Grafting Bonsai – You Might Want to Wait Until the Fall

A few stills captured from Capital Bonsai’s video on grafting that features Ryan Neil owner of Mirai American Bonsai and major player in this fall’s Artisans Cup bonsai exhibition in Portland, Oregon. I’m out of town visiting friends for the weekend, so to spare me putting together a new post, we’ll jump into our time machine this morning. All the way back to November, 2012. We could just forgo a post today and no one would complain, but I wanted to remind you that our Stone Lantern FREE bonsai wire offering ends tonight at 11:59pm EDT (Just write FREE in … Continue reading Grafting Bonsai – You Might Want to Wait Until the Fall

Time to Celebrate…

The sky blue pot is the perfect compliment to the light pink flowers on this powerful Satsuki Azalea that resides at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum in Washington DC. There are a multitude of cultivars in the Satsuki group of azaleas. This one is a ‘Nikko.’ It was donated to the museum by Masayuki Nakamura. It’s time to celebrate our National Bonsai and Penjing Museum once again. If you are anywhere near our nation’s capital, or plan on being anywhere near, don’t miss this phenomenal display. Even if you have no plans on being near Washington DC, you can … Continue reading Time to Celebrate…

Ezo Spruce by Any Other Name…

One glance at this Ezo spruce and you know it belongs to Walter Pall. Walter sometimes refers to this natural looking untouched-by-human-hands style as ‘naturalistic bonsai,’ though if you go to Walter’s Bonsai Adventures blog where this photo is from, you’ll see just how touched-by-human-hands it actually was. And just how accomplished Walter is at turning pedestrian bonsai into naturalistic gems. Ezo spruce are sometimes referred to as Jezo or Yezo spruce (Picea jezoensis or Picea yezoensis) and even Sakhalin spruce, though that’s a really a different species (Picea glenii). Most (or perhaps all) of the specimen quality Ezo bonsai in … Continue reading Ezo Spruce by Any Other Name…

Grafting Lesson & A Totally Unrelated Wall of Ice

A few stills captured from Capital Bonsai’s video on grafting that features Ryan Neil. I just got home from a short vacation only to be greeted by a three foot wall of ice blocking my front porch (photo below). Weather and a serious roof design flaw conspiring in an effort to ruin my homecoming. Fortunately, Corey and Ric kept the office and warehouse doors clear, so here I am, jet lagged, cold, happy to be home (strange I know) and ready to go to work. But only ready enough to take the easy archival way out. This post originally appeared … Continue reading Grafting Lesson & A Totally Unrelated Wall of Ice

Capital Bonsai Shadows

Here’s Capital Bonsai’s caption for this photo: Three point display with Trident Maple. In training since 1895. Donated by Prince Takamatsu. Mt. Fuji scroll and Japanese Blood Grass. A few years ago there was a lot of buzz about bonsai being a fine art. Now, the issues seems settled. If you start with the right material and add a masterful eye and touch, both the process and the result can be called art. Photographing bonsai, when done well, is also art, and the photos shown here are no exception. They are a small sampling (I chose just one tree) from … Continue reading Capital Bonsai Shadows

Capital Color

This Japanese Maple was donated to our National Bonsai and Penjing Museum by Ryutaro Azuma. It has been in training since 1906. The photo, like all but one of the photos in this post, is from Capital Bonsai. It has been at least a month since the colors peaked here in northern Vermont, but we can imagine that somewhere, where the climate is a little more relaxed, some lucky people can still look out and see trees all ablaze. Perhaps if you live in the D.C. area, where most of these photos are from (via the Capital Bonsai blog), you … Continue reading Capital Color

Defoliating, Repotting & Other Tricks

This time I took the liberty of cropping and adjusting the contrast just a bit to attempt to better show the details on this remarkable tree. Here’s our original caption: Trident Maple (Kaede) at the Kokufu-ten in 1972. It now lives in Washington D.C. at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. The photo is from Capital Bonsai. It’s still mid-summer semi-vacation time, so I’m taking the easy way out once again. This post originally appeared just over a year ago. Because I’m such a big fan of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum (and Peter Tea’s excellent blog) and because … Continue reading Defoliating, Repotting & Other Tricks

Bonsai Events, Dirty Pick Ups and a Few Loose Ends

This pine (looks like a Japanese white; Pinus parviflora) is from the 2011 Taikan-ten bonsai exhibition in Japan. The photo was borrowed from Empire Bonsai. You don’t see that many great multiple-trunk bonsai (here’s another one we posted recently) and I think this one qualifies. It’s hard to tell from this angle if all the trunks are sharing a single root-system. It could be a twin-trunk tree and a triple-trunk clump combined. Upcoming events. It’s time to catch up on some upcoming bonsai events and some other loose ends. Which reminds me, if you’d like to promote an event, just … Continue reading Bonsai Events, Dirty Pick Ups and a Few Loose Ends

Bonsai Truckin

Sheer power. This photo and one at the bottom of this post are from a chapter by Ernie Kuo in our Masters’ Series Juniper Bonsai book that’s titled ‘Two Studies.’ This now famous California juniper (Juniperus californica) also appears in a Bonsai Bark post from three years ago. This photo is from Capital Bonsai (Aarin Packard’s excellent blog from the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum). Here’s Aarin’s caption: Gary Wood, (seen here) a bonsai teacher from Muscle Shoals, Alabama had driven from Southern California to D.C. in 3 days with two very famous bonsai recently donated by bonsai artist Ernie … Continue reading Bonsai Truckin

Spring Versus Fall: A Grafting Lesson

A few stills captured from Capital Bonsai’s video on grafting that features Ryan Neil. Capital Bonsai (the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum‘s excellent blog) is at it again. This time it’s an outstanding video on grafting featuring Ryan Neil of International Bonsai Mirai. Fall versus spring grafting. Here’s what Ryan has to say about fall versus spring grafting (loosely paraphrased): Grafting in the fall is more successful than in the spring if you can provide winter protection from freezing. If you graft in spring you have to protect from sun and wind. In the fall you have to protect from … Continue reading Spring Versus Fall: A Grafting Lesson