Today's regular monthly general workshop

Four participants at the general workshop here at the nursery today. Three regular attendees and one relative newcomer to the experience.

As usual I was grateful for the help of Terry and Ray. Above we see Ray taking photos for his own blog, Ronin Bonsai.

Here we see Terry giving his full attention to a little juniper belonging to Ian B.

With his regular participation in these monthly workshops and also in signing up for his first Peter Warren workshop in October, I think Ian more than deserves ” Willowbogger ” status.

Ian put me in a quandary in bringing in this Sequoiadendron giganteum, Giant redwood, and stating that if I said that the tree had little or no bonsai potential, that he would donate it to the Woodland Garden Collection. Mmmmmmm … tempting   but no, I had to say that I thought he could make an interesting and unusual bonsai from his tree ,  damn !!  It is true that it might never make a show tree but nevertheless it could make an image that is actually very typical of the species, particularly as we see it as commonly planted in the UK. That is to say more or less straight up and down with steeply down curved branches. I sometimes wonder if, at this time in both the UK and Europe, we are not just a wee bit over obsessed with trunks having movement, there are lots of very mature trees in the landscape that are fairly straight !

We began as always with a discussion of one tree from each participant. Backs to the camera , left to right , Antony R, the G-man, Ian B and newcomer Brian.

The G-man [ Peter G ] showing intense concentration on his work , or is he nodding off in the heat ? 

Two baldies together !!  Antony politely pretending to listen to my words of wisdom ! like all Willowboggers he knows better than to be taken in by my mis-placed confidence

He is making a good job of recovering this old Chinese juniper bonsai, most of todays workshop spent refining the lovely old deadwood in the shari.

Here he tidies up after his day , everyone did a good job of doing that today !!  We had a lovely sunny day for a change , too hot in the studio for some !

The tokonoma display today.

The main display was this nice Japanese yew, Taxus cuspidata, a newly acquired sale bonsai that was featured in a recent post here.

Featuring in the side display were these three Japanese style teea bowls by Stone Monkey Ceramics. Nice pots set off well on this Japanese made shohin stand.  Another good workshop day at Willowbog.