Have you ever just Screwed up BIG TIME?

jeremy_norbury

Two for the list:

We were off to Portugal for 10 days - so I talk to my next door neighbour and ask him to water the bonsai; he always waters, never a problem. Except this time he COMPLETELY FORGETS and doesn't water a single tree for the whole period. A big Larch I collected when I was 18 years old (24 years ago) dead. All the Elms - all the leaves dried up or fell off. Many others looking very very sick. That lump of rock in my avitar - the top cotoneaster is now dead the rest dropped their leaves. Of course, not a drop of rain that week - except in Portugal. I never told him that he forgot. I was lucky I had put the majority of my trees in the shade or even sitting in trays of water.

Lesson #1 pay to have bonsai watered...

My mother was here a couple of weeks ago. She's had bonsai herself, member of a club for years, should know better, right? Right. We are all sitting out in the sun in front of the house and I am pottering around trimming some sick leaves off a grape vine. I put the shears down to go inside to fetch a bottle of wine or something, anyway I was barely away for a few minutes. I come back and I go to clean up the bag with all the leaves in and I see the bag is now full with all these chinese elm cuttings. I spin round to look at the garden bed where I am no longer growing some nice tall chiness elm but AM NOW GROWING SOME UGLY LITTLE STUMPS. "Oh, I thought you were growing a hedge so I thought I'd trim it. Anyway, you already had too many bonsai". No wine for my mother then...

Lesson #2 - 74 year old arthritic knees will not prevent an old woman from ruining 2 years of Elm cultivation. You know the phrase "When you are holding a hammer everything starts to looks like a nail"? This applies to gardening shears and my mother.

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