We had a fairly quiet meeting last night with a few interesting trees and the reappearance of Paul Kinnear. He used to be a regular member but work commitments have kept him away for some time. I hope we will see more of him in the future.
Paul has been making changes to his collection, off loading his larger trees and concentrating on mame. He brought in some examples and they made an intriguing display.
Matt trimmed his crab apple and also brought in a rather nice small olive that he has been re-invigorating after a period of poor health.
Richard did some styling on a box and also had a maple that has lost it’s way!
We were treated to another viewing of Nigel’s variegated san jose juniper which he has been working on following advice from Roy. In Roy’s absence Kev helped him towards further improvement.
Kev also did some work on Berice’s semi-cascade juniper but further work needs doing with some thicker wire.
There was some discussion about growing medium and how to get a free draining mix. I suggested that we could use some of our substantial funds to buy the ingredients for a general purpose mix that could be bagged up for each member, or if suitable, buy some ready mixed soil from Devon Bonsai. I will look into it further.
You may have seen on our website or on Facebook that next years meetings have been booked, including the reinstatement of a January meeting, I will give you a heads up in due course.
This will be the last meeting report from me, I have asked Kev to take over the job and he has agreed. Thank Kev.
I would also like to retire from my position as treasurer at the AGM in February. If anyone feels that they would like to do the job please let me know so that we can discuss it beforehand.