A Good Start…

Horst Heinzlreiter’s caption for this seductively shot photo says ‘Acer buergerianum sitting in a pot from my studio.’ I took the liberty to crop a bit to emphasize the tree and pot (the original is at the bottom of this post). All the photos in this post are from Horst’s facebook photos. If you’re one of our ten million Bark followers, you know by now that I’m a fan of Horst Heinzlreiter’s pots. The evidence is overwhelming (here, here, here and so forth…). But most of this evidence is just about his pots. Even though Horst’s pots do stand by … Continue reading A Good Start…

Time and the Ravages of Nature

This after photo by Juan Andrade is a very good example of a field grown bonsai that is grown and styled to look like a yamadori (bonsai collected frm the wild). Though this is a very sweet little tree that might at a glance fool someone, still, there is something about true yamadori that is impossible (almost impossible?) to mimic. Even in the hands of someone as skilled as Juan (and whoever originally grew and styled this tree). This post picks up on Field Grown Bonsai that Look Like Yamadori from last week. Here’s the before photo. You don’t have … Continue reading Time and the Ravages of Nature

Time to Celebrate…

The sky blue pot is the perfect compliment to the light pink flowers on this powerful Satsuki Azalea that resides at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum in Washington DC. There are a multitude of cultivars in the Satsuki group of azaleas. This one is a ‘Nikko.’ It was donated to the museum by Masayuki Nakamura. It’s time to celebrate our National Bonsai and Penjing Museum once again. If you are anywhere near our nation’s capital, or plan on being anywhere near, don’t miss this phenomenal display. Even if you have no plans on being near Washington DC, you can … Continue reading Time to Celebrate…

Field Grown Bonsai that Look Like Yamadori

After. This sweet little Shimpaku and the one below were posted on facebook by Bjorn Bjorholm. The before photos for both trees are at the bottom of the post. Before I make another mistake and look foolish in the process, here’s my disclaimer for this post: I don’t know for a fact the origin of the bonsai shown here. Much of what I have to say below is simply conjecture. Lately I’ve been noticing field grown bonsai stock that look like yamadori (bonsai stock collected from the wild). More accurately, the best look almost like yamadori. I believe that’s the … Continue reading Field Grown Bonsai that Look Like Yamadori

Bonsai in Hand (Worth Two on the Bench)

Perfectly small and just perfect. The artist (Haruyosi) doesn’t mention the variety, but the leaves look a bit like Nothofagus gunnii. This is our second Bonsai in Hand post this summer. Without belaboring the point, one of the bests ways to show size is to provide something for contrast. In the case of small trees, nothing works quite as well as the human hand. All the bonsai shown here belong to Haruyosi. We’ve featured his trees in the past and will no doubt feature them in the future. Japanese wax tree (Toxicodendron succedaneum). The red and green leaves contrast well … Continue reading Bonsai in Hand (Worth Two on the Bench)

Crazy Color from High on the Bonsai Pantheon

Though it’s usually considered bad form to lop off part of the pot, in this case it’s all about the color (and the wildly expressive trunk). The variety is listed as Issho-no-haru. This and the rest of the photos in this post are from the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum A few posts back we launched a discussion about the relative merits of bonsai in North America and Europe (Comparisons Are Odious, But Still…). The discussion was continued in two subsequent posts (here and here) I expected my remarks might get me into a little hot water, but there was really … Continue reading Crazy Color from High on the Bonsai Pantheon

Fall Transplanting: Taking Full Advantage of Next Year’s Growing Season

Time to repot. Morten Albek intentionally broke the pot to show this Cork bark Japanese black pine’s dense root mass. From Morten’s book, Shohin Bonsai (Stone Lantern Publishing). Vacation ended around midnight last night. Still, in light of a whole slew of post vacation demands, I’m going to indulge in one more journey into our archives. This one is from August, 2009, which in the life of this blog, qualifies as ancient. We’ll stick with our current topic, fall transplanting. With one caveat: opinions abound on how to do most anything, and fall transplanting (really almost any bonsai task) is … Continue reading Fall Transplanting: Taking Full Advantage of Next Year’s Growing Season

Coming Soon to Your Back Yard

As long as we’re on the topic of choosing, I chose this one as the lead photo because it’s the only one with clean pot. A distinct advantage. All the photos in this post are from Boon Manakitivipart’s facebook postings. I took the liberty of cropping all the photos in this post and combining some separate photos into single images. Still on vacation, so still digging into our archives. This one is fairly recent (December last year) but seems particularly appropriate as the fall potting season is closing in fast. For those of us in inhospitable northern climes it starts … Continue reading Coming Soon to Your Back Yard

Once More, This Time with Better Photos

Joe Noga sent me this official photo of his Ho Yoku Award Japanese Maple (see our last post for the unofficial photo). I didn’t mention this before, but, in addition to appreciating the strikingly unusual effect of the upside-down tree, you might linger for a moment on the exquisitely rendered wooden stand In our last post we showed three winners from the 2012 U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition. Problem was, the photos were not the best ones available. The best photos are the official photos, the ones in the Exhibition Album. Now, thanks to Joseph Noga taking the trouble to send … Continue reading Once More, This Time with Better Photos

Generalizations Can Also Be Odious

I am struck with the open and relaxed elegance that this pine displays. I wonder what would happen if the relatively heavy first branch was removed. Would it enhance the open elegance or would it rob the tree of its uniqueness? Like all of the photos in this post and the previous two posts, this was taken by Sandor Papp at the 2014 Noelanders Trophy (I cropped most of them to emphasize the individual trees rather than the displays). There was no caption with this tree, so we don’t know who it belongs to, nor do we know the species. … Continue reading Generalizations Can Also Be Odious