Close up of a famous old Japanese black pine named Zuio. This and the other photos in this post are borrowed from Danny Coffey's Tree the People blog.
I don’t how I missed Danny Coffey’s excellent Tree the People blog for so long (going on three years) but somehow I managed. Happily, and thanks to Felix Laughlin (President of the National Bonsai Foundation and tireless bonsai advocate) the veil has lifted.
Danny Coffey has been a bonsai apprentice under Mr. Junichiro Tanaka of Aichien Bonsai Nursery, Nagoya Japan, since 2013. During that time Danny also managed to become an intern at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum under the guidance of Mr. Jack Sustic, museum curator. There’s more but we’ll let you see for yourself. BTW: we’ve featured blogs and websites by many American and other Western apprentices who have studied, or are studying in Japan.
All the photos in this post were taken by Danny at the 2015 Meifu Bonsai Exhibition, one of Japan’s longest running bonsai shows. I have taken the liberty to crop them all (except the last one) in order to bring us closer to the trees. No varieties were mentioned, so the names below are my guesses. Feel free to set me straight.
Looks like a Trident maple root-over-rock (with shadow).
I'm guessing that these brilliant flowers belong to a Camellia.
Looks like a Shimpaku with sunlit deadwood and living vein.
Hornbeam? Japanese beech? Or...?
Another Shimpaku (I'd bet my estate, for what it's worth).
Gotta be a Japanese white pine.
Danny Coffey's upcropped photo of Zuio. Here's his caption: "And last but certainly not least, an old Japanese Black Pine named Zuio. Zuio is a previous winner of the Kokufu prize and is a certified important bonsai masterpiece. Additionally it took 1st place at Meifu this year. Zuio has a long history at Aichien and is one of the most powerful pines I have seen. Mr. Tanaka was kind enough to grant me the privilege of preparing Zuio for the show this year. Exhibition aside, it was an honor just to spend a few days working on it. Sometime in the near future I will be doing a blog post dedicated to Zuio’s history. Keep an eye out!"
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