You can tell this is a genuine Dwarf Kingsville boxwood by the tight tiny leaves. This planting by Boon Manakitivipart was the winner of the Certre Award at the 2010 U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition.
This post was inspired by an article on boxwoods in Bonsai Mary. I’ve been thinking of featuring some of Mary’s timely articles for a long time, but the photos are small for this format and don’t enlarge very well. Finally a solution dawned; include some full sized photos from previous Bark posts and mix in some of Mary’s smaller photos.
BTW: Mary’s article sheds some light on the rampant confusion about dwarf boxwoods and particularly, what is and what isn’t a Dwarf Kingsville.
Here’s one of the photos from Bonsai Mary. It’s a Buxus harlandii by Yugi Yoshimura that resides in the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. (If you were to ask me, I’d say those leaves look a lot like Dwarf Kingsville, but you didn’t ask me, so we’ll leave it at harlandi).
Another of Mary’s photos. Here’s her caption: “To add to the confusion (about Dwarf Kingsvilles), there are several similar looking types, such as the Morris midget. All of these small leaf varieties make good subjects, and are styled very similarly! The bark is usually smooth and often almost white in color.”
We’ve shown this Japanese Boxwood (Buxus microphylla japonica) by Ryan Neil before (Elevating the Art of Bonsai in the West). It’s from his International Bonsai Mirai website, which was recently transformed into Mirai, American Bonsai (more at The Future of American Bonsai from last week).
Judging by the leaves, I’m not sure I’d call this a Dwarf Kingsville, though I’ve seen this type called just that over the years. Anybody out there with a deep knowledge of boxwoods? The photo is from Chinese Bonsai Garden.
Here’s one that appears on Mary’s site that we are able to show at our full size (we went to Mary’s source, Internet Bonsai Club for the original photo). It’s a harlandii that belongs to M.Škrabal.
Harlandii bark via Mary. I blew this photo up a tad too much, but you get the idea.
Simple and sweet. This Dwarf Kingsville originally appeared on the cover of Bonsai Today issue 107. The tree belongs to Michael Persiano (co-editor of our Masters’ Series Pine book). You can see and read about its earlier stages of development in Bonsai Today issue 97.
I followed the development of Michael Persiano’s box wood in the two issues of Bonsai Today. I’d love to see what has happened to the tree since then!
If I were going to guess, I’d say the twin trunk in the oval pot that you weren’t sure about is a “Grace Hendricks Phillips” dwarf boxwood. This species was once known as “Woodland Kingsville”.