Czech Yamadori

One can smell the autumn in the air... but it seems most of the trees and a number of my favourite plants in the backyard are apparently suffering from a bad cold.   I do not have any better explanation for the nice juicy green colour of their leaves.  Not to mention even some blossoms.   Not bad though.  At least they are still working hard to store as much carbohydrates as possible.  Good for the next season.  I hope... Arenaria montana Erodium album Erodium Bishop's form Lithodora diffusa. In reality the colour is much more darker... Prunus mahaleb still  working hard...I do not plan any autumn pruning - leaving that for the late winter time In the meantime I follow blogs of my fellow bloggers to see some nice colours of the autumn carnival. OK, to spend the time a bit more productively I am about to post an article about my attempts on threadgragting.  Should be here on this Wednesday... And now off to the forest to see if there are any

Forest food The Czech Republic lies in the middle of Europe.  At least that is the common belief of the people living in here.  That doesn't exclude that the people living in Austria, Swiss or perhaps Slovakia  cannot believe in the same.   Let's leave them in their sweet  ignorance because it is evident to me that it is only the Czechia that can prides with the "CENTRAL" attribute.   After all the Austrians have their Mozart,  the Swiss their bankers  and the Slovaks very  pretty girls... The position in central Europe means - there is no direct border with a sea.  To overcome that we believe that our forests are a kind of  a sea.  The Sea of Trees.  Well,  it is not the same as the forest that is located at the base of the sacred Mount Fuji that attracts crowds of visitors not only for its dramatic beauty but for some of them as a suicide site .  The forests in the Czech Republic are also in the summer flodded by the vast numbers of visitors that are searching fo

Apple tree  minitrunks from seeds_Shohin starters This is a bit of a fight.  A true yamadori hunter ( YES!  This is what I see looking in the morning in the mirror ) blogging about cultivation of trees from seeds?!?   Well, the world is not anymore as it used to be... A few years ago I bought two small apple trees from a DIY.  Despite or maybe just because of my horticulture skills, both of them are not here anymore.  Luckily I have managed to get some seeds before they had left me.  Planted into the cultivation box a number of the seeds has germinated next spring.  For the season and following winter I have left them in the box.  Next spring the five strongest young plants were root pruned and planted into the ground for next three years.   In the course  of the second season I have made the first wiring to get some movement to the trunks.   Easy to say but it was a bit of a struggle to decide what kind of shape I should give them. Quite difficult to imagine how the bend made on

Ji-ita_A wood slab_part 2 Another great day in woodlands.  A round tour to pay a visit to  "my"  trees that I keep in mind as a potential objects for collection.  The summer this year was quite friendly in terms of the amount of rainfall so all the trees were reasonably OK. Just a small appetizer. A small Prunus mahaleb - a possible shohin Yamadori_Prunus mahaleb NOW. WHERE ARE THE SLABS??? OK. Here we go. Then on the way home I have found a burl on a fallen willow tree.  Not a very big one but the size for me is almost perfect taking into account I use a manual foxtail saw for cutting the slabs. A burl _willow_possibly healed remains of the broken branch? Hardly can wait to harvest this one on my next trip to this area. In the meantime please find a few shots - burls and a slab in making - before the final coating A burl suvel on the right and a burl cap on the left Suvel: a tumor like swelling caused by a strees - disease, insect

In our  western culture they are commonly  called yamadori.  In fact only a very few of these trees have a strong character due to their growth in a harsh biotop = so they can be categorized as a Yamadori A quick insert.  A yamadori   Yama - mountain and  toori -  avenue street ( possibly carry? ).

Bonsai stands_Ji-ita boards I have always a plan to make my own bonsai stand(s).   After all, I am a Czech and there is a common believe in our country ( rather a wishfull thinking ) that the Czechs have golden hands -  meaning very manually skilled. Looking at my first attempts on the ji ita boards I have some doubts that the statement in the first paragraph covers ALL the Czechs. The first ji ita board  is an apple tree - a simple transverse cut with some additional carving of the edge.   I do like the nicely coloured wood core. Dimension:  190*180*10 mm The second one comes from the locust tree and it has a partial burl in it.  Again this one is made from solid wood and the top is an authentic partial burl. No veneer as you can see on the edge - compare with the apple ji ita board. Dimension: 190*130*9 mm There are nearly a dosen new ones in production.  All  from a locust tree burl. I hope I will get better and better.  

     Boxwood.  Surface roots improvement. Nicely spread and weathered surface roots are very important for the visual appraisal of  any tree. Directly via their visual impact and secondly,  they stimulate the thickening of the trunk, especially in the most wanted area - a trunk flare that looks so great if we have it.   There are a lot of techniques to improve the quality of surface roots.   This one I have called " wet feet" Spring 2016.   A plastic fence has been placed around the base of the trunk and the area between the trunk and the fence has been covered by about an inch thick layer of a sphagnum moss.  The fence has been anchored to the soil by a  bent wire. The top of the sphagnum has been sprinkled by a gravel to discourage the blackbirds from a deeper investigation.  Then the tree has been placed in the area of scattered light.  The moss has been kept ALL the time WET. Autumn 2016 The fence removed.   Eagerly awaited white threads of new roots