Mattbonsai

Right Before I get Sued or what have you I have nothing Against the RHS, I Think they are Brilliant at what they do, but its some of the exhibitors in our chosen field that I have issues with, I also have nothing against the trees, they are superb trees in most cases!.

I was looking at the RHS Chelsea 2007 Pictures in Lua's gallery, and I recognised many of the trees, and realised that they have been to the RHS Tatton before, and I've attached some of these pictures to this thread.
I was also watching Gardeners World on the BBC earlier and they were at the RHS Malvern Spring Show, and I saw some of these trees AGAIN! (only in the background, they don't like showing Bonsai on Gardeners World).

It got me thinking, Britain was once the Gardening Capital of the World, and I think its been stated that nowhere else spends more money on plants than we do, yet we still have to show the same trees, show after show after show and cannot produce something better or of equal Quality!

Why is this? and Does anyone else Notice this when they go to shows in other countries?!?

-Matt-

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Pup

G, day Matt. You are a young man, many of the trees you show are older than you. That being said. YES I have noticed this.
In Western Australia we have two clubs that put on Exhibition I belong to both of them.
One club has a policy of all in all the time!!!every time, so and I have heard it said that one again hasn't changed in ten years.
I make it a policy, to try not to show the same tree for at least three years, from one show to the next time it is shown.
The other club has a policy a show every 18 months.
The trees that were shown last time, they will not be permitted in the next show.
This is hard for some of the members, who do not have many trees or have not been doing it for long.
We do however encourage them to put, as with other members, trees that are in training. Or as one member prefers it, under construction.
Pup for what it is worth.

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G, day I live in western Australia I have been trying for the last 20+ years with some success to grow Bonsai. I am a perpetual learner and an advanced beginner

LUA

Hi Matt

The trees you have picked belong to a Bonsai Nursery which exhibits all around the UK because they are there to sell. They attend all of the major Horticultural shows, and since you are "in the business" so to speak, I am not surprised that you recognize them.

At the Chelsea Flower show, each year only 1 Bonsai Club is allowed to exhibit (last year it was Bonsai Kai, my club) and the rest of the Bonsai exhibits were all from nurseries, which as I said are there to sell.

I am going again in a couple of weeks, and since my club is not exhibiting this year, I am hoping to bring back pictures of Bonsai trees from another Club. However, I suspect that the same Bonsai Nurseries will be there again, but hopefully with some new trees.

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Lua
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I am not a bitch, I have just been in a really bad mood for the last 30 years!

Mattbonsai

Lua, Pup.

I think its rather pathetic that they have to repeat the same trees, if the Society I belong to can change our display every year and we're only small, even though there are several members with several RIBB Trees (Register of Important British Bonsai) but they don't bring these trees out for every show!

There should be a policy that the same tree cannot be shown 2 years in a row, I think that would get some trees out of the dusty closet! When I go to Tatton this year I may well question them if they have any other trees of show quality!

Looking forward to the photos Lua, I'd love to get down to Chelsea this year, but restricted finances stop me.

-Matt-

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LUA

Matt

As I said in my reply above, those trees do not belong to a society or a club, but to a Bonsai Nursery!! There's a big difference, because obviously a nursery is a business with "profit" in mind so inevitably they will always try to exhibit the best trees they have in their collection in order to attract buyers, just like the "flowers" exhibitors at the Chelsea Show are showing the same flowers all the time...... they may change the presentation, but the flowers or the plants they specialize are the same all the time.

On the other hand when my Bonsai Club goes to an exhibition, although they try to vary the trees as often as possible, it is inevitable that some of the best trees we have are shown on a regular basis, because we do not assume that the same visitors are attending all the RHS Shows in the same year.

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Lua
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I am not a bitch, I have just been in a really bad mood for the last 30 years!

Mattbonsai

The fact that its a professional nursery makes it worse, it puts me straight off buying from them if they cant grow a wider range of decent trees.

What day are you going to Chelsea this year Lua? £10 says its on the last day for the big sell off!

-Matt-

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LUA

Matt, I'm afraid I need to disagree with you on this particular subject. In my humble opinion, one can't possibly presume that a nursery can't grow a wide range of decent trees because, on occasions, they are displaying some of the same trees. In order to fully appreciate the range of trees a nursery is producing one should at least "visit" them directly and walk about their grounds, and not assume that what they are showing at exhibitions is their entire stock.

I am afraid you lost the bet .... this year I went on Thursday foolishly thinking I could miss the Saturday stampede!! Boy was I wrong!!! Thursday turned out to be the first day open to the general public, so I ended up being trampled on by 20,000 maniacal "would be gardeners".

I also had the flue with a stinking cold, so I was not in the best of moods!! I left my camera home, so I took pictures with my mobile phone, so as a result the quality is even more appalling and wobbly than usual.

I loaded the pictures in my gallery, but this year I took only a few, mainly of the 2 Japanese and the Australian Gardens, plus the 3 Bonsai exhibits, but as I said due to the poor quality of the pictures you can hardly see a thing.

Did you follow the RHS program with Alan Titchmarsh on the BBC? I thought the coverage was brilliant as usual.

Given my track record for "impulse buying", I thought I was quite restrained this year: I only bought some Air Plants- Tillandsia, from an exhibitor friend of mine, plus 3 small sandstones, so it wasn't too bad..... I think the fact that I was comatose helped a lot!!

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Lua
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I am not a bitch, I have just been in a really bad mood for the last 30 years!