Cornus mas "Vesna"

I was not blogging for a while. Up until today trees were in winter storage and I was focusing on other projects and took sabbatical from bonsai. But spring is here and it was time to put gloves on and start to work on trees again. My cornus was flowering for some time and I think it was time to repot it. Thing is, tree is sitting on hill which is obviously too high. One problem with it is that it is hard to water well core of the root ball with such hill. Reason why hill is so high is that there are old thick roots inside root ball and some rocks which prevent tree from being potted deeper. So task for today was remove some mass from bottom and try to pot the tree in more shallow position. Unfortunately one of the rocks embedded into roots is grown so hard that I did not dare to remove it toady. It has to wait for next repotting. Till then new roots in upper parts of the substrate will be grown hopefully. 

Before repotting

Preparation of substrate, zeoilite 4-8mm plus Terramol 3-6mm, plus rough peat

removing old thick roots. typical job on yamadori material, sometimes it take time to do it safely

Very thick roots removed by saw

Cleanig pot from mineral deposits on bottom

Wires prepared for securing tree

Fixing tree in pot with wires

With fresh substrate and few cm deeper.

Merry Christmas

Winter protection

Few days ago it was just about right time to put all trees down from  benches and provide them protection from wind and frost. I used wood sawdust to cover all trees from top. They stay like this outside till March next year. All are local to my climate so they can handle temperatures below -20 C. I think biggest danger for the trees during the winter  is drought. So when they are covered with sawdust they stay moist and even strong winter winds will not dry them out. Whenever we will have some snow I will shovel it over the trees. 

Carpinus betulus

Carpinus "The Yossarian"

April 2011

Vincent's forest without foliage

Quercus pubescens without foliage

Cornus mas No.3 without foliage

Betula No.2 without foliage

Acer palmatum without foliage

Prunus spinosa

Larix in autumn colors

Carpinus "The Wild Boar" naked

Ulmus in autumn colors

Birch "The White Lady"

Acer palmatum in autumn colours

Cornus mas No.1 "Vesna"

 

Lots of flower buds are promise of yellow spring. 

Fraxinus No.2 naked

Almost all leaves are down. Nothing to hide now. Best time for deciduous bonsai to check if progress was achieved during the growing season or not. Feeling satisfaction myself. Long way ahead though. 

Prunus spinosa

Tree with not yet typical autumn color. Since we had several nights with temperatures below freezing point I think leaves will fall off before turning yellow. Fungus on bark on one of the pictures shows that much bigger part of the trunk is dead already, as I was expecting. In spring bark will be removed and dead wood carved and treated. 

Tilia cordata No.2