smoothly in the end.

I am sure there are better pictures out there...but Akiyama did this Juniper....

I started with this Larch

and ended up with this Larch

And Ryan did these two, a Pitch Pine

and a Rocky Mountain Juniper.

Obviously, the camera skills were top quality. Nothing is in focus, at the right height or the right angle.

All in all it was a good weekend and it was enjoyed by us all.

I followed that up with a couple of days in New Jersey which was an interesting sight into an old part of the States.  I must admit though that I grew up in a house that was built in the 1600's so it is all relative.  Seeing some of the destruction that the Hurricane created was a shock, some houses destroyed and others left almost untouched.

One of the highlights of New Jersey was coming across this in a park..

and this reminder that I perhaps should get my web shop thing up and running...

Still it gave me some food for thought...and there are a lot of ideas floating around at the moment. I have one more full week of work and then it is time to take the foot off the pedal and sort my home out, sort some stuff out I am planning and figure a way of enjoying life at the same time as enjoying bonsai.  This last weekend was a great reminder that there is more to life than trees...although I did take the opportunity to go searching through the cliffs to see the trees in their natural habitat.

Oh yes...

And so for the last time in a month, and the second time in two days....I am on my way to stansted airport.

Onwards to Katowice!

All American Akiyama

The pace continues with an average of 18 trees a day, the majority of which have been potted into a variety of western pots. It is interesting to see how some of the pots are very easy to use and others not so, but somehow there is always a tree for a pot. Akiyama-san has been very impressed with some recent John Pitt pots and also the clay texture of Ron Lang. I fear that after a week here he maybe turning American, I really think so...

The other highlight so far was some drowning frogs in the pool, hanging onto each other for dear life. They were just floating around on each others back hoping to reach dry land all day long. I hope they made it out safely.

They seemed to be enjoying it anyway.

Keep on keeping on...

 

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Old habits die hard...

I'm running the risk of falling back into old habits again...not blogging as regularly as some would like and also doing my back in for the sake of little trees. I'm not a sprightly young thing any more, but I am going for it hardcore over the last few days. I'm currently in the US with my senpai, Akiyama-san. He is my older brother and we get on very well. At the moment we are currently working our way through repotting a lot of trees. Some big, some small but we are trying to keep up a pace that we could both do five years ago, but are finding it difficult now.

We are both in America for the upcoming Mid Atlantic Bonsai convention. It will be held near Hershey in Pennsylvania not on a ship in the middle of the sea...Or at least I hope it is. 15 to starboard - 15 to starboard sir.

Working together has been fun so far, catching up on things, setting the world to rigts and discussing what can be done to improve our lot. We both have some ideas for the future which will be interesting to implement. In the immediate future we have to up or repotting rate to 22 trees today and brush up on presentation skills.

I'm waking up at 4.30 on the dot every morning, it's most annoying but it gives me some time to do some computer based time wasting. I will write a report about the superb Greece trip soon, trying to catch up on emails first...

Onwards and upwards...to becoming a hunchback.

 

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Dispatches from Athens...

Not wishing to make people feel bad, but I have seen the sun, and I can confirm it is there, it is warm and it is good. Oh yes. Our time will come.

In a brave and bold move, the fledgling bonsai enthusiasts of cash strapped Greece have asked me over for a weekend of bonsai education and a workshop. I thought it important then to give them the highest level of education possible. So in the spirit of Socratic learning, I posed the question below.

And I call myself a professional...

In fact, there is not much more to bonsai than that. It is just a tree in a pot. Doesn't that freak you out sometimes? It does me.

I'm loving Greece and think I will have to take a trip to the countryside. I fell in love with the country as a boy, reading Going Solo by Roald Dahl and Odysseus by Tony Robinson during the heyday of Jackanory.

Must try and read some more of them there books because as of them old Grecian dude once said

Ignorance is the root and stem of all evil.

And as Morrissey once said, "Is evil just something you are, or something you do?"

Tonight I'm going to the Parthenon...rock on.

 

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