Preparations for winter

Preparations for the winter is still a theme here. Light hoarfrost these days, but the trees are still outside. Pictures at the bottom of the post. There are no signs of real winter around, so no worries about rushing bonsai in to the shelter as long as the rain stays away. Removing some mosses from the soil surface is still going on in small steps, as well as cleaning up leaves.

Another winter preparation is to make trees ready for exhibitions. Here are three shohin prepared for the EBA exhibition at Noelanders in February. Cleaned and details corrected.

First one is a Chinese Cork Bark Elm, that needs a clean-up at the trunk. The soft cork bark has a habbit of being overgrown by mosses during autumn, because the bark sucks up a lot of moisture. Leaving it on may make it air layer itself and cause the bark to rotten. It is best cleaned with a soft or medium soft brush, so mosses are removed without harming the fragile bark. Twigs are adjusted at last.

I also worked on the Chinese Juniper that will be at the display, working on the deadwood parts. In need of some bleaching and preserving lime sulphur soon. It will be stay outside unless the weather changes to more frosts, so the bleached painted parts will have a little time to tone down and look more natural. Also smaller branches where looked into.

Another shohin that will go in to the same display is one of my longer time projects, a Taxus Baccata, European Yew.

By the way it is worth mentioning, that all the shown bonsai I have started from raw material a little more than ten years ago. A few adjustments needed, and also removing a few mosses growing at the lower part of the trunk.