Ryan Neil working on one of Masahiko Kimura‘s most famous trees. Photo from The Art of Bonsai Project. Coming Next Weekend Ryan Neil is appearing at The Bonsai Society of Upstate New York on September 13th. Ryan spent six years apprenticing to the world’s most famous bonsai master, Masahiko Kimura. If you live in the [...]
Michael Hagedorn working at one of Boon’s intensives. From Bonsai Boon. A little background I stumbled across this article (below) by Michael Hagedorn while whiling away some time exploring Bonsai Boon. Michael is now recognized as one of our most accomplished bonsai artists, authors and teachers, and Boon, in addition to being one of Michael’s [...]
After: By Michael Hagedorn, Crataegus Bonsai. Michael says the container is approx 30 gallons. This should give you some idea of the scale (it’s bigger than it looks). Michael says it’s a Juniper procumbens, but it looks a lot like a J. procumbens ‘nana’ to me (that’s the dwarf cultivar), especially in the photo below. [...]
Why is this man smiling? Is it something he did? Who is he and what did he do? He’s Michael Hagedorn (we just featured him the other day) and he just did some very fierce hacking on a Zelkova. If you count carefully, you’ll see that there are 1,376 leaves on this tree. If you [...]
You could spend your whole life collecting bonsai and never find one as impressive as this. From Michael Hagedorn’s Crataegus Bonsai Seasonals. Here’s what Michael says about this photo… “Initial potting of a large Rocky Mountain Juniper, Winter 2010 Seasonal.” Just a little understated. If this is any indication, it’s worth noting that Michael has [...]
I pulled this distinctive bonsai off of a gallery on facebook that was posted by Francesco Santini. There isn’t much information provided and I don’t read Italian anyway (Free Translation nonwithstanding), so I can’t say much about this tree except that the hollowed out trunk caught my eye. An unusual tree I have seen very [...]
The styling progression on this cascade Shimpaku juniper by Shinji Suzuki is remarkable (you can see the whole step by step progression in our Juniper book). So is the end result. Remarkable and very unusual. Shinji Suzuki styled it when he was 24 years old. I wonder if he would do it differently now. It’s [...]
Even if you’re one of those curmudgeons who complains about the overly sculpted look of some Japanese bonsai, you’ve got to admit that this powerhouse Shimpaku approaches perfection. That trunk draws your eye like few trunks anywhere, with its single living vein, mysterious hollow at its base and the spidery fingers and hole at the [...]
We borrowed this magnificent Sierra/Shimpaku juniper from Michael Hagedorn Crataegus Bonsai site. Michael is the author of Post-Dated: The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk. Reworking a remarkable Weyerhaeuser Juniper Here’s what Michael has to say about the tree above: “A rangy juniper reworked in a half-day refinement session at the Weyerhaeuser collection in Federal [...]
