Hi All,
This is my first report after taking over the duty from Alan so please forgive me if I get a name wrong unfortunately remembering names to faces is one of the senior deficiencies I seem to have picked up of late but here goes:
for the first meet of the year attendance was modest with 10 people turning up but we had a good evening and several discussions.
Alan brought a mature Scots pine with a great movement and dramatic thick rugged trunk, excellent shaping and well worthy of displaying. Mick showed us a small Chinese Box that was now in flower, so it is best to wait till the flowers have faded for its next trim. Berrice came with a small larch and also a larger mature larch with dead wood (Shari) that Alan assisted her in trimming and future development. Richard brought a small air layering of a maple that had good shohin potential and also a larger pine that I thought initially was a Scots pine but Richard caught me out and confirmed it was a species of Mugo pine this tree already had good potential and with further shaping and refinement will make a great tree in time. Nigel came with two trees in training boxes one that I’m going to describe as an Octopus style beech and the other a Pyracantha with a huge Shari which needed some skilful person with a carver to shape and refine a few of us tried to help Nigel with ideas on potential styling and at the end of the evening he had made a great job of fighting the Octopus and putting more structure into the Pyracantha.
We also discussed a little about soil mixes and soil options and I gave out a pamphlet I compiled about soils and soil mixes, I will have them again at the next meeting if you didn’t get one. Richard also enquired about grubs and larvae in the soil and possible remedies and several ideas came from the members. But do be on the lookout for bugs and grubs over wintering under mosses and in the soil some can make a meal of your trees roots by the spring so look hard at repotting time also.
James is still finalising the “WhatsApp” group and soon this may be of help as a conduit for aid and advice to our members.
so a final note: as the weather is so varied and some what mild at the moment watch out for trees budding out early so keep an eye on whether they might need repotting early then protecting from frost or maybe fleecing over to protect emerging buds and leaves from frost.
I’d like thank Alan for the surprise soil donations, as we had a surplus of funds some was spent on the members to gift us some repotting components. I’m sure he will catch up with other members next meet.
See you all next meeting
Kev
