The elephant hornbeam

Oriental hornbeam, Carpinus orientlis, collected in Croatia in 2010. This remarkable tree has this enormous thick low branch which looks like it belongs to an elepahnt. It would be easy to just cut it off an create a decent well behaving good bonsai. But this I will not do having several dozen hornbeams in my collection. This will become the elephant tree. It is in the fairy tale style, not wanting to look like a bonsai but rahter like a remarkable ancient tree, weird and even grotesque, but unique.

 

Japanese beech #2

Japanese beech, Fagus crenata, slowly but gradually this tree is approaching maturity. As with all of these imported trees the major fault is that the lower branches are too thin compared to the trunk. This can only be fixed over a very long time period - like 15 years.

 

oriental hornbeam #10

Oriental hornbeam, Carpinus orientalis, collected in Croatia in 2010. This one grows much slower than the others. But I still have hope.


 

Free broom form

Within bicycling distance from my home in Bavaria there is this village called 'Neufahrn'. Today we had a long Christmas walk there. Apple tree (malus) and linden tree (tilia).

 

Prunus #9

Wild cherry, Prunus mahaleb, collected in France in 2008, first image of 2010, pot by John Pitt.

 

European beech #1

European beech, Fagus sylvatica, collected in Germany in 2002 - see image #1. Now the full quality of the tree can be seen without foliage. I am happy, but as one can see I still want to improve it. The enemy of the good is the better.

 

European beech #7

European beech, Fagus sylvatica, collected in Germany in 1997, first image of 1998, pot by Derek Aspinall.

Accepted for Noelanders Trophy 2014

All three were accepted: European spruce, Picea abies, pot by Walter Venne Mugo pine, Pinus mugo, pot by Derek Aspinall/WP European spruce, Picea abies, pot by Derek Aspinall

 

wild cherry #10

Wild cherry , Prunus mahaleb, collected in Slovenia in 2009. This is another bonsai in the fairy tale sytle. The tree lost a few branches unfortunately but it is still OK. It will go into this great pot by Horst Heinzlreiter in spring of 2014.