Wisley Gardens Bonsai Tree Collection 2021
How he remembers every bonsai tree and the history of the tree like if they were all his children. He knows when they were started or last repotted and where he was in his own life. Insane.
You won’t believe that we’ve got snow today and we’re here and this is ella a new apprentice helping me prune the trees so these trees have been out all winter and they’ve had no protection and the leaves have all been emerging in the cold so they’re very hardy so even when we get snow they don’t get uh hit back by the frost whereas on our nursery we grow some of the things in the greenhouse and bring them out so they do get affected but these are not affected one bit and the staff clearly are looking after the trees quite well so if we walk through the trees this is the big chinese zone again new growth coming ice and snow on the tree but that’s looking good and this tried maple it has completely emerged in the open without any protection so this is virtually in perfect condition they haven’t been reported for at least five or six years but i’m in no rush to repot them because they look healthy and look at this larch this large forest this is one that i made in 1974 and it’s still going strong these trees have matured the top on this one has died the top on this one also died if you come and have a look what i did with the top i cut the top off and i’ve taken a new leader so if you look at it from the front there the new leader appears to be growing quite well so that will take over i don’t know whether to take the dead top off on this one yet but because you do get trees in nature that do look like this i’m not in a rush to take it off because i think it does look natural the rest of the trees are very natural looking look at all the ice and snow on the trees again i don’t think he’ll do it any harm and again this massive mountain maple look at the nebari on this look at the nemari the base beautiful base again this tree has been at wesley for the last i think seven years or eight years never been repotted and it’s still flourishing this is the size of trees i like and this is the size of trees we like to show in public places like this because if you show a small tree it tends to get lost whereas a big tree has presence on the nursery so this is in perfect condition and this is one of the scot spines that are dug up from our field ordinary scot spine that we grow on the field again look at the beautiful nebari on this tree because it’s kept potbound you see the roots are going round and round it’s forming a beautiful nebari and again this tree has not been repotted for maybe 10 years but because it is fed regularly it is in very good health and all these branches all these bendy branches have been wired with wire to get the twists and bends so this is not a collected tree this is a tree that we grew on the nursery so simply by wiring we’ve got that shape and this is a mega mega mulberry tree morris niagara black mulberry or white mulberry i don’t know what it’s called with this huge trunk again no protection whatsoever and this produces a lot of fruit so that’s also in very good healthy condition again reminding you this is the beach that i created from a tree we dug out of the hedge at herons 1986 when i got to herons it was dug up from near the gate and it has been a bonsai ever since and this has been at wesley i think as long as this collection has been going 1997. and let’s walk a little further this is a bouvernences pine and this bhuvanensis pine is made from some of those bhuvanensis that we grow in the field but this had training right from the very start in fact this was trained when i lived in my previous house in pearly so this has been training since 1980 so it’s 41 years in training and i reckon this tree is probably only about 65 years old but it has been training ever since we put it in this round mica pot two years ago you can still see the shape of the rectangular pot it was in a very small pot but we put it in a bigger mica pot and the branches are pretty thick but no matter it looks powerful looks has as if it’s got a lot of presence and this is another of my favorite tridents again this tree has not been repotted for about 10 years and look at the beautiful nibari on this tree look at the nebari come close and see the nebari you see how the veins of the trunk are going into the roots and that natural hollows here beautiful nebari so this is our old timer this has been here since 1997 has always been at wesley and again coming into leaf without any protection and they’re perfectly fine we do change the trees at wesley and this is a new tree new chinese juniper we brought today so this will be changed uh maybe in a year’s time this is the beach forest i can do a bit of pruning to this now uh we need to shorten it like so otherwise it gets too long so this is what i’m going to do today so on these visits we keep trimming the trees so that they are kept in good condition and i know it’s a freezing day all the soil is frozen but we try to keep this weeded so that it doesn’t get looking too unkempt so this is another very old group that we’ve had now this tree has a lot of history this is one of those rough bark chinese elms not the smooth and this progressively died but like all these oak trees that have hollow trunks you look at the hollow and the bark is calloused right inside so this is absolutely natural i love this tree because it looks so natural you actually see trees in nature that look like this again in very good health so i’m not worried about this you notice that most of the pots we have here are mica pots in case they fall off the stand although none of the trees have ever fallen so they’re less likely to break this is a ceramic pot of course this is a root of a rock that i’ve had for many many years again looking quite good i think the secret of them looking good is that they’re fed regularly if you feed them regularly they should be okay this is another maple that we’ve had here since 1997 it’s always been here look at it it’s in perfect health absolutely perfect health just a few tweaks to the new shoots is all i need to do and again because they’ve been emerging in the open they’re not protected at all a lot of people wonder whether these trees need to be protected in winter they’re not protected they’re left out here right through the winter and look at the condition they’re in perfect condition the autumn color of this tree is very nice let’s turn around and have a look at the view look at this rockery all the cherry trees are in full bloom absolutely gorgeous although it has been snowing today the snow has not settled but wisley always looks nice so another trident maple here and almost all the tridents at wesley that we’ve kept here for the last uh god knows how many years maybe 20 years they’ve got beautiful nebari because we don’t put them in bigger and bigger pots if you keep it in the same pots the roots really develop nicely so again no protection and hardly any trimming i haven’t been here for six months the last time i came here was in november due to the corona lockdown but all the trees are in good health this is a lodge that we grew in our field great big lodge if you come closer jack apparently the staff told me that apparently a mouse is living in here so this is a mouse hole you might get a mouse popping out field mouse so again they’re looking good they’re all butting one or two dead branches but i don’t bother to take them out because it looks natural in nature you do get trees that have a few dead branches so that doesn’t worry me see perfectionists will say oh you’ve got some dead branches there but it doesn’t matter so what it looks okay it looks okay and again in beautiful condition another of the trees that are what we call our homemade trees this is a austrian black pine and this we produce from one of our field grown material looking very good this is a smooth bark chinese elm the smooth bark is different from the rough bark and they are surprisingly hardy they grow in southern china where they get summer temperatures of about 35 40 degrees centigrade but here they can stand minus 10 minus 12 degrees so that doesn’t come to any harm another of our bhuvanensis pines that we developed from scratch and when you see bhuvanensis grown as bonsai you see how small the needles are it’s almost like a spruce pisces look at this barely quarter inch long the needles so this believe it or not is a pine and because it’s kept pot bound the needles get small i know the pads are a bit not what a perfectionist would call 100 percent but again the tree has presence and it looks old looks natural so that doesn’t worry me again this ginkgo this is the typical way gingkos are grown it hasn’t started leafing but if you come close the buds are beginning to appear lots of lovely new buds so this will soon grow well i have ginkgo in the nursery but i haven’t been able to keep them alive as this one this has been here since 1997 so this is an old tree this is a japanese white pine on its own roots and trees like the japanese white pine which are grown in their own roots have a different color to the ones which are grafted the grafted ones have a deeper green this of course is a very very very famous tree this is the famous blast juniper from the book bonsai master class and i made this as a challenge in 18 months and you see the picture of this tree in bonsai master class and you can see how i planted the branches in the past i used to be very fond of planting branches to make them thick and that’s a technique i used to use a lot i don’t use it very much now but i used to use that and this tree when i first started making it was no more than half inch thick so 19 the book was published the book was written in 86 so this was made in 1984 so it’s been created since 84 when the tree was maybe about 15 15 years old about thumb thick and look at it now the trunk must be at least about four to five inches in diameter so this is a very famous tree from bonsai master class another trident and this is a tree we brought today because we changed the trees and this is a humble conker tree and this is a red one the red conker it’s grafted there and with a bit of luck we might get a few flowers on this tree uh you never know so we’ll see this is a rigider i like to show it because it’s a genuinely old tree and rigidos have the habit of losing branches but because it’s a different species i don’t mind keeping it and here is an old crab apple with a beautiful gnarled old trunk this tree would be about i say 35 i reckon it’s more like 40 years and it’s all covered in flower buds so we’re going to get a beautiful show of color from this tree to hide the trunk this is an old satsuki azalea it has lovely flowers and beautiful trunk people in these public displays like to see old trees it’s not one of my best satsuki’s but at least it looks all so i keep it here and the flowers are very pretty some of the dead tricks i’ve got to prune out so this is a job that we’re going to do today another of our mountain maples and just to show you how variable a tree can be this is hardly started leafing and yet i’ve shown you other mountain maples in the same display and they’re all in leaf so although they’re the same species each tree is like a human being they’re all different so they respond differently so this one hasn’t come into leaf yet this is a chinese juniper itoigawa on rock that three trees on this one at the back and two in the front grown i like to show it because there are not many root over rocks chinese junipers and this is a very old deshojo which again i’ve had here since 1997 and i know it may look a bit tired but i still keep it here because the color is what attracts people most and this is the great big japanese you garden tree which we donated back in 1997 it was trimmed last year so it’s in good shape and the white pine we have altered the shape a bit and this is a new view of wesley and of course everything is being changed we don’t recognize the old wesley anymore so i hope you’ve enjoyed this little tour today [Music] [Music] 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