The Bonsai Blog of Carlos van der Vaart

Winter finally arrived, after a long autumn period, its finally dry and getting colder and colder. its aready freezing and the weathercost says it will stay this for at least a periode of two weeks.

It has been to long that i wrote about my bonsai activities…but rest for sure, lots of work is coming……

Hi foks! It has been to long ago that i posted news. The blog has been moved to www.ofbonsai.org  and Paul Stokes did a really great job ! thanks Paul.. Anyway lots of articels are waiting, for now i am busy with p[reparing my tree for the coming event Noelanders Trophy. Here is my pinus mugo. Report will folw soon,  all the best.

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finally my website is updated, if you want to have a look ..your more than welcome!  www.carlosvandervaart.com

the fifth sessie was a succes as always, many trees are turning out very good!  Again we where hosted at Lodder’s in Harmelen; they really took good care of us, Thank You! Here some pics…

This mugo was also a very long in the pot, it was growing perfect like a Japanese tree thats Mochikomi,  a long time growing in a pot. the thing is that the front was sideways meaning to change the internation this tree had to be repotted, also the roots on the left where in the middle of the pot, so the roots had to be cutted in order to get the tree more to the left, this will be done again in future, now the tree is in the middle of the pot in stead of more in to the left, its a pitty that this wasnt an option for now.

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This mugo is one of my favourites, i wrote about it before..i loved the pot where its in, but it is simply to big, also the soil is like “shit” , it looks like clay and for sure it hasnt been repotted for a long time, so in order to repot i found Dan Barton to make a pot for it, for me the structure and the colour of the old pot of Dan is simply perfect, so i am very happy to have another one. Now the tree is repotted and the tree will be left alone till autumn than i will rearange the branches again, now the lowest branch is in the view of the shari etc.

Many trees are repotted and new combinations where made, here is one of my favorites, its a quercus from Sicilie, pot is made by John Pitt.

 Like others i am at the moment busy with repotting, i am also very happy to say that i use my new soil a lot !!! It took me almost two years to get this soil, called PUMICE the way i wanted. On my trips to Italy i got the possibelty to work wirh pumice, pumice is close to bims that is used a lot, pumice is much better than bims,  specially for yamadori and bonsai as junipers and pines. The experience i have and all others in Italy is that the pumice used by yamadori gives a survivalrate of 99% !! the problem was to get the pumice to Holland. With help of some friends i found a company that imports the pumice, they make a selection of size so like 25 mm and the wast it and last they put it bags of 20 l (4 l more than akadama ) . So i imported five pallets right away, each pallet has 75 bags…so a lot, and i mean a lot of pumice in my garden, two bonsaicompagnies bought right away some stock and students and costumers bougth also a lot of bags. Everybody is very enthioustic and everybody wants more. For yamadori in containers use it pure, for bonsai in pot mix with akadama and for others mix with kyriu. Trees grow like grazy in this soil, they really like it and make a lot of roots, and a lot of roots means a lot of foliage.