A True Gentleman & A Very Large Tree

It’s not often we feature photos of people on this blog, but, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show you this photo of Jim Smith, one of the true gentlemen in our bonsai community, and a master of large tropical trees (this one looks like a Portulacaria). The photo was posted on facebook by Mareta Martell today with this caption: ‘big bonsai 300 years old by Jim Smith’ (we know it’s not really 300). A remarkable place It’s been way too many years since I visited Jim Smith’s Durastone Nursery in Vero Beach. Florida. It’s a remarkable place; just … Continue reading A True Gentleman & A Very Large Tree

Microscopic Bonsai: How Low Can You Go?

I stumbled upon this the other day while mindlessly flitting though my daily facebook clutter. Here’s the caption that came with it: La foto de este bonsái pertenece al álbum de Kodachi Ken Senshi. He’s from Willemstad, the capital city of Curaçao. It looks like a shrunken down Juniper, but it’s not It’s a Pilea microphylla. They got the microphylla part right for sure. Its common name is Artillery plant. It’s a tropical ground cover that grows on Curaçao (an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) which is where … Continue reading Microscopic Bonsai: How Low Can You Go?