More daring high quality bonsai
Every time I visit Ryan Neil’s International Bonsai Mirai website something new and exciting turns up. In my estimation, Ryan could quit right now and still be considered major contributor to North American bonsai (and beyond). But Ryan isn’t quitting (and he’s young), so we can expect more daring high quality bonsai for a long time.

Bonsai blessings from the Rockies
I don’t know how many of us fully appreciate the quality of bonsai material coming out of the Rocky Mountains (and other notable western mountains). I suspect the surface has barely been scratched (so to speak) and with a little intelligence and restraint, that the supply could last for our grandchildren’s grandchildren (and so on) without any serious risk to numbers or to the environment. At least, I hope this is the case. In this vein, I think Andy Smith’s most excellent DVD on collecting provides some very intelligent guidelines on how to make this happen. If you combine Andy’s gentle wisdom with the deep and detailed knowledge of Larch Master Nick Lenz’ (Bonsai from the Wild), you’re off to a very good start on the subject collecting.

All three of the Rocky Mountain junipers in this post belong to Ryan Neil. This one was collected in 2008 by Randy Knight of Oregon Bonsai.

This one was also collected in 2008 by Randy Knight.

Whatever it is, it’s wonderful. We just featured this ‘bonsai’ in our last post. Turns out it’s a fabulous fake. Or, maybe fake isn’t the right word. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s a wonderful clay representation of a bonsai. The artist is Paul Finch, according to Nik Rozman.

There’s two Progetto Futuro Bonsai Schools. This enlongated photo is of a workshop at the Progetto Futuro UK Bonsai School. The original Progetto Futuro Bonsai School is in Italy (as you might guess). Now Tony Tickle has teamed up with Enrico Savini and Ivo Saporiti and created Progetto Futuro UK Bonsai School.

Digging in. It just so happens that I’m in Mexico at the moment. Nothing to do with bonsai (more or less), just a little sunshine R&R. Still, why not dig in just a bit to the local scene. Here’s what the first shovel full turned up.

Bonsai Tonight, bonsai last night and bonsai tomorrow night. This sweet Kifu shimpaku is from Bonsai Tonight. Rather than say more, I’ll just encourage you to visit this exceptional blog for yourself. Should you wonder whether it’s worth the considerable trouble of a single click, you have my word.

There’s something afoot in Nebraska. Okay, I’m on vacation and trying to stop working for today at least, so I won’t say much about my discovery of the Nebraska Bonsai Society website, except that, at a glance, it looks pretty good. Maybe there’s something afoot in the great state of Nebraska.

Buy this book. Okay. It’s time to reveal one of my favorite books of all time. But first, a question: why don’t bonsai enthusiasts show more interest in full size trees? It’s not that there aren’t some tree lovers in our bonsai community, I’m just surprised that we aren’t all tree lovers (or am I missing something?). Anyway, enough with that. This book is the best tree book I’ve ever seen and almost the only tree book I ever use (I even read it for entertainment). It features over 700 varieties with over 2,000 color photos. It’s chock full of great info, including identification tips, range maps, abundant general info on trees and tree identification. And it has a waterproof cover! It’s a remarkable deal at 19.95, and an even more remarkable deal at Stone Lantern’s low price of 14.97. Go ahead, buy it. You’ll be thanking me for years.

For those of us who make mistakes. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth at least one more mention: Andy Rutledge’s thoughtful and thought provoking  Artistic Foundations of Bonsai Design is work a look. In fact, it’s worth repeated looks. The photos above are from a section titled ‘Compositional Mistakes.’

2011? That’s so last year. Here’s one we missed. It featured Walter Pall and I’d love to hear from someone who attended. Meanwhile, you might want to check out The North Caroline Arboretum for future events.

San Antonio. I don’t know why San Antonio popped into my mind, but it did. Here’s what I found after a five second search. I couldn’t tell how current the site is, but it’s a start if you’re interested.

Just a little taste. The two spreads below are from the tree book (above) that I want you to buy.

The good news
It looks like lime sulfur is back (turns out, it was never really gone). Rather than me confuse the issue more than I already have, here’s the latest from Colin Lewis (Jin Seal lime sulfur is one of his Hô Yoku Bonsai Care Products):

“Lime sulfur must now be registered by each manufacturer individually in every state, not just one national blanket registration, and the fees are not cheap. It simply is not cost effective for manufacturers to do this. You may have a manufacturer in your state who has registered in your state, but I doubt they have registered in all fifty. If they haven’t, and they ship out of state, they’re breaking the law.

However, I have now reached an arrangement with the largest manufacturer that enables me to legally purchase stock and resume wholesale supplies of JinSeal.”

Bonsai paradise
I wonder just how common naturally contorted wild bonsai stock are on the islands of Indonesia. Based on what I’ve seen online and elsewhere, it’s easy to get the impression that they are so abundant that all you have to do is walk out your door, bend over and pick a few. Somehow though, I doubt that’s the case. If fact, I seem to remember photos from Robert Steven’s Mission of Transformation, that show Robert and friends going to a considerable amount of trouble (even dangerous trouble) to collect wild trees (here’s a relevant post from 2009). Still, Indonesian bonsai artists seem to come up with an endless supply of high quality collected bonsai, and the ones shown here are no exception.

The wild contortions on this one are a bit more expansive, but nature’s ravages combined with skilled human hands make for the same delightful results. This one belongs to Budi Sulistyo (author of Tropical Bonsai Gallery). The photo is from ofbonsai.org.

I don’t think we can go any further without showing one of Robert Steven’s masterpieces. Robert is a bright star in the Indonesian bonsai universe and this gnarly old tree is a good example of what his skillful hands and eyes can do with powerful collected material. The photo is from the gallery on Robert’s blog. BTW: Robert is a frequent contributor to this blog and author of two of our favorite bonsai books.

Free Advertising! What if you could advertise your bonsai event for free on a Bonsai Blog with over 30,00 visitors a month? Turns out, you can! Right here on Bonsai Bark. Just put your event (with links please) in the comments below and I’ll take from there.

Have you seen this issue? Neither have I. My subscription seems to have run out. My excuses for not re-subscribing are that I’m busy and I tend to get more and more of my info from the web. I’m not sure that either of these excuses are very good, so maybe it’s time to re-subscribe. The photo is from the BCI website.

Winter Cold & Tree Roots on Crataegus Bonsai. Once again Michael Hagedorn has placed his shoulder on the wheel of bonsai wisdom and pushed a bit.

Golden Statements magazine. Just got our Jan/Feb issue and noticed that
there are several good looking bonsai events coming up soon:

Bay Area Bonsai Associates 31st Bonsai Exhibit with Ryan Neil. Jan 28 & 29

Golden State Bonsai Federation Mammoth Fundraiser Auction, Sales & Demos with Kathy Shaner and team.
Feb 25 & 26 at the GSBF’s Bonsai Garden in Oakland.

The Southern California GSBF will be holding a similar event the same weekend at the
Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.

A preview of our 2013 calendar? Actually it’s a very old calendar that you can see along with a bunch of other fascinating old images and photos of bonsai (and related stuff) on the World Bonsai Friendship Federation site. It’s a bit like visiting an art museum.

Tropical Bonsai Riches. This powerful bonsai logo is from Jose Rivera’s Bonsai en el Tropico. You don’t need to understand Spanish to enjoy the vast store of riches contained in this website, but it helps.

The 3rd U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition is coming! Don’t be left out. The dates are June 9th and 10th (all the info you need is here). BTW: you might notice that Stone Lantern Publishing is a sponsor. That’s a good thing and we are proud to have the opportunity. Beyond that, Stone Lantern will be there as a vendor this year. We are going to bring a wealth of old out-of-print bonsai books (most courtesy of John Palmer, founder of Bonsai Today magazine), some in-print books, our most excellent bonsai wire, some tools and who knows what else (we’ve got some ideas)?

Little delicacies. These tasty little delicacies are from Horie Bikoh kiln in Japan. I found them on Morten Albek’s Shohin Bonsai Europe (Morten is the author of Shohin Bonsai). In case you’re feeling generous, I’m still accepting late birthday gifts and then there’s always Valentine’s Day.

Monster Tools for Monster Trees. You like to work on big trees? Have you seen our New Monster Tools? Each one is 28″ (72 cm) of tough cutting power.

Great Bonsai. Crazy links. I like how the stand and the tree on the right just flow into each other in this photo. It’s from Mario Komsta’s website (Mario Bonsai: Wabi Sabi). We’ve been featuring Mario on this blog for a long time, which is another way of saying we like his bonsai. What we don’t like is how what looks like internal links on Mario’s site take you to very unexpected places. If you go to gallery, for example, you end up on generic looking page, bonsaiwabisabi.com that seems to have nothing to do with Mario or his bonsai. Another example is the link ‘blog’ which takes you to an Australian travel blog. Have evil robots taken over Mario’s site?

This one speaks for itself. It’s a jpeg, so the links aren’t live. Here’s a link that is live.

Talk about getting a jump. The good news is that you don’t have to wait until 2013 for something to happen in St. Louis.

The Midwest Bonsai Society’s 8th Annual Spring Bonsai Show will be held May 19-20 at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

American Bonsai Society. Have you seen this? It’s from the ABS website.

“That’s one thing about intellectuals — they’ve proved that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what’s going on.”
- Annie Hall

Thanks again to Mr. Tea
The photos in this post are all courtesy of Peter Tea, our current favorite bonsai apprentice (nothing personal to the rest of our apprenti in Japan, it’s just that Peter keeps sending great stuff).

Meifu-ten, a show for hobbyists and collectors
It seems like most Japanese bonsai shows are for collectors and professionals, so it’s refreshing to see photos from a show that features collectors and hobbyists’ trees. Here’s some of what Peter has to say about the show: January 14-16 was the 82nd Annual Meifu-ten Bonsai show in Nagoya Japan.  Meifu-ten is the second oldest show in Japan behind Kokufu-ten and this year exhibited over 170 trees.  All the trees belong to hobbyists and collectors.  The average attendance of for the three day show is about 7 thousand (Not too shabby!)…. here’s the rest.

7,000 per day!
In case you were wondering, bonsai is alive and well in Japan.

A very distinctive Kokonoe Japanese white pine. I’ve seen other trees with dominant first branches that seem to break bonsai conventions. but this one really goes out on a limb (so to speak). And then there’s that extraordinarily powerful lower trunk.

Too sweet! It’s a Japanese red pine (in a traditional style bunjin pot).

It’s not that most of the trees in the show are bunjin, it’s just that we’ve got a soft spot for them. This one’s a Shimpaku juniper. All the deadwood action around the base (and perhaps another feature or two), makes for a very unusual bunjin.

Bad news about lime sulfur. It’s hard to imagine bonsai without lime sulfur. But it looks like that’s exactly what we’ll have to do. At least those of us who live in States. Rather than trying to explain what’s happened, I’ll leave it to the expert, Colin Lewis, our favorite lime sulfur source (and author of Bonsai Survival Manual, among other things): “To get straight to the point: Lime sulfur is now totally banned in 46 states.  Of the remaining four states, two only permit the use of lime sulfur under special license and the other two are currently processing a total ban….” (scroll down for the whole story).

I’ve always had a soft spot for Columbus, Ohio. I won’t bore you with my reasons, but I will suggest that you visit the Columbus Bonsai Society’s excellent website, and if you ever find yourself anywhere in the vicinity, why not get in touch?  However, I must admit that I was just slightly miffed to see that they didn’t feature any Stone Lantern books in their quite extensive book review section. I still recommend that you check their book reviews out, but I might also most humbly recommend that they expand their reviews to include some of these: Masters’ Series Pine Book, Masters’ Series Juniper Book, The Magician, Kimura 2, Shohin Bonsai, Bonsai from the Wild, Satsuki Azaleas & Bonsai Today Pocket Gallery.

Congrats! The Phoenix Bonsai Society is celebrating their 50th birthday. That’s impressive. What’s even more impressive is their website. It’s one of the most informative bonsai sites anywhere, and I’m not just saying that because they gave me a $100 kickback (just kidding, it really is a uniquely rich source for valuable bonsai information). Check it out for yourself.

Tyler Sherrod, bonsai apprentice. I don’t know if I’ve already recommend you visit Tyler’s blog, but just in case I haven’t…

Wire versus Wire. We’ve been fielding lots of questions lately about the difference between our Bonsai Aesthetics Wire and our Japanese wire. Basically, the Japanese wire is a little stiffer and therefor a little stronger. Which means the Bonsai Aesthetics wire is a little softer and therefor a little easier to apply. Because the Aesthetics wire is so affordable and the difference in holding power isn’t that great, I believe that the Bonsai Aesthetics wire is a better deal. This takes nothing away from the Japanese wire, which, given our large discounts, is also a very good deal.

An eccentric and compelling bonsai. There’s so much going here, that I won’t bother to say anything. Except that it’s a Premna and it’s from Taiwan Bonsai World.

More Mario. We just featured a bonsai of Mario Komsta the other day and now here’s another of Mario’s trees you might like. If memory serves (occasionally it does), it’s from a sequence on an ever shortening jin. I lost the link but imagine you can find it if you want.

The John Naka Award. The American Bonsai Society in fellowship and remembrance of our American Grand Master is pleased to announce that the 2012 John Y. Naka award program is now open and accepting entries from across the North American continent. For more, visit the ABS website.

John Naka Sketchbook. While we’re discussing John Naka, you can purchase the John Naka’s Sketchbook at Stone Lantern (offered in partnership with the National Bonsai Foundation).

We don’t usually do stones here, but there’s a long bonsai/suiseki tradition, so why not? It belongs to Junius Guiang.

Bad new about lime sulpur by Colin Lewis
To get straight to the point: Lime sulfur is now totally banned in 46 states.  Of the remaining four states, two only permit the use of lime sulfur under special license and the other two are currently processing a total ban.   According the State of Maine the primary consideration is the potential effect of residual lime sulfur on ground water, not because of the risk to users.  (Oregon State University, the major researcher into such things, describes it as having “low mammalian toxicity”.)

Until recently, the penalties for ignoring the bans in the prohibiting states were imposed on the user.  However, now the penalties – and not insignificant penalties – are imposed on suppliers who ship lime sulfur (calcium polysulfide) to prohibiting states.  Some nurseries will still have residual stocks, but that will not last long.  Some importers will continue to acquire lime sulfur from Japan, but as soon as the first one falls foul of the law the others will cease.

The upshot is that lime sulfur will soon no longer be legally available to bonsai growers.

Before you jump to conclusions: No, this is not a cynical attempt to sell you my own brand of lime sulfur before the year end.  The truth is that I only have a third of a bottle left for my own use and I can’t get any more!

Although I’m not normally prone to self-mutilation, I am, as I write, viciously biting my lip in order to avoid a rant which could easily become far too heated for this newsletter!   But then, I imagine most of you feel much the same….

From freshly dug to ‘almost bonsai’
The photos here present a sampling of a step-by-step series on a very creative (and skillful) bonsai transformation by Mario Komsta. We’ve featured Mario’s bonsai several times on Bonsai Bark, and for good reason. To my eye, Mario is one of the West’s elite young bonsai artists. You might even say that Mario is one of the elite bonsai artists, period. You can see all of the photos, plus Mario’s pithy comments on his facebook album.

Before. Shaggy tree, shaggy space.

Mario turns it on its side to get the angle he wants.

The basics have been established and new finer foliage has been grafted on to replace the original shaggier foliage.

After few years devoted to recovery and just growing. I guess you could say that the grafts have taken.

One thing is missing, otherwise this photo is the same as the one at the top of post. There’s a pretty obvious hint, so it should be easy to tell what’s missing.

BACK IN STOCK! Finally. All three of our Monster Bonsai Cutters are now back in stock.

Common but very uncommon
There are three things that I find striking about this tree: first, it’s an Eastern white pine, a tree that you almost never see as a bonsai, even though it’s quite common here in the Northeast. Second, it’s skinny but old (the bark gives it away). Another rarity when it comes to Eastern white pines. Third, it’s a good bunjin bonsai, healthy and understated, with just enough graceful movement to please the eye. Even the long shaggy needles are so delicate, soft and vibrant, that their length isn’t really a problem (these long shaggy needles is one reason you almost never see Pinus strobus bonsai). Maybe this tree will serve as an inspiration to others and we’ll see more Eastern white pine bonsai in the future.

This short post wraps up another year of Bonsai Barking. Thank you for sticking with us over the last three years (that’s about 500 posts worth). May your bonsai be healthy and beautiful and may you enjoy a Happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

A good place to start resurrecting
Way back in 2009 and early 2010 we ran a series of posts that we called Eccentric Bonsai (here’s the last one). Maybe it’s time to resurrect the series. If so, this absolutely unique Trident maple seems like a good place to start.

Borrowing from Peter…
As you may have noticed, we’ve featured several posts from Peter Tea’s blog lately (Peter is an apprentice at Mr. Junichiro Tanaka’s Aichi-en bonsai nursery). Peter takes good photos, writes with a fresh perspective, and knows something about bonsai. To an old editor and bonsai enthusiasts, that’s an unbeatable combination.

Here’s that nebari, and here’s what Peter has to say about it: “A close up of the root spread.  Even the root spread of this tree is strange.  Answer me this, would a more natural radial root base go well with the rest of the tree? or vise versa?  My first impression of this root base was, “what is this?”  When I looked at the overall tree again this root spread turned out to be so right for this tree (there is an important lesson to learn here).  If you don’t believe me, look at the picture of the front of the tree again.  ;o).”

A profusion of very small, very colorful fall leaves almost completely cover the tree’s eccentric nature.