The Bonsai Blog of Rune Kyrdalen

I found this spruce in 2006 and started to prepare it for collection. I cut off many unnecessary  branches and fertilized the tree. Now it has grown a lot and the needles have a deep green colour, indicating very good health so I collected it. It was growing close to some big rocks and when that is the case the root system is always better than if the tree grows in pure peat soil as is the norm. I could see many active hair roots when I collected the tree. It has an excellent chance of surviving. Here are some pics:

I have just collected these three pines. The big one has a very nice nebari and lower trunk, but the upper trunk must undergo some serious bending to be in the right place.

Here are some before and after photos of an elm an a linden I just repotted

Last weekend I went collecting again. It was a bit early beause some of the trees I found was still frosen in the ground so I couldn’t collect them. (I’ll go back later ). I did collect one tree. It’s the largest tree I have ever collected. It’s currently about 160 cm tall, but I hope to reduce the hight to about 1 meter in the future. The trunk diameteris about 45 cm.
It was so heavy that I has seious doubts that I could carry it to my car, but in the end I managed to get it home, the next day my whole body was sore, I had pain in places I didn’t know I had muscels.
I got a lot of roots so I think it will live even though big, old trees like this (it’s probably at least 200- 300 years old) are weak and more difficult to collect successfully than smaller pines. I will know if it survives within a few months. I keep my finges krossed.

We have a cold spell in Norway now with temperatures down to below -20 c at night and we have about 70 cm of snow so there is not much bonsai actvitiy. Here are some pics of some spruces I collected last summer. I keep my fingers crossed for them to start growing again next spring…..

Here is Hans in his garden preparing his trees for the exhibition

His mugo pine called ‘big Ron’

A wonderful larch for the future!

The Duch gang; Ed, Hans and Jeroen that I stayd with! Hope to see you again soon!

So many people have already posted pics from Noelanders trophy so I will only post Udo Fishers winning maple. Hans van Meer invited me to come to Holland a few days before Noelanders trophy and he took me on a bonsai tour in Holland. Thank you so much for your hospitality Hans! Here are some pics.

First he took me to Lodders. A really large bonsai nursery in Holland. They had an enorumous number of bonsai of all qualities there.

This is just a small part of the nursery!

Later we went to se the nursery of Teunis Jan Klein. He had so many really good trees. Here are some samlpes.

Here is an overview of a part of his green house, he also had a large area outdoors!

Here is Teunis Jan with an erormous beech raft. I can understad why he is smiling!

And here is Udo Fishers outstanding trident maple!

I posted pics of this spruce last spring. Last August I repotted it inot a bonsai pot. Here are some pics of the repotting.

It was standing in a wooden box and it had grown a lot of new roots since it was collected

As you can see the original soil is almost mudlike peat, it was growing in a bog.

I removed as much as I could of the original soil. If this is left in the pot for too long it will slowly kill the tree because it is so compact and no oksygen can get to the roots. At the same time I leave as many roots as possible. I only cut off the ones that are too long and thick to get into the new pot.

Here is the tree in the new pot. It is not the final one but it’s good for now. I used a deeper pot to allow for more root growth and to make it easier too keep the roots damp at all times, spruces hate to dry out, they die quickly if they don’t get enough moisture. I will leave the tree in this pot for many years and when the tre is shaped I will put it into a shallower, oval pot.

Here is an update on a comparatively small pine I have. It has very good trunk movement and really rugged bark. The rugged bark doesn’t show on the new photos because the trunk is wet so I’m attaching an old photo where the trunk is dry as well.

I will cut back unneccesary branches next spring and leave it another year before I start to style it.

Here is an update on a very twisted pine I have.

It has grown very well this summer, I more or less got the complete rootball when I collected it and it didn’t seem to notice that it was moved into a pot : -)

In time I will bend the upper part of the tree so that the foliage is closer to the trunk, and the volume of foilage will obiously be reduced quite a bit. I love the shape of this tree!