Sunday, March 29, 2009

Ostrya carpinifolia - 11 trees forest

First good thing that came out of this project is that I cleaned our garden of eleven (11) plastic pots with small ostryas that were all around it. What a relief!
Ostrya carpinifolia is very similar to Carpinus betulus, although, it growes in warmer regions of Croatia closer to the sea, on southern slopes and preferes sandy grounds. It's called "black hornbeam" because of its black bark.
Last year we dug eleven Ostryas on one location. They are between 3 to 6-7cm in diameter and 30-70cm in hight. The trees were very dense with lot of branches, ideal for forest planting! Already prepared material! Trees spent last year in separate containers and all grew well.
Now it's time to put them together.



Container prepared for the forest is 120cm long and 55cm wide.

Once again, keep in mind that the trees were collected last year. They were planted in almost pure tenisit (that's crushed brick, similar to that stuff for covering tenis fields but bigger granulation, 3-7mm). The production of roots was amazing. Unbelivable dense tangled root net that was impossible to separate and untangle. We had to cut right through that dense rootmesh with a knife. This is a good example of how it's important to have a good drainage medium for establishing newly collected trees and not only that, for growing trees in containers in general.

Now, I use pure...PURE...PUMICE for growing trees in containers, for growing bonsai and nothing else. There is no need to mix anything else. This is not A SOIL, this is supstrate for growing trees or plants and it's superior to all other mixes. It can be pure tenisit, or pure pumice or somethin similar. If you find necessary, you can put one or two hands of peat in it but nothing more.

The rootball is fantastic and superior to everything you've ever seen before! All that expensive acadama and kiryu is unnecessary and poor comparing to this stuff. Acadama is compresible between fingers, and when you compress it you get pure mud. You cannot compress tenisit and it takes 20-30years to degrade in nature. Pumice is also much better than acadama. It is more porous and lighter.

Root ball in closer view. In just one season after collecting!!!!


Trees soaked in water while preparing other trees an the pot.

Initial arrangement.

Every tree was tied firmly in position.

Copper wires under the pot.

Almost done.



The surface was covered with mosses and some stones. That was not serious setting of soil surface, just like that...we did it in a few minutes, just to cover that ugly looking meter and a half of pumice surface. It came quite well.









Saturday, March 28, 2009

Walter Pall is coming!!!

Walter Pall is coming to Croatia!!! He will be leading The 3rd South East European bonsai convention on 18. and 19. April 2009. That's just in a two or three weeks time! We are all very excited about it.




This is a program. We will have tree critique the first day and Walter Pall's demonstration all Sunday.

http://www.internationalbonsaiforum.com/index.php?topic=41.0

3rd SEE* Bonsai convention with bonsai master Walter Pall Bistra 2009.

P R O G R A M

Day one, Saturday, 18.04. 2009. ( 9.00 – 18.30h )

9.00h – short theoretical introduction

10.30h – tree critique

13.00h – lunch break
....................................................................................

14.30 – 18.30h – tree critique

19.30 – 23.00h – dinner

Day two, Sunday, 19. 04. 2009. ( 9.00 – 18.30h )

9.00h - Mr Walter Pall demo workshop
- demonstration, Walter Pall with two assistants

13.00h – lunch break
.................................................................................................

14.30h – Mr Walter Pall demo workshop
- demonstration, Walter Pall with two assistants

18.30h – closeing time

SEE* South-East-European

New pond, big old stumps, small kids

A few new yamadori stumps.
My kids with some more this years yamadori stumps.
Vlatko, Luka and Carpinus orientalis.
This is just recently constructed pond. Duda and I finished basic construction works few days ago. We planted mosses and aranged rocks and stones and old big rotten stumps. The pond will be much nicer in a couple of months time. My Koi are in Chajko's pond so I have to bring them back and put them in their new home. This lake is deeper than previous one but a bit shorter. I plan to put bonsai stands in some places around the lake. There is much more work to be done. This is just a good start. I'm happy. In front of the lake you can see Acer palmatum Deshojo still without leaves. It is sprouting now.





My two little garden dwarfs.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Duda's drawings!

These are wonderful drawings that my wife Duda made a few days ago. She had some time to spare on her work and she was just looking some fotos of our trees on the Net and do this sketches. I was surprised and delighted. The drawings are fantastic. I even immediately changed the design ideas planed for some trees. The trees are fantastic, the drawings are fantastic, she is fantastic. Love you Dudily. Thanks.

Fagus sylvatica (2006.)


Ostrya carpinifolia (2006.)
Carpinus orientalis-new one

Carpinus orientalis-new one

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Pinus nigra and new backpack for carrying trees

It is 6.30 in the morning. One more collecting trip has started. Highway...and of we go..!

Chajko is driving...
The back of the car is loaded with equipment

This is my new backpack for trees. Works great. Pinus nigra. A few smaller ones.

This is great piece of equipment. I like this backpack tree carrier very much. Thank you Matija!

Prunus mahaleb Chajko - Wild cherry

My friend set his eye on this small Prunus mahaleb. It is a wonderful cute "little" tree. The tree was growing bent around some fat stump of some other tree. That made the task of collecting mahaleb much more difficult. We had to cut roots of two linked trees and distinguish one from another. The trees came out as a couple. It was too difficult to separate them on the collection site. Complete removal of that stump between mahaleb's feet was left for homework with motorsaw. Here are some fotos of Chajko and tiny prunus!!!


"Where to start???"
"This doesn't move at all!"
"I can use it like a chair!"

The task of carrying this pig was left to strongest among us. This big superhuman on the right side counts as three average men. He can carry it by himself, alone, just in case...


Chajko and Mario. Ah yes, and fallen prunus.
My friend Mario.