Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

A Quieter Tree & a Smaller House

I've long appreciated the subtlety of Michael Hagedorn's bonsai. Michael tends to avoid flash and overstatement, even in some of his crazy experimental stuff.* Here's Michael's caption for this understated bonsai...  "Japanese Maple ‘Beni-Kawa’ with an unusual pot choice, an unglazed brown."

Here’s more in Michael’s own words (from his blog)…
“The decision was to show off the reddish rose of the branches and trunks, to have that be the focus. Often a key tree color is balanced by the opposing color on the color wheel—in this case, the pot would have a green glaze. By NOT going that route we have a quieter tree, with the focus on one simple color. The matte, medium brown clay of the pot recedes leaving the trunk and twig color as highlight.”
Continued below…

A SPECIAL WELCOME TO OUR NEW SITE

See Below
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I cropped Michael's original for a closer look at some detail, like the fine branching or the multiple colors on the trunks. Or even the hairs on the moss

Michael continued from above…
“Pot choice is an opportunity. See it as a chance to support what you most want to show in the tree. If what you wish to show off is color, often the way to do that is to stay close on the color wheel to the color you wish to show off. In this case, red (color to show off) and brown (supporting color).

“The bonsai guidelines of balancing a color with its opposite are fine and useful, and often allow for jazzy results. Yet these guidelines may be sidestepped on clear purpose.”

 

Michael's little house in his backyard (his apprentices live in the big house)."Kanso means ‘elemental and natural, free of non-essentials’---a good name for this tiny home which I built in 2017. And the flowers are nice."

*If you spend some time on Michael’s blog you’ll see what I mean by ‘crazy experimental stuff.’ For example… HERE and HERE

NEW WEBSITE SPECIAL

All Tools & Many Other Products Deeply Discounted
Plus an Extra 10% off orders 50.00 or more*
*If you put LAUNCH2 in the box when you check out
THIS SPECIAL ENDS TOMORROW

STONELANTERN.COM
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Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Bonsai Bark Has a New Home & We’ve Got a New Website

I cropped this Ficus microcarpa for a close look at the sheer power and beauty of the trunk, pot and stand (the uncropped original is below). It's by Huang,Ching-Chi of Taiwan

We’ve got a New Website & Bonsai Bark has a New Home (right there on our New Website)!  You can go directly to Bark with this link, or you can go to our New Website and scroll down just a tad and there it is

Today we’ve got  three  bonsai from the 2008 Taiwan Bonsai Creators Exhibition booklet which appears on Bonsai Shari Si-Diao,  Cheng, Cheng-Kung’s website. It’s the pots as well the trees, that really grabbed me.

A special welcome to Our New Site

See Below


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Malpigia glabra (Barbados cherry) by Hsieh, Cheng-Hua.

 

The  uncropped  original  of  the  tree  at  the  top  of  the  postVariety unlisted. By Tung, Wen Chi

NEW WEBSITE – NEW SPECIAL

All Tools & Many Other Products Deeply Discounted
Plus an Extra 10% off orders 50.00 or more*
*If you put LAUNCH2 in the box when you check out

STONELANTERN.COM
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Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Bonsai Are Leafing Somewhere (Just Not Here) & Just in Case You Missed it, Our New Site Is Up!

Japanese maple in the first flush of spring. This and the other trees shown here belong to Luis Vallejo. His caption for this selection reads... "Algunos arces, brotación" (some maples sprouting). The photos are by Miguel Krause

We featured some deciduous trees that belong to Luis Vallejos not too long ago. Now we’ve got more, but this time they are waking up and stretching . They’re all Japanese maples (Acer palmatum). If you’d like to know the varieties, you can visit Luis on facebook

VISIT OUR NEW STONE LANTERN WEBSITE

Launch Special – Every Item Discounted
Plus an Extra 10% off Orders 50.00 or more

(Enter LAUNCH in the box when you check out for the extra 10% off)

 

 

 

 

 

it’S TIE POT SEASON

 

 

Did someone say something about Spring?
The view out our kitchen window this morning

 


Our front porch. I think the snow shovel is buried underneath
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Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Visit Our New Stone Lantern Site for Your Bonsai Essentials – We’re Sure You’ll Like It!

This photo is from our first Bonsai Bark post. January 26th, 2009.

We finally threw the switch and now you can visit our Brand New  Stone Lantern Website. It’s a huge improvement and I’m sure you’ll like it

As an encouragement to get you over there, we added some bonuses… every single item is on special. Some for as much as 50% off. And we’ve got several new items that weren’t on our old site

And if that’s not enough, we’re offering  an additional 10% off on everything for orders 50.00 or more, provided you put the sale code LAUNCH in the box when you checkout

 

Dont’ forget to put LAUNCH in the box when you check out for an extra 10% off if your order is 50.00 or more

See you there!

 

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

No Switch Last Night, Specials Extended & a Humble Bonsai/Landscaping Experiment

This photo was taken in 2010. It's one of my small man made landscaping hills for field growing future bonsai. Most of the little trees you see here have been dug. Some of the ones that are still there aren't that much bigger than they were nine years ago (this might have something to do with our seriously short growing season)

I give up. For the moment at least…. We didn’t throw the switch to our new Website last night. I jumped the gun with yesterday’s announcement, and now I’m wiping egg off my face (humiliation goes well with mixed  metaphors)

Maybe we’ll throw the imaginary-switch tonight, but no promises anymore. Meanwhile we’ll extend our current specials for another day.

*MAYBE WE’LL THROW IT TONIGHT– see below
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Here's one of the first trees I dug (around 2012) in its training pot. It was from a little hill like the one above.  It's a Cole's prostrate hemlock
Here's a Cole's prostrate in the ground. That's a little Shimpaku juniper just above and another one peeking out on the right, a Picea abies microphylla (very dwarf Norway spruce) above right and a Golden sprite Barberry upper left. There are some uninvited little volunteers (dandelion, witch grass and clover) lower left and lower right
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*About the switch
It’s the moment we redirect our url to our NEW Website.
After years of indecision, fear and procrastination (really it’s been years!)
we’re finally ready and we’ve settled on Monday night soon
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The same Cole's prostrate from above 
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Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Boon’s American Larch – Which Pot Do You Prefer?

which pot

One American larch, five pots (the original pot is below).

If things go according to plan (when did that ever happen?) this will be our last post in this tired old software. Starting tomorrow morning our posts will show on the ‘front page’ of our NEW Website (wish us luck!)

What better way to end an era and begin another than with two of our favorites, Boon and the American larch?
Continued below…

 

*we plan to ‘throw the switch’ Monday night – see below

 

pot1

Pot number 1

Continued from above….
Boon is at it again. This time it’s our favorite tree here in northern Vermont, the American larch (Larix laricina).  Most people around here call it Tamarack, the Algonquian name that means wood used for snowshoes. No matter what you call it, it’s our best local species for bonsai. Bar none.

All the images in this post were borrowed from Boon Manakitivipart’s fb timeline (the image at the top is a composite that we put together). We originally featured them in April, 2015

 

pot2

Pot number 2

 

pot3

Pot number 3

 

pot4

Pot number 4

 

or

The original pot
*About the switch. It’s the moment we redirect our url to our NEW Website. After years of indecision, fear and procrastination (really it’s been years!) we’re finally ready and we’ve settled on Monday night.
We’re excited and invite you to share our excitement. Our Stone Lantern link will be the same, and so will our products (with a few new ones for you), but every thing else will be much better… newer, smarter, better to look at and easier to navigate. And of course a few surprises that we think you’ll like. We look forward to seeing you there!
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Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Just Another Before & After Bonsai?

Itoigawa juniper before and after by Gabriel Romero Aguade
By now you may have seen dozens, if not hundreds of before and after bonsai posts. Some were done in a matter of hours and some took years to complete. When I first saw this one, my guess was it falls into the second group; bonsai transformations that take years.
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But rather than settle on a guess, I decided to ask the artist, Gabriel Romero Aguade who posted it just a couple days ago.  Here’s my question… “How many years was the process? ” And here’s Gabriel’s answer… “From the first to the second photograph, 6 hours have passed. more or less.“ Amazing!
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*we plan to ‘throw the switch’ Monday night – see below
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Before. Note the colander
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After. Six hours later, more or less
*About the switch. It’s the moment we redirect our url to our NEW Website. After years of indecision, fear and procrastination (really it’s been years!) we’re finally ready and we’ve settled on Monday night.
We’re excited and invite you to share our excitement. Our Stone Lantern link will be the same, and so will our products (with a few new ones for you), but every thing else will be much better… newer, smarter, better to look at and easier to navigate. And of course a few surprises that we think you’ll like. We look forward to seeing you there!
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Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

A Friendly Plug for a Famous Bonsai Magazine

The cover of the latest issue of Bill Valavanis' International Bonsai Magazine

We’ve been featuring the bonsai and bonsai related exploits of Bill Valavanis for a long time, but I don’t think we’ve ever featured his famous International Bonsai Magazine. So we’re way overdue

I won’t say too much here (we’ll let the pictures do the talking) except that it’s the flagship American bonsai magazine and in my humble opinion a must for any serious North American (and beyond) bonsai enthusiast. Here’s your link to subscribe (just in case you missed the two links above). You can thank me later

By the way, if you’re wondering about the Big Switch we mentioned yesterday, see below…

A Colorado blue spruce with a story (better put on your 3.5s) from the gallery of the last issue

 

Here's a cover from the last year of the last century. A mere 20 years ago

And now a word from Stone Lantern, our sponsor…
About the switch (see yesterday), we’ve decided on Monday night. We’re excited and invite you to share our excitement when you wake up Tuesday morning. Our Stone Lantern link will be the same, and so will our products (with a few new ones for you), but every thing else will be much better… newer, smarter, much better to look at and navigate. And of course, a Big Launch Special with some offers you can’t refuse. See you there!

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Time to Throw the Switch!?

This delightful creation by Sandro Segneri has nothing to do with the switch, though it is exciting and new just like our soon-to-be-live New Stonelantern Website
First the switch … Sometime this weekend (or shortly thereafter) our NEW STONELANTERN WEBSITE will go live. I won’t say much more except it promises to be better than our old worn out and largely obsolete website by several orders of magnitude
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One more thing …when we do go live, you’ll have to sign in to our new site just like a first timer. My apologies for the inconvenience, but I think it will be well worth the trouble
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Stay posted for more on our NEW Site. Meanwhile you can see and read more below about Sandro and his bonsai sculpture…
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We don’t know, the exact moment, but meanwhile
you can visit our old site and enjoy some great savings
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Here’s part of the text that Sandro Segneri provided… “Il semplice povero”: connessioni artistiche tra scultura e forme bonsai. L’idea si materializza e prende forma concreta“.
And here’s a machine trying to translate from Italian to English…. “Florence Congress ubi demo by Sandro Segneri with pupils Marco Giannini and Christian of zazo.”
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Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern