A Shimpaku juniper from the 34th Taikan-ten Bonsai Exhibition. The photo is from Michael Bonsai (on facebook) as are all the photos shown here.
It’s later (than you think). A few days ago we put up a post titled Taiken-ten Bonsai, Some Pines First, More Later. Now it’s later. So here they are, as promised.
I’m going to go ahead and guess the varieties. Not because I’m brave (or foolish, though you could take issue) but because these look pretty easy.
Looks like a Japanese white pine.
Ume (AKA Prunus mume, AKA Japanese apricot). The bark is a dead giveaway.
A ferociously wild Shimpaku with a literati flare (using the word ‘literati’ when a tree has this much robust foliage, might be questionable, according to some people at least, but we’ll save that discussion for another time).
Shimpaku, like Japanese black and white pines, are very popular in Japan.
At a glance I though this was variety of dwarf Arborvitae (Thuja). Now I’m pretty sure it’s a Hinoki variety (Chamaecyparis obtusa). I cropped vertically to remove something distracting. The photo below was cropped horizontally for the same reason. Between the two, you get the essentials from the original.
The foliage is a little indistinct, but the overall feel brings Needle juniper to mind. Maybe my ‘easy’ comment was premature.
A cropped version (of the photo at the top) for a closer look.