As Sandra has mentioned Chris Thomas chairman of Dragon Bonsai had organised a two day event called Bonsai the Celtic way, this was a new concept with a series of speakers on Bonsai their way.Read more>>
On day one we had a demonstration of silk carving given by Gerry this involves a more involved way of peeling back fibres bit by bit to give more detailed highs and lows than normally seen when carving with a power tools. You were invited up to have a go yourself on his tree.
Manual and Malcolm also gave a demonstration of air layering, this technique I have found vary useful in the past to gain more and/or better material from what can be a poor tree to begin with. These two are well worth seeing as a double act.
John Pitt brought to the event two fabulous trees his Blackthorn which was in flower
and my favourite a raft style Hawthorn.
He described who he managed to create the wonderful ramification in the Hawthorn and his way of producing dead wood on material.
The second day there was a general discussion on various pieces and what options there were to improve them, Simon Temblett joined on the Sunday and he brought in a Hawthorn which he described how he had been refining for some years, he also gave a talk on his method of dead wood on trees.
John Pitt gave a very informative talk on the type of pot and colour selection for your Bonsai.
Each day ended with a question and answer session, what was so informative was that these people were all drawing on thier experiances with Bonsai over many years and what had worked for them.
As I had not entered any trees I was asked to help judge the catagories as in best tree, yamadori home grown, and garden center material I add pictures below.
This was a brilliant two days and I congratulate Chris for trying out this format as it was full of advice with plenty of good humour thrown in.