Mid America Bonsai Tour: Days Two and Four- Columbus and Ft. Wayne

Day two found me in London and having some serious zone envy.
Sorry, London , Ohio.
One word: Larch.

My host Mike had these for sale (he’s having a big bonsai yard sale on Saturday June 21st) and I was drooling.
They weren’t lasciviously large larch but they were adequate.
I Can’t grow them in Orlando though.
I did get some trident maples.

I wish I could have brought this ponderosa pine home too.

Anyway, time to go to the Columbus club.
And, at the local fillin’ station, some sticker shock.

When I left Florida, gas was $3.35 a gallon.
Damn.
No wonder I don’t see any Starbucks around. No one has any money left over from buying gas.
My schedule for today: a BYOT workshop in the morning and a ficus microcarpa workshop in the afternoon.
The Columbus group meets at the Franklin Park Conservatory, which has a bonsai collection of its own.
Mostly tropicals, to my surprise.
The morning BYOT workshop had quite a variety of trees; from ficus, to crab apples, juniper to zelkova to spruce.

And a very familiar species, ilex vomitoria “schillings”. Someone’s been reading my blog.

This tree came from a landscape nursery in Tampa originally.
It was an interesting mix of trees, to be sure.
Then it was lunch and a tour of the collection.
Probably one of the best ficus benjamina I’ve seen.

A ficus salicaria.

And many more, including a buttonwood among others.
In the outside collection there were junipers, hornbeam, this great bald cypress.

And a pretty cool European beech.

Whoops, do I hear a whip cracking?
Back to work, time for the workshop on the ficus.
I took several pictures but I like this one best.

She was a good sport, she didn’t want here pic taken, in fact, she tried to move out of the way.
And now she’s on the blog.
I’m a meanie.
I did give away some t-shirts from the American Bonsai Tool Company.

And we had a very good overall bonsai time.
Then it was time to go back to Mike’s house and relax.
I watched as Mike watered.
I love these trees, I think they’re silver maples.
Nice bark.
We also found some, ah…..beverage.

And I found a guitar!
Woo hoo!

And Mike gave me the tour.
This is where he, um, overwinters his bonsai.
I was hoping I wasn’t still here when the DEA raided the place.

Yeah….
After a good sleep and an early morning (and filling up with the way overpriced gas) I was on the road to Ft. Wayne.

Lots of windmills.

This is downtown Van Wurt. A sleepy (read that as- hit every light red) little town on the way.
After arriving at the Kittle Homestead I was whisked away to a soon to be disclosed place for a soon to be described task.
But you’ll have to wait a bit for that post. The secret day three post that I teased you all with in the last post.
Sorry.
Day four!
In the Kittle kitchen they have these pots and pans hanging from the ceiling.
I just love that.

And I got to eat some organic, fresh eggs for breakfast from the Kittle chickens.
After breakfast I decided to wander a bit around the property.
This is an oak.

And, surprise!
A bald cypress in the ground.

Then, a short, quiet respite before the workshop begins.

Sitting under a tree in the warm, Mid-June breeze, swinging lazily on a wooden rocker, not thinking of anything.
But then, it was time. High Noon.
Four words:
The workshop was intense.
First, I had brought a variety of trees for people to choose from.
The trees:

Then, they were encouraged to bring there own.
It began at noon.
It ended at ten pm.
One guy had a total of five trees, another, three, some people had two and on and on.
I can’t give you an accurate tally or species count but, there were ficus..

….and buttonwood, and juniper….

…..and Eugenia, crepe myrtle, cypress, zelkova….

…….did I mention ficus?
At lunch I tried to clean off the ficus gunk using a special soap.

I guess pumice isn’t the miracle product we’ve been led to believe it is after all.

15 minutes for some pulled pork, pulled chicken, cheesy scalloped potatoes etcetera.

Poor Steve was still wiring.

That, dear readers, is Steve Moore from Bonsai in Hoosierland (hoosierbonsai.blogspot.com) a very informative blog you should check out.
So I worked through the evening and I suddenly realized that it was nine pm. And the sun was still up.
Weird.
In Florida the sun goes down about 8:30.
I finished off my last three trees in the company of this dude,

Barefoot Bruce, stayed to the dirty, gritty, mosquito swarming end.
Thank you sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman!
The last tree, at around ten thirty, was this ficus microcarpa.

Which turned out really nice. IMHO.
The next update will be on days five and six, of which I just finished number six with the Cincy club with a demo of this bald cypress.

Can yer dig it, mi amigos?
Sleepy time!