$100 Contest: Choosing the Right Pot

The idea for choosing the best pot for this tree belongs to Boon Manakitivipart, as do all the photos in this post. The idea for turning this into a contest belongs to me. This is our second post on Choosing the Right Pot in the last few weeks (December 14. 2013). The tree is a Chinese cork bark elm. All the photos were borrowed from Boon Manakitivipart (aka Bonsai Boon). The Contest: To to eligible to win the $100 Stone Lantern gift certificate you must do the following three things. 1. Choose your favorite pot & tree combination from the … Continue reading $100 Contest: Choosing the Right Pot

Choosing the Right Pot

As long as we’re on the topic of choosing, I chose this one as the lead photo because it’s the only one with clean pot. A distinct advantage. All the photos in this post are from Boon Manakitivipart’s facebook postings. I took the liberty of cropping all the photos in this post and combining some separate photos into single images. Which pot would you chose? The photos and the concept are courtesy of Boon Manakitivipart (aka Bonsai Boon) on facebook (here and here). Just in case you’re not in the loop, Boon is a highly respected American bonsai artist and … Continue reading Choosing the Right Pot

A Borrowed Bougainvillea Bonsai: Bracts and All

Bougainvillea. Borrowed from Andolfo Bonsai Studio. Two things stand out; the flowers (actually they are bracts, the little white things are the flowers) and the trunk. You might also notice the how small the pot is relative to the tree. If the purpose of this tree is to show off its colors, then you’d have to say it’s a screaming success. But what if you take away the flowers? Is it still a noteworthy bonsai? Or does that even matter? Are flowering bonsai different? In Japan flowering trees are often designed in ways that show off the flowers first and … Continue reading A Borrowed Bougainvillea Bonsai: Bracts and All