The Bonsai Blog of Carlos van der Vaart

A few days ago my new pot arrived. My mugo pine has a pot made by Dan Barton, in my opinion he is one of the best of the best!  So .. since this tree is designed recently a new step is made and also a new front, that means that the pot is to big and needs a new one, a lot smaller. Also bij doing this it will allowe the tree to be repotted closer to the surface and root porblems can be solved by doing this. so a new pot and also design was needed. I was very happy that Dan Barton wanted to make a new one for this tree and he also designed a new one. the colours and structures of this pot is amazing, it will match beautiful by the bark and the deadwood, cant wait to start in spring.

Three days ago i had my third demo in a week time in Belgium, this time i had to travell to Edegem, close to Antwerp, the event was organised by the Belgium Bonsai Association and i had the honour to be there for the afternoon. I took a spruce with me, this tree is collected three years ago and in my garden for a year now, this is a tree that everybody liked, although it was cheap nobody bought it, so it was good to work on it and bring it a step further in progress. For sure i liked to work on it, its now a compact tree with a great nebari and movement and because of the small container, this tree will fit easily in a small pot, so this can be an intersting tree in the future.

Last weekend i had a great time in Belgium, close to Brussel this years ABBC was held and not only me, but also my good friends Marco Invernizzi and Mauro Stemberger where invited, we had all three togheter a demo on sunday, but before that we arrived on sturdayevening for a great dinner among friends like Frieda Joris, Huub Behets and many others.. Marco worked on a big Taxus cuspidata, Mauro on a Juniperus Sabina and me on a Pinus Sylvestris. because this tree was already sold to a customer my main course was to work on this tree as a first step, normally its always this way, but i also make it normaly more compact, so for now it was hard to tell how the roots where situated in the container, because i liked to put the tree more up, it was better to keep this option open when this tree will be repotted in future also i let the tree longer than i planned an spreaded the branches more open so that air and light can do their job in order to get more developement in the foliage. Here some pics, for sure we had a lot of fun.

Two days ago my new pot arrived, my friend Rocco sended it from Sicilie to me, this pot was designed together with John Pitt for this small Quercus Sobur whith one i bought of Rocco, when i visited him a few weeks ago during my tour in Sicilie. The pot is beautiful, also the patine and colour will beautiful match with bark. In March when i will repot this tree this will be a perfect combi.

Root pruning, although in my opinion its not the best time……..my new assistant thinks differently! for sure also no cuttings or whatever cant stay on the floor again. My assistant will find them and he will use his own technices!

Last week i had the pleasure to give a masterclass about Pines; this was organised by the NBV ( Dutch Bonsai Federation ); every year i have the pleasure to give  a masterclass, to do one about pines is  a bonus, my specialty is pines and junipers so the evening is always to short..Everyone had a pine with them and i took some trees with me, we talked about designing, pots, soil, fertiliger, but mostly about how to take care of them and mantain them in order to mature them, so budselection, pruning technics etc. where discussed, two and five needle pines in the most popular species, i also talked about the new Ichiban tool desigend by Marco Invernizzi and handmade by Masakuni, here some pics..was nice to spend the evening this way.

Finally this tree found his way to my garden….this sabina stole my heart three years ago when i first saw it at Mauro Stembergers garden. The last two years i tried to purschade the tree…a few weeks ago i had a great tour in Italy and Sicilie with Mauro and on my way home i finally took this tree with me, togehter with some others, but that i will wright later. A few days ago my friend Marco Invernizzi  was here for the MI school, we had some time left to do some bonsai and have some fun, also Marco knows this tree very well and he also likes this tree a lot, so he was happy to work on it, we got the lifevein seperated in the top of the deadwood in order to bring the top more to the trunk, so the lowerbranches will grow better also for the future and to show more of the the twisted lifevein. We both are happy with the result so far….. this will be cracker tree !!

Last weekend i had organised the fourth session of the Marco Invernizzi school @ Carlos van der Vaart. Like the last time we where hosted at Lodder Bonsai in Harmelen. This time all the students had to talk and do a presentation about a subject they picked out them selves, everybody liked it and learned a lot of it, also they had to show there trees they have worked on during the summer,  ofcourse a lot of other subjects and technics where discused and all off them worked on there own trees. Here are some pics.

This summer was great for my juns…..four weeks ago i had to prune again, they grow like grazy, i was glad with the help of Ollie…also my sabina had to be pruned a lot, in order to keep the green under control and not to let it grow longer, because the tree will be bigger and bigger instead of more compact, so to keep it you have to control it.