phoenix, arizona

During my recent visit to the US, I attended my brother's wedding in Phoenix, Arizona. Our hotel was in Tempe, a university district and while the weather was quite hot, almost 30C, the early mornings were more comfortable for exploratory strolls round the area.

desert plants

shade sails over the vegetable beds

municipal offices of tempe, arizona

xeriscaping

wild west cactus, actually saguaro or Carnegiea gigantea

no boggy ground or bull rushes here...

three blacktail jackrabbit sculpture in tempe, the grass is rake but the water is real

tempe is a fairly pedestrian friendly area

at first i thought this was a modern sculpture, but its some sort of water pipe system

shade sails are everywhere in the phoenix area

stone cobbles in gabions used nicely to divide public / private space

major construction in tempe

notice all the solar panels on the roofs, there to power air-conditioning

arizona wildcats football stadium and car park, more solar panels

a beautiful mosque in tempe, looks like a scene from the middle east..

nice simple water fountain in a shady place

part of the shady garden 'under' the municipal buildings in tempe

more shade sails, i was studying these closely as i have to build something similar soon..

monster truck!

a rare thing in the US, public transport...

the oldest building in tempe, monti's restaurant, built in 1871

these trees were planted everywhere but i didn't find out what they were...

another public space with an emphasis on creating shade

hidden gardens bonsai nursery, illinois

On my recent trp to the US, I stopped off in Chicago for a couple of days and took the opportunity to visit The Hidden Gardens Bonsai Nursery. I saw some very nice trees, though Jeff said it was a bit empty heading into the winter. He lost a lot of trees over the winter last year, Chicago winters are cold! He has a tropical house for bonsai also and also has a full general nursery. I picked up a couple of pots and some tools; I didn't attempt to hide any trees in my suitcase though...

september 2014 munster bonsai workshop

I didn't take many pictures at our recent workshop in Cork. Instead here are some links to Munster Bonsai Club site and Bonsai Eejit site. Huge thanks are due to Ian and Phil for travelling, to Mark for hosting and to Piotr for pulling it all together. 

http://munsterbonsaiclub.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/workshop-trees-13-14092014/

http://munsterbonsaiclub.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/workshop-at-13-1409/

http://bonsaieejit.com/2014/09/17/munster-weekend-in-photos/

connemara

Some fantastic scenery from a recent trip through Connemara

yellow hornbeam

This Hornbeam has been yellow all summer long. It was a vigorous tree up until I re-potted it in April. 

At that time I used Cat Litter as a potting medium as I had heard that it was a possible cheap alternative to Akadama. It seemed ideal, apart from the pale colour. What I didn't foresee was the way it would degrade into a sludgy mess, which not only was reducung drainage to nil, but also I fear creating a toxic environment for the roots. Ironically I had used it before diluted down in a peaty compost and I just didn't notice how bad it was.

So I removed it from it's pot and stripped away as much compost as I dared (basically back to the original peaty core)

I repotted into a new pot with lots of grit and topdressed with some chicken manure after I had it well watered in. Hopefully it will forgive me.

air layer attempt (late)

 So it's probably way too late but I finally got my hands on some moss ad decided to try my hand at an air-layer. A Japanese Maple with a couple of low branches was an obvious choice so I selected one and set to it using the method Phil demo'd in Mark's garden early this year (at the correct time of year that is). It'll be no great loss if it doesn't work out, but fingers crossed for some magic...