Ashfield Bonsai Club

Club History

The club was founded in 1993. Originally there was a single monthly meeting (in Sutton-in-Ashfield) but this was soon increased at the request of the members to two meetings a month.

Many more formal clubs depend on demonstrations, talks and slideshows with just an occasional workshop. At Ashfield the emphasis is very much towards the informal and "hands on". Members regularly bring their own own material to meetings. The club caters for a wide range of experience in bonsai and welcomes new members. Advice is available from the more seasoned and creative members and we try to foster a relaxed, "family feel" with everyone having a say in the clubs affairs. Each year, however, we do invite one or two speakers of international fame to supplement our workshops and we occasionally organise weekend workshops with well known bonsai personalties. Presently our meetings are held in the comfortable and spacious church hall at South Normanton and new members are always welcome.

The clubs considerable success in competitions in recent years (including Best Club Display at the BTA Expo at Sheffield 2006 & 2007) serves as testimony to the ever improving quality of trees belonging to members. The club also took the trophy for most points won by a single society at the same event in 2006 & 2007. Several trees belonging to members have featured at the Gingko exhibitions and at Newstead Shows. 2009 saw the inaugral Best of British Bonsai Awards and a number of trees from Ashfield members were displayed.

Saturday, 28 January 2012

The seedier side of bonsai !

Whilst we all enjoyed our trip to the Noelanders Trophy, some members enjoyed themselves to excess..
I thought we ought to show the seedier side of bonsai trips

A couple of pictures...no names though

Ok, I'll name & shame

Mark, thoroughly enjoying the chocolate sauce off his Belgian Waffle

Corin and Lee are ashamed to watch.....

Mike contemplates the complexities of life and how to get his little finger out of his nose !

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

More trees from Noelanders 13

Here are some more pictures from the Noelanders 13 Trophy

Chinese Elm

Chinese Juniper

Japanese Quince

Zelkova

White Pine

John Armitages awesome shohin display

Pine

Korean Hornbeam

Red Pine & Oriental Bittersweet

Chinese Juniper, Noelanders 13 overall winner.
This tree was styled by Masahiko Kimura

Spruce

English Yew

Beech

Japanese Quince

Itoigawa Juniper

Hemlock

Ezo Spruce

Deshojo Maple

Scots Pine & Zelkova

Monday, 23 January 2012

Ashfield Bonsai Club members trees at the 13th Noelanders Trophy

Here are the pictures we promised you of our members trees as displayed at Noelanders 13 this weekend.

Our tree were transported to the show, displays set up and returned to the UK by Peter Warren, Peter Snart & John Armitage.
As you can see the guys did a fantastic job of setting up our diplays and we extend our thanks to them for their hard work.

Mike Rose's Scots Pine

John Pitts Larch

John Pitts Blackthorn (Prunus Spinosa)

John Pitts accent for his Larch

Mike Rose's Trident Maple

John Brocklehurst's Kishu Juniper

Ilex Serrata accent tree to Juniper Kishu

John Brocklehurst's Japanese Maple

We hope you enjoy our displays.

More pictures of the other trees displayed to follow in the next few days.

Friday, 6 January 2012

Table show trees from Thursday 5th January meeting

Just a couple of quick snaps from our meeting last night.

Potentilla, you've seen this one before, it's had it's winter haircut recently.

Winter flowering Jasmine.....flowering in winter !

Jasmine on root stand (ne taku)

Nice to see some colour during the otherwise dull winter months.

Wednesday, 4 January 2012

Happy New Year and some Bonsai porn !

Happy New Year to all our readers.

The Noelanders Trophy 2012 is nearly upon us, so we'll be adding plenty of pictures when we get home.

Just to whet your appetites for some awesome Bonsai porn, I thought I'd add some pictures from our trip to Japan in 2010....did I mention we'd been to Japan ?

Here we go, pictures from Shunka en, the nursery where Peter Warren served his apprenticeship.