One of the other locations Tony took me was Bonsai Northside. Bonsai Northside is one of Brisbane’s local nurseries and they stock a really good range of everything bonsai from starter stock, pots, tools to finished trees. The owner Tess was kind enough to let me take a few pics to share so if you are ever out that way head down and have a look.

There are some seriously massive Bougainvillea on display as well as some other really nice trees. Not sure if you can get a real idea of the size of some of the trees from the below pics or not though but trust me some were HUGE!

As you can imagine when you grow a large amount of bonsai over a long period of time you come up with many interesting techniques to deal with the changing conditions.

One such technique that seems to be more specific to hotter regions such as Brisbane that the owner, Tess talked about was the shading of fig trunks that have recently been defoliated. Tess showed me a couple of examples of figs that had died back on the trunk after having their trunks exposed to full, hot sun after defoliation. She had come up with a number of ways to shelter freshly defoliated figs from the sun that ranged from moving them to shady areas and or making covers for them such as the one below which I think was made from fly screen. Admittedly i dont grow figs down here in Melbourne but its an interesting technique none the less incase i do decide to grow one. The sun can be very hot down here too and i can see the logic in shading trunk that would otherwise be covered by foliage.

A defoliated fig hiding from the sun.

Bonsai Northside was a great place to visit and chat about bonsai at. One of the nice points of the nursery was just how well-kept and neat the place was which really set of the display trees.

Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

A couple more pics below: