Three Famous Sargents

Everything about this famous Sargent juniper (Juniperus chinensis var. sargentii) seems to be flowing, with its shari that looks like melting wax and its gracefully descending foliage. The tree resides at Kunio Kobayashi’s Shunka-en Bonsai Museum in Tokyo. It won the Prime Minister Award at the 1998 Taikan-ten. Its height is 26″ (66 cm) and its estimated age is 200 years. The photo is from Fine Bonsai, Art and Nature. Every morning before getting started with my recent bonsai lessons with Michael Hagedorn, we would spend a little time looking through Kokufu albums. The exercise was illuminating and I wanted … Continue reading Three Famous Sargents

Still Sleeping at the Switch

Do you recognize this award winning Shimpaku juniper? It appears in Fine Bonsai, Art and Nature (and older version is in the gallery of our Masters Series Juniper book). It belongs to Masahiko Kimura. The photo is by Jonathan Singer, as are all three photos in this post and all of the photos in Fine Bonsai. The three trees shown here are all from a review of the book Fine Bonsai, Art and Nature, that appears at Smithsonian.com. We were alerted to the review by Matt Calcavecchia in the comments on a recent post (scroll down to the last tree … Continue reading Still Sleeping at the Switch