December

Pictures from today, taken around our house when the sun rised above the horizon for a short while.

Uninvited guests!

What's with these two plants then? I took them out of the garage and now I think I will keep them here in the vestibule for some time.

The reason is I found that they had been attacked by rodents! Picture above: my only living small leaf elm. Don't want it to die. Picture below: a Japanese maple. It looks like it has been debarked all around, but  there is still a little bark left on the other side. Actually, this tree has survived rodent attack before: see this post! (The maple bark must have an especially good taste, as the animals have chosen them both last time, and this time, among all different sorts of trees in the garage.)

I have painted over the damaged parts and now hope for the best.

 

Those guilty of this crime have been punished: So far we have trapped four little animals in this kind of trap. My husband says three of them are voles and one is a mouse. I have a feeling there will be more of them coming in, it is that sort of a year, obviously. 

Don't we have a cat? Yes we have a cat! We have tried to leave Hanibal in the garage sometimes, but unfortunately I must say he has not done his job properly...

Trees in London

 When I go away for a holiday, or any other trip that takes me away from home, I have the habit to look at trees just as much as (and sometimes more) at normal tourist attractions.

This time I have been on a short trip to London. Before we went I wondered about all different species of trees that I would see. Then it turned out the whole city is planted with the same sort of tree; we were always surrounded by them, they had these interesting hanging, hairy, round fruits.

The trunks had this nice patterned bark.When you see a pattern like this on a textile, it is usually called "camouflage pattern".

- The bark belongs to the plane tree.

So I have been walking around in London looking at plane trees.

The trunks can be really funny looking.

One bonsai-related thing you can say about the shape of the trees is that they have a clearly visible taper from the roots up the trunk. More on some, and others less of course.

After coming home I have read that these trees are planted in London because they are tolerant to all bad conditions that a tree has to survive in the middle of a big city, like polluted air and compaction of the soil.

Here is a beautiful and interesting site where you can read about the plane trees in London - with many beautiful tree-pictures!

End of the outdoor season

End of the outdoor season! The trees are moved to the winter-storing place. This morning came the first snow.

The semi-hardy trees are waiting to come into the garage for winter.

Two pictures, two pines

Two pictures with the same three ingredients - and taken at the same place... Same two collected pines, and same bonsai amateur! (Me.) I don't know exactly when the first picture was taken, but it must be more than ten years ago. In this picture you can see the top of a small bush behind the left pine - in the second picture (from today) that bush has grown to a tree - the three trunks you see behind the same pine.

Although I hate to myself in a picture, it is sometimes comforting to see old pictures like this. When I think my bonsai are never good enough, I can look at an old picture and say "at least the trees are better than they were before". At least the wooden box and plastic bucket has been exchanged for bonsai pots...

 

Sumac

Frosty morning.

 

This is my sumac (rhus). In June, I put the five plants that survived the strange last winter in this blue pot. During the summer they have grown together.

Origin of the plants is from seeds that I got in 2011.

Straight pine

Yesterday I was in Umeå with the bonsai society. I had brought this straight pine to the meeting, but never really got time to work with it. The only thing I did  was to cut off one branch - leaving a stump to make a jin.

Then I wired the tree when I came home, cut off two more branches, and jinned the top!

The cut-off branch left the tree a bit thin on the right side.

Which I think will be balanced in the next season!