It’s pushing thirty years since I bought my first bonsai tree. It was a serissa, we were at a koi show and it was my birthday. My wife and parents chipped in, whilst the tree was only £30 that was more than any of us could afford back then. Little did we all know what would ensue all these years later. My long suffering father recently accompanied me on a buying trip, chauffeuring me around in a very nice top end car we hired whilst I spent the equivalent of the deposit for a large house. Sounds like the dream job to many I guess, a few days in the sun buying bonsai trees. However buying four hundred trees in two days, especially after a 2am start and a twenty hour day is not as idyllic as it might sound. Then of course all our suppliers delivered their orders on the same day, yesterday in fact. DAD!!!

I stuck my head out the door yesterday before seven am and there was a big van in my drive. That started a long and heavy day of moving trees around. We spent the entire day up to our nuts in wagons, pallets, trolleys and boxes. By the time it got dark at least everything was unpacked. It’ll take another two weeks to sort it all out and the rest of the year to get it all photographed, on the web site and sold. That’ll be just in time to go and do it all again.

Here are a few snaps of the chaos just now. We have everything you could want whatever your budget. Lots of native species this year as well as all the usual suspects from Japan, China, Korea and Indonesia. This year we have a lot of smaller yamadori in very familiar species including scots pine, junipers, oaks, prunus, hornbeam and elm. There’s even a massive ginkgo and almonds too.

Watch this space.

G.