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 vicinity (or if you don’t mind traveling) you can see him demonstrate on a collected juniper and answer questions about being an apprentice in Japan, Master Kimura, bonsai, or whatever comes up.

A little piece of an interview with Ryan to whet your appetite (from The Art of Bonsai)
AoB: Why Kimura? Certainly you could have apprenticed with another master, some even closer to home and with less cultural differences, so what made you choose Kimura?

Ryan: After I past the initial phase of excitement upon discovering bonsai it didn’t take long before I started exhausting my resources for self study. Out of the blue a family friend handed me an issue of Bonsai Today that she found at a garden center and it just so happened Mr. Kimura’s work on a cascading shinpaku was the main article in that issue. I was mesmerized by what he was doing with the tree and the manner in which he brought about such change. It was like watching him sculpt a personality and give life to something already living, a second birth of sorts. As I gathered back issues of bonsai magazines that contained Mr. Kimura’s work I became more and more enthralled with the way he was able to tease so much interest and expression out of a tree. Contrary to the sedentary image of a classical Japanese bonsai, Mr. Kimura’s work had life and vigor, it talked, and moved, and always seemed to tell a story (a theme his work maintains to this day). Like many other western bonsai practitioners, Mr. Kimura’s work opened my mind to what a bonsai could be.

Post Dated & The Magician
Michael Hagedorn’s excellent book on being a bonsai apprentice in Japan is now on special at Stone Lantern. The Magician, The Bonsai Art of Kimura 2 is also on special.

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 teachers and a first rate bonsai artist, has long been a key player in establishing and furthering the art of bonsai in North America.

In Michael’s own words
“I first met Boon Manakitivipart some years ago at a bonsai convention. He was energetic and animated, and sported a day-bag slung over one shoulder. I recall telling him I had read some articles he had written, and was watching his rising career with interest. Back then I had no idea this man would eventually change my orientation in bonsai, and become my sensei….” Here for the entire article.

Michael tacking a very short pine with a very thick trunk at Boon’s intensive. Michael is the author of Post-Dated: The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk.

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. What’s surprising about this is, that if it is a ‘nana’ it’s a monster, with a trunk whose thickness defies the normal limits of the variety.

The most over-used tree in North America
Juniper procumbens ‘nana’ is ubiquitous in the North American bonsai scene. Especially the bottom end that you see in malls around the Holidays. So ubiquitous, that many bonsai mavens disdain them (see out upcoming interview with Colin Lewis). But, ubiquitously over-used or not, this one is the real deal. So far from what you typically see, that it might as well be from another planet.

Befor: If this isn’t a procumbens ‘nana’ I’ll eat my root hook.

Who is Michael Hagedorn and when does our tool sale (35% to 45% off) end?
Michael Hagedorn is one of North America’s preeminent bonsai artists and teachers and the author of Post Dated. You can find him at Crataegus Bonsai. Our tool sale will end Monday morning July 5th, around 9am Eastern Daylight time.

What’s with bonsai people?
A friend of mine (she isn’t a bonsai enthusiast) once describe bonsai people as a ‘bunch of harmless nerds.’ I’m not so sure about the harmless part (just kidding?), but you might find a touch of nerdiness every now and then (not that there’s anything wrong with it). Anyway, check out this video. It’s instructive (in more ways than one). And BTW, the happy cackle belongs to Mr. Hagedorn himself.

Michael inspecting the newly separated unidentified little tree (some kind of beech?).

Michael’s boot.

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 subtract the 31 remaining leaves (top photo) you’ll see that he cut off almost 98% of the leaves. That’s pretty radical. BTW: don’t try this on your pines. Not that you’d want a broom style pine anyway.

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 his students working on trees of this caliber (and caliper).

Study with one of the very best
My guess is that three days with Michael will be worth months or even years of fumbling about in your backyard in hopes that trial and error will see you through (speaking from painful experience and an embarrassing trail of damaged trees). Not that you shouldn’t fumble around a bit, that’s part of how we learn. But time with a genuinely accomplished bonsai artist and teacher can do wonders for your fumbling, and your bonsai.

Seasonals
“The Crataegus Bonsai Seasonal is designed for those who are not from the Portland area and who would be willing to travel to learn bonsai. This program is similar to how an apprentice learns in Japan: By working on our teacher’s trees, we study at a higher level. Now in its second year, the Seasonal was created out of requests of students from around the country who were interested in coming to Portland to study.” Continued here…

Ram Lukas rewiring a Western juniper during the Fall 2009 Seasonal.

About Michael Hagedorn
“Michael Hagedorn is a bonsai artist who spent 2 1/2 years apprenticing under Shinji Suzuki of Nagano, Japan. Michael’s art background ranges from painting and drawing to ceramic sculpture and installation.” Continued here…

Michael’s book
Post-Dated, The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk, is about Michael’s time studying in Japan with Shinji Suzuki. It’s a great read about bonsai and cultural craziness in a personal style that reveals Michael’s humanity and intelligence (with more than just a touch of folly). And, you guessed it, we just happen to sell it.

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 few trunks that have been so completely hollowed (from side to side anyway, if not in depth). It looks like it might be a Ezo spruce though I could be mistaken. If it is an Ezo, it must be quite old to attain such size as Ezos are very slow growing. I like the first branch, it almost serves as a second trunk and is not a bad little bonsai in itself. Overall, I think that this is a excellent tree with great balance, and would be noteworthy even without the distinctive hollow trunk.

Here’s another tree from the same gallery that caught my eye. Though it’s a juniper, the reddish bark and the deadwood remind me of the Manzanitas in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

Pirates
At least one blog has been pirating our posts, lock stock and barrel; but without our links and without any attribution to bonsai bark, or Stone Lantern. If you are reading this on any website or blog that is not ours, and is not attributed to us, then it has been pirated. Please visit us at bonsaibark.com. Thank you.

The Suzuki piece of this puzzle. This poster is also on Santini’s facebook galley. Shinji Suzuki is Michael Hagedorn‘s teacher. Suzuki and Michael have both been featured in Bonsai Bark.

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 not just the wild mixed interlocking swirls of live and dead wood…
… nor is it just the very long piece of deadwood that runs through the center like a dagger, all the way from near the top to the very bottom… nor the delicate deadwood branch the floats on top and undulates down into the very center of the cascade…. nor the 360 degree deadwood circle on the right… nor the crazy two piece trunk at the base, that lies flat on the soil with a big fist of deadwood above that, but….

… it’s all those things taken together
Nothing about this amazing bonsai is conventional, except maybe the pot and the stand. You might say the the foliage pads are somewhat normal for a cascade juniper, and that may be true, though you might take another look at their very open spacing the way they interact and move with and against the deadwood.

A not particularly eccentric bonsai. This powerful and tranquil old Needle juniper is probably Shinji Suzuki’s best known tree. It originally appeared on the cover of Bonsai Today issue 63 and also appears in the gallery section of our Juniper book.

Shinji Suzuki
Is world-renowned for his bonsai, both conventional and unusual. If you are interested in learning more about Mr. Suzuki check out Michael Hagedorn’s excellent book; Postdated; The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk.

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 top. But it’s the tight lush foliage that I want to point out here; the result of some serious trimming and pinching. The photo is from our Juniper book. Artist unknown.

A question about pinching on Michael Hagedorn’s site
The following is from the Seasonal section of Crataegus Bonsai (Michael’s site). It starts with a question by Ron Verna: I have a shimpaku juniper that I’m concerned about it has lost a lot of foliage and doesn’t look as bushy as I would like. Would piching and repotting help?

Michael’s reply
Hello Ron, Although it is difficult to advise without seeing an image, in general, we pinch far too much on junipers. I recommend cutting the longer shoots that push out of a foliage pad with a scissors, a couple times a year, rather than trying to create density with pinching. That tends to greatly weaken junipers. Repotting can rejuvenate a tree that is metabolically slowing down because the pot is full of roots.

You can pinch with your fingers (but not too much!), and….

…you can also use the tips of your shears for fine trimming.

Thinning: before and after. From our Juniper book.

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 Way, Washington. This 40″ (102cm) tree is a collected Sierra juniper grafted with shimpaku.” You can see the whole post here, which includes the before shot.

Freeze Dried Roots
The roots below are from the bonsai4me website. The comments are Michael Hagedorn’s.

“We’re having a week of overnight freezes here in Portland, Oregon following a few days of bright sun and drying winds. The pots are—for once—drying out.

One of the most dangerous things about freezing weather for bonsai is dry soil. Pots breaking is truly a secondary concern. Bad root damage can occur if there is not water in the pot to insulate the roots when it freezes. Otherwise you get a double whammy—freeze dried roots.

So get out your hoses…or spot water with a can…and protect those roots. If you have frequent freezing in winter storage, then watering should be more frequent than you might think. Freezing has one other side effect…it dries out the soil.

In Japan, Mr. Suzuki would have us try to thaw out the bonsai each winter day a bit, so that we could water them. This is a bit contrary to what we hear in the west. But it makes sense.

Stay warm…”

These roots are from the bonsai4me website. The are most appropriately, the roots of a Crataegus (the name of Michael Hagedorn’s bonsai establishment).