You can tell this is a genuine Dwarf Kingsville boxwood by the tight tiny leaves. This planting by Boon Manakitivipart was the winner of the Certre Award at the 2010 U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition.
Let’s touch back in with boxwoods for a moment (see our post from two days ago). This one originally appeared in September of last year.
This post was inspired by an article on boxwoods in Bonsai Mary that sheds some light on the rampant confusion about dwarf boxwoods and particularly, what is and what isn’t a Dwarf Kingsville.
Here's one of the photos from Bonsai Mary. It's a Buxus harlandii by Yugi Yoshimura that resides in the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. (If you were to ask me, I'd say those leaves look a lot like Dwarf Kingsville).
Another of Mary’s photos. Here’s her caption: “To add to the confusion (about Dwarf Kingsvilles), there are several similar looking types, such as the Morris midget. All of these small leaf varieties make good bonsai subjects, and are styled very similarly. The bark is usually smooth and often almost white in color.”
We've shown this Japanese Boxwood (Buxus microphylla japonica) by Ryan Neil before (Elevating the Art of Bonsai in the West). It's from his Mirai, American Bonsai.
Judging by the leaves, I'm not sure I'd call this a Dwarf Kingsville, though I've seen this type called just that over the years. Anybody out there with a deep knowledge of boxwoods? The photo is from Chinese Bonsai Garden.
Here’s one that appears on Mary’s site (we went to Mary’s source, Internet Bonsai Club for the original photo). It’s a harlandii that belongs to M.Škrabal.
Harlandii bark via Mary. I blew this photo up a tad too much, but you get the idea.
Simple and sweet. This Dwarf Kingsville originally appeared on the cover of Bonsai Today issue 107. The tree belongs to Michael Persiano (co-editor of our Masters’ Series Pine book). You can see and read about its earlier stages of development in Bonsai Today issue 97.
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Buxus come in many varieties and most varieties have exhibited sports or mutations which lead to different cultivars being introduced to the market. Kingsville boxwood come from The Kingsville Nursery once located in MD. Henery Hohman owner of the Kingsville Nursery introduced many new plants into the trade -the Microphilia Compacta or Kingsville Boxwood being one of them Morris Midget and dwarf are sports from the original compacta boxwood Henery brought back from Japan. George Wrede or Lynn Batdorf are the real experts on boxwood and are my go to guys when in doubt.
http://www.boxwoodsociety.org/Handbook/Handbook.htm
Boon’s Kingsville planting was called “Pandora”, a tribute to a really good movie. At the BIB show it was exhibited with a single Nuvi for context.
Hi John,
Educate me. I looked Nuvi up but rather being something you might find as a bonsai companion, this comes up http://explore.garmin.com/en-US/nuvi/