Wildly Expressive Bonsai

Blown up and a little fuzzy, but still… astounding! Some days you just get lucky. Yesterday I stumbled across the wildly expressive bonsai you see here. It was posted by John Romano (of Kaikou School of Bonsai fame). Here’s what John wrote about it: “One of my favorite shohin bonsai. Owned by a private collector in South Korea (bought in Japan). My good Japanese friend maintains this person’s trees. The owner is a collector and doesn’t show his trees (doesn’t care!) but has fabulous trees bought mostly in Japan. Is it really shohin? I don’t care! love it! Recent posts by … Continue reading Wildly Expressive Bonsai

Careful!

This sweet to look at, but otherwise nasty little bonsai is from Yorozu Shohin Bonsai Nursery in Japan. It caught my wary eye recently on a post by John Romano on Bonsai Study Group Forum. I’m going to assume that it’s an Asian Poison ivy (see text below). We’re busy with the Holiday rush amping up, so we’ll take the easy way out. This one originally appeared almost four years ago. It was titled “You Can Look but You Better Not Touch.” One genus, several species What follows is for those of us who get excited when we see Latin … Continue reading Careful!

Wire All the Way Out to the Tips and Don’t Forget to Take It All Off

Japanese white pine bunjin wired at Taisho en. From ‘The Art of Bonsai.’ Taking the first Sunday of spring (ha!) off today, so we’ll dig it into the vast wealth buried in our archives. The original is titled Wiring Tips: Take It All Off (but not too early). It appeared in May of 2011. BTW: it’s no accident that it’s about wiring. Our Big Kilo Wire Sale ends tonight and I thought this might serve as a good reminder. It this light, I’ve added something called Wiring All the Way Out to the Tips from another earlier post. Take it … Continue reading Wire All the Way Out to the Tips and Don’t Forget to Take It All Off

Thematic Incoherence & Embarrassed Apologies

Continuing with Bonsai Today, this gorgeous, sinewy New Zealand tea tree (Leptospermum scoparium) appeared on the cover of issue 96 (still available and 75% off). Not much more needs to be said about this one (it speaks for itself), except maybe to comment on the variety. Though you may occasionally see a New Zealand tea bonsai, in general they are not that common, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere. But, even if you have seen them before, I’ll take a wild guess and venture that you have never seen one quite like this. Thematic incoherence. This post is a … Continue reading Thematic Incoherence & Embarrassed Apologies