The Bonsai Blog of David Fairbanks

I am up to my eyeballs at the moment with my seedlings. Because i use a polytunnel i can add a month to either side of my growing season, and although its early may i have over 300 seedlings potted on (with a view to going into the allotment space next year).

So far i have had good results of:-

Trident maple, Small leaved trident maple (been growing these for 3 years, the leaves are less than half the size of the standard plant), Giant Dogwood, Chinese Juniper, Japanese Maple, Scots pine, Common Yew and Mugo Pine. I must have 300 more of these to prick out and pot up over the coming weeks.

I  have only managed to grow 3 out of 15 seeds of a particular plant, the leather leaved Trident Maple. This are rare in the UK, so if all i get from them is a stock plant for cuttings, im more than happy.

My Japanese Pines are just starting to pop through as well. I didn’t keep these in the polytunnel as i had them in larger flats, and as such they had better frost protection in comparison to standard plastic seed trays. I have 1000 in flats as i will be needing lots of rootstock over the next 4 years. I have also got a flat of Mikawa Japanese pine, a seed i have been growing for 2 years, and yielded great results last year. I hope to use these asrootstock for grafting cork/rough varieties of pine, as Mikawa develops rough bark naturally, and will ultimately lead to better grafts.

My Temple Needle Junipers, Arctic Scotts pines and Savin Junipers are also popping through. It will be a few weeks yet until these need to be pricked out.

Better go source some small plat pots i suppose.

Regards

I thought id show you all the biggest project i have for 2008.

This is an allotment i have just taken on. It hasnt been looked after for a few years, and as you can see from the picture it is in need of alot of work. There are weeds upto my knees, rubble and glass everywhere and rotting veg aplenty.

This is located a few hundred meteres away from my home. I am a backyard bonsai artist, yet i also do all of my growing at home as well. Seeds, cuttings, grafts, i do all of this at home, and it takes up a great deal of space for most of the year. The plan is to relocate this aspect of what i do to this allotment space. There is plenty of space here for me to begin doing what i plan to do.

This is the reason i have not been placing many posts lately. Every dry day i get im here, digging away. I hope to have 2 10 sqm raised grow beds in place in the next week or so. These will be raised by 40 cms for 2 reasons. First to give me a more comfy work height, and secondly, space to bury alot of the rubble located here.

I thought i would share this with you, as although it isnt directly bonsai related, it is very important to me and my development in bonsai.

This has to be my favourite time of year. The old “April Showers” are upon us, and being stereotypically English, i ruddy love it. Occasionally i get my favorite, grey clouds and drizzle. Id much rather have rain than sunshine. Dont worry, my wife thinks im mad as well.

New growth on Arakawa Maples

I love the annual games of the dormant/dead lottery that gets held in backgardens everywhere around this time of year. “Ill just scratch a bit of bark back and see if its still green” can be heard being muttered from lips all around the country.

Shoots growing on Satsuki

Its a time of excitement, planning the seasons repotting you remind yourself to repot the pine you forgot to do last year, and then promtley reforget. Maybe thats just me.

This years Scotts Pines

I just wanted to share a few springtime images with you all

This is a one year old Japanese Black Pine.