Peter's Bonsai Blog 

Big John”  This is the story of a large larch bonsai which I call “Big John”.

I acquired this tree in February 2023 from a longstanding acquaintance, and fellow Ayrshire Bonsai club member- Mr John Lechti.  John is over six feet tall and as his tree is also very tall,  it seemed natural that I should refer to the tree as “Big John”.

John had owned the tree for over 25 years and so most of its development should be credited to him.  I have therefore known this tree for all of my Bonsai journey, and I was very pleased to get the chance to be its keeper for a few years.

When I purchased the tree, it had been a bit neglected and came in a broken pot. 

However finding a pot that was 24 inches wide and 15 inches deep was quite a challenge and so I ended up asking Springwood ceramics to make me one.

Nick Payne of Springwood is based near London and so I agreed to collect it from him at the Bonsai Expo in Crawley.  This was the 14^th April 2023.  I had to transport it back to Scotland on a train and came up with the idea of wiring it to a board, inside a large wheeled suitcase.   When I did get it home, it was a bit late in the year to be playing about with the roots of the tree and so I simply  “slip” potted it into the new pot.   Follow this link to see the pictures which tell the story.

Later that year I decided to display the tree at the Scottish National Exhibition in Troon.  The tree and its new pot were looking good and it was voted as being the most popular tree by members of the public. I was well chuffed, but acknowledge that most of the credit should go to John Lechti.

The following year I decided to submit the tree for selection to the Bonsai Expo2024.   This is now the largest and most prestigious Bonsai show in the UK and I was delighted that “Big John” was selected for display.

The tree is 44 inches tall and to large for my car, so I had to undertake the 500 mile journey in a hired van.  All round it was quite an expense, but I was delighted to take part and the event has become the highlight of my bonsai calendar. The following picture was taken at the event in April 2023

In the March 2025, it was finally time to repot "Big John"..The intention was to clean out the root ball and put it back into the same pot.  As I suspected the tree had not been properly repotted for many years and I found a lot of compacted root, including a lot of dead roots.  By the time I had finished there was a lot less root than I would have liked.  Even then the core of the rootball was very compact and in order to avoid  having exposed tie wires  located on top of the root mass, I had to drive in a number of bamboo skewers.  These are sold as bamboo chop sticks and I simpley sharpen then to a point, before driving then in with a wooden mallet, as far as they will go.  By ensuring that your tie wires are located over the skewers, they can be used to secure tree into the pot.

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