What’s Wrong with this Picture?

Snake Dance by Gedemerta (with a distracting bright spot that someone has added). As you can see, this Pemphis acidula is an exceptional bonsai. It’s also famous. We’ve featured it at least twice and it’s all over facebook and elsewhere.

Many of the artists who style these trees are professionals trying to make a living.

What’s wrong (in addition to the unnecessary bright spot)? This photo was posted on facebook by someone who goes by Aus Bonsai, one of several regulars who put up photos of bonsai. There are many others, including one self-named Bonsai Master.

Facebook is more than just kittens and kids. It’s a format for sharing photos of great and not so great bonsai. The problem is that so many people who put up photos of bonsai don’t bother to attribute. Nor do the vast majority of people who ‘like’ ‘share’ and even comment, bother to ask the obvious questions.

This tendency is especially egregious in this case. The tree is distinctive and very well known. Finding out who the artist is (Gedemerta) might require some effort, but lacking that effort there’s a very easy way out. Here’s how you might do it: ‘Look what I found. Anyone know who the artist is’? This is at least honest and won’t give the false and perhaps prevalent impression that the tree belongs to the person who posted it (laziness compounded by egotism).

If you are skeptical about the need for attribution, you might consider this: Many of the artists who style these trees are professionals who are trying to make a living. Simple courtesy and respect for the art and the artist requires that we honor their effort.

BTW and mea culpa.Though I always try to attribute, in this case (and perhaps some others) I may have contributed to the problem (see the caption below).

Here’s the original and here’s where I must confess to being part of the problem. As you can see, Mr Gedemerta put his name on the photo. I removed it in a Bark post a while back. In my defense, I fully attributed the tree and showed this photo in the same post. Still… My apologies to Mr Gedemerta.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Defoliación del Abuelo (Defoliating Grandfather)

Here’s Juan Adrade’s caption for this photo. “Partial defolation on one of the grandfather trees. Close to 100 yrs old (Defoliación de las ramas exteriores en uno de los tridentes del abuelo de mi maestro. Este arbol posiblemente se acerca a los 100 años).” All the photos in this post are from a series of photos on Juan’s facebook feed.

Facebook is great if you like photos of children, animals or glassy eyed people over eating at restaurants. If you’re lucky and you have the right friends, you might find good photos of quality bonsai. However, it’s somewhat unusual to find original in depth articles on any subject on facebook, and a useful how-to bonsai article supported by great photos is rare indeed. Unless you follow Juan Adrade (with apologies to Peter Tea and one or two others).

The photos shown here are a sampling from an excellent article by Juan. It works as a continuation of a Bark post from a few days ago. If you’re interested in a good how-to lesson on defoliation (specifically on maples but pertinent to other deciduous trees), I suggest you take a look for yourself.

Juan’s caption: “100% defoliation on a mature trident that was rather strong this year (Defoliacion al 100% en un tridente que comenzo el año inusualmente fuerte).”

Juan again: “Defoliating and cutting the outer canopy not only prevents inner branch die back but also invigorates them so they can catch up with the outer canopy in the long run (Defoliando y podando la copa exterior podemos no solo prevenir que la ramas internas se sequen sino que al largo plazo las revigorizamos”).

One of a number of very useful how-to photos. Juan’s caption: “On trident and long-petioled species we can defoliate by grabbing bunches of leaves and cutting them all at once. Whether we cut the tip of the branch or not depends on its strength (En maples tridentes y especies con peciolo largo podemos defoliar tomando un grupo de hojas y cortandolas todas a las vez. Si podamos la punta de la rama o no depende del vigor de esta).”

Tools to defoliate, thin, prune, transplant. All of our Roshi Bonsai Tools are now 25% off (plus another 10% for any Stone Lantern order of 100.00 or more).

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Serendipitous Birds & Bonsai Pots

Birds and blossoms. All the pots shown here are from this facebook timeline.

This morning a sweet, brilliantly plumed little male Goldfinch flew headlong into my kitchen window and bounced back onto the deck where it lay stunned on its back for a minute or so, while I and three house guests gave gentle words of encouragement and kept watch for the cat. Finally, with just a small assist from my hand, it righted itself and flew off.

Not fifteen minutes later I opened the door to my office to let in some cool morning air and two medium sized birds with grey bodies and black heads flew in. Each immediately flew to a different window, but then, miraculously and quite quickly, each found its way out the open door.

Strangely, or maybe better put, serendipitously, the reason I came to my office this morning is to finish this post that features bonsai pots with bird designs.

All of the pots shown here are from this facebook timeline. We’ve featured this person’s exquisite hand-painted pots before, but I can’t tell you their name because it’s written in Chinese. If you scroll down you can see their facebook header.

Birds and bamboo.

Garuda. A mythical bird with the ability to instantaneously span all of space.

You don’t see great red pots every day.

This photo shows both the potter’s kiln mark and the whole logo (lower right). I’ve cropped the other photos in this post in order to enhance the view of the pots.

The potter’s facebook header.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Playing It Cool

This freshly defoliated monster Trident maple was just posted on facebook by Juan Andrade, who happens to be the guilty party (see below). We’ve featured Juan here on Bark several times. My best guess is this won’t be last time either.

Two monsters. The only thing the connects these two trees, at least as far as I know, is that they are both remarkably large. And very cool too.

Two things jump right out about the Trident maple above: its remarkably massive trunk, the base of which almost fills the entire pot, and its most excellent taper (good movement too as it wends its way up – I guess that makes three things).

The quince below is massive in an entirely different way; with its impressive array of multiple trunks, amazing ramification (fine branching), pleasing overall shape, and of course, the always exquisite quince flowers. Nice moss too.

Even though I don’t know the dimensions, this must be one of the largest, if not the largest, Quince bonsai I’ve ever seen. I’m guessing that it’s a Chojubai, which would makes its size even more remarkable. Unfortunately, I lost the link to the source of the photo so can’t tell you who it belongs to. If you happen to know please tell us (in the comments below).

You have to wonder just how long it took Juan to defoliate (mostly defoliate) this massive tree. Though we usually just stick to photos of trees rather than people and also aren’t crazy about messy backgrounds, still, I couldn’t resist this shot. Or more accurately, it’s Juan’s caption I really couldn’t resist:
“Every now and then I nip my index with the scissors, but I play it cool and keep a straight face” (“De vez en cuando me corto el dedo…pero me hago el fuerte y pongo cara seria”).

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Relaxed & Alert

Lots of rugged character and great ramification. I can’t read Korean, but I’ll guess it’s a Japanese beech.

It has been a while since we’ve featured bonsai from Korea. When I look at these trees, I see Chinese and Japanese influence. Though my guess is the Koreans wouldn’t necessarily see that way.

All the trees in this post are from Bonsai Korea.

More elegant, yet still a little rough. Looks like another beech.

This one has a relaxed look below and an alert look above. Nice mineral encrusted pot too. Is it a Hornbeam?

The heavy funky nebari and elegant airy top make for an unusual tree. Another beech?

Sweet tree with tons of movement. Looks like a Quince.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Transplanting Bonsai into Our Excellent New Masters Soil

I just repotted this old pine into our new Masters Bonsai Soil. The pot is a growing pot rather than a show pot, but will serve nicely for now (pines like deep pots). The tree is a Japanese white pine that was grafted onto Japanese black pine stock in Japan. I got it from John Jaramillo last year when I was in Portland studying with Michael Hagedorn. Michael was kind enough to wire it for me.

Our new Masters Bonsai Soil is now 20% off, so this seems like a good time to mention that I am in the process of transplanting all of my bonsai into this excellent lava-pumice growing medium. I’m also using it for my pre-bonsai, though the vast majority of those are in the ground.

While we’re talking about sales, you might like to know that all of our large selection of bonsai wire is also now 20% off.

Though it’s a good idea to groom trees before shooting, I decided to wait on this little Shimpaku so that the new growth will help stimulate the freshly pruned roots. Like the pine above, this tree got its start in Japan. I picked it up at New England Bonsai last year from my old friend Teddi. In addition to transplanting, I’ve done a little pruning and wiring, but still can’t claim the artistry.

This native larch (aka Tamarack) started its life near swamp on a friends Christmas tree farm. I dug it about six years ago and stuck it in the ground behind my house (with about 100 other larches I’ve dug over the last ten years). Last year I put it into this pot and wintered it in my garage. I transplanted it into our Masters soil about three weeks ago when the buds were just breaking. It’s still pretty young and is more like a pre-bonsai now, but it might have some promise.

Here’s some of our new Masters Bonsai Soil up close. And, just in case you missed it, it’s now 20% off. All of our Bonsai Wire is also 20% off.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Old Japanese Whites plus One

This distinctive Goyo-matsu (Japanese white pine) is from the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. I don’t know if the split trunk was by the hand-of-man or the result of a natural occurrence. Either way, the twin trunk effect is wonderful. At the risk of stating the obvious, you might notice the similar movement and direction of the each trunk’s twists and turns.

We’re digging back into our archives once again and we’re always looking for catchy titles, even when it’s a bit of a stretch. All the trees shown here are from two earlier Bark posts. The plus one in the title is the tree above. It’s still a Japanese white pine like the others, but it we featured it way back in 2011. The others are from a 2013 post titled Japanese Whites.

A seedling? Great base, strong taper and nice balanced open branching. An altogether excellent Japanese white pine and it’s from a seedling no less! As you may know, most quality Japanese white pine bonsai have been grafted onto Black pine stock (see below). But not this one. It was grown from seed and is, as you can see, quite impressive. It was just wired (in this photo) by Michael Hagedorn (Crataegus Bonsai.) It belongs to a client of Micheal’s.

More than just another bonsai in our species specific series. The Japanese white pine (Pinus parviflora) is one of the world’s emblematic bonsai. In Japan it is one of the two most famous classical bonsai species (the other is the Japanese black pine) and that fame has spread so much that any serious bonsai display without at least one Japanese white pine might be said to be incomplete (climate permitting, of course).

What’s in a name? The Latin name for Japanese white pine (aka Japanese five needle pine) is Pinus parviflora. The Japanese name is Goyo Matsu. Matsu is pine, so you’d think that goyo might mean white or five needles, but my Japanese dictionary says that goyo means ‘business matters to attend to.’ Perhaps the business matter in this case is grafting onto Japanese black pine stock? Note after the fact: that was an attempt at a bad joke… though true, my grasp of Japanese is very weak and you might expect that I’d have known that “Goyo” means “five-needle” (see comment below), but…

Borrowed roots. Speaking of grafting, Japanese white pine bonsai, and as we’ve mentioned, they are usually grafted onto Japanese black pine stock, and though there must be people grafting them elsewhere, it seems that almost all of these grafts come from Japan. The reason for grafting is mostly because black pines are so much more vigorous than the more delicate and finicky Japanese whites. This is especially true of White pine cultivars, many of which simply won’t thrive on their own roots (here’s more if you are interested).

Root-on-rock Japanese white pines are not at all unusual. The more I look at this one, the more I am struck with just how well-balanced and tranquil it seems. This is to take nothing away from its natural and wild side. The photo was taken in Japan at the 2011 Sakufu-ten exhibition by Jonas Dupuich (Bonsai Tonight).

Fluidity and muscle combined make for a very strong bonsai. To my eyes this is a near perfect classical informal upright Japanese white pine bonsai. It’s from Mario Komsta’s facebook photos. My guess is that it originated in Japan and that Mario has been refining it. He calls it Goyo Kundo and though Goyo matsu is the Japanese name for Japanese white pine (see above), I couldn’t find anything about Kundo in my dictionary or online, so your guess is as good as mine. I’m going to assume that this tree, like almost all powerful Japanese white pine bonsai, originated in Japan and is grafted onto Japanese black pine stock.

The most famous pine in North America? I like the way this photo captures the lines and color in the bark of this famous tree. That’s the upside. The downside is that there’s no way to tell just how large and powerful this tree is. In fact, it would be easy to think that it’s not very big at all. It resides at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum and like a couple others trees shown in this post, we’ve featured it before (actually a couple times). The photo is from Michael Bonsai.

Million dollar bonsai. Here’s a mind-bending Japanese white pine that we featured back in 2011 with our original caption: This magnificent White pine was sold at the 11th Asia-Pacific Bonsai and Suiseki Convention & Exhibition in at Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan, earlier this month. As you can see, the asking price was 100,000,000 yen (that’s close to 1.3 million dollars). I don’t know what the actual sales price was. Photo borrowed from Bonsai Tonight.

This flowing bunjin Japanese white pine provides a little contrast to the husky fellow immediately above. It’s from our Masters’ Series Pines: Growing and Styling Japanese Black and White Pines (just below).

A word from our sponsor. If you’d like to do your own Japanese white pines, you’ll do very well to consult with our famous pine book. Among other things, it contains some of the best how-to instruction anywhere. Great photos too.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Creative, Daring, Fascinating & Maybe…

I like the tree’s powerful dynamic movement, but it’s the pot that floors me. It’s creative, daring, fascinating and maybe just a little overcooked. We’ll leave it with both an exclamation point and a question mark.

I found both of these trees on facebook. They were posted by Bonsai Hegar Cipariuk from Indonesia. I can’t read the text, but I can see the trees and especially the pots. As mentioned in the caption, I’m not sure what to make of the pot above, though it gets very high marks for being completely unique and over-the-top creative.

The pot below however, is also highly creative and very unusual. And perfect in its simple flowing lines.

An altogether lovely, perfect pot with another powerful tree that’s full of movement. BTW: designing a windswept tree like this requires more than a little knowledge and skill.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

A Magical Land Where Almost Every House Has a Bonsai

We know this tree is very large, but exactly how large is difficult to tell (the uncropped photo immediately below might help a bit). In addition to its great size, it shows an excellent base and nebari, as well as some gnarly bumps that look a bit like melting wax. I think I can say with confidence that it’s Ficus. All the photos in this post were taken by Robert Steven on a recent trip to Vietnam.

The other day someone suggested we feature Vietnamese bonsai. As it turns out, we have done just that several times already, with more to come. Today, my schedule is tight, so rather than dig up photos and put together a new post, we’ll just reach back into our May 2013 archives for this one. I think it’s rerun worthy.

Robert Steven seems to teach and travel almost incessantly, and yet he still finds time to write about bonsai, run Bonsai Aesthetics (his bonsai business) and of course, to work on his own trees. He also is one of the most responsive email communicators I’ve ever known and seems to have a nearly infinite number of students and friends that I imagine he also communicates with… which begs the question; when does he sleep?

Anyway, based on something Robert wrote in the comments of a previous post (in response to another comment), I decided to do a post on bonsai Vietnam. As I was just starting to search for photos, I received an email from Robert about an unrelated piece of business. When I responded, I asked him if he had any photos of Vietnamese bonsai, and presto, here they are.

So, sticking with the Vietnam via Robert theme, here is what he has to say about bonsai in Vietnam (from the aforementioned comments on a previous post): “I have been traveling frequently to Vietnam recently for lectures and demo. Vietnamese bonsai is progressing extremely fast during the last few years in parallel with the growth of economic and living standard.

The interest in bonsai in Vietnam is amazing and unbelievable. I travel from the south of Ho Chi Min City to the north of Hanoi, from the remote villages to the cities, every house with terrace (when I say every house, I mean ALMOST every house) always has bonsai.

The styles in the south and the north are totally different. The south (around HCM city) likes the landscape..specifically the water and land penjing and other deciduous species e.g. Wrightia and they don’t like ficus. In the contrary, in the north, they like BIG bonsai, specifically ficus.

They have their own style of ficus with wild aerial roots with unique pots. In few years, Vietnam will certainly be on the world bonsai map with the ficus as their icon..they still need some times to improve their technique in forming ideal ramification.

Another amazing thing is their involvement in the internet because they are mostly young people. They have an internet forum similar to IBC..and you won’t believe that there are always few thousands members online each day. If they didn’t have the language barrier, I believe IBC forum will be dominated by Vietnamese members.

I receive dozens of friend requests from Vietnam each day although they don’t speak English, otherwise…”

The king and his court (the queen and her court?). This uncropped version of the photo above offers a little more perspective.

Can you imagine owning a tree like this (or even pot like this for that matter)? If you could get your hands on something like this, you’d have to have a greenhouse or a large sun room (unless you live in the tropics). BTW, you might notice that the tree appears to be surrounded by a moat of water, which means it’s growing in almost no soil. You might also notice that it has a couple little people perched on a stone (there’s a building on the other side too). And then you might take a step back and notice just how spectacular and just how huge this remarkable planting is.

Here’s another one with a moat. The moat’s little empty now, but never mind, both the tree and pot are still spectacular.

A little perspective doesn’t hurt. That’s Robert wedged between a very large bonsai and a Vietnamese friend.

Robert Steven’s bonsai tools are now on sale. Actually, all of our bonsai & other tools are now on sale. 20% to 30% off. We are also giving away FREE bonsai wire. But don’t wait. These special end Friday.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern

Bonsai Elegance with Painted Trunks

Stately bonsai elegance. Here’s the original caption for this photo “The customer wanted the trunk brown and the quickest way was to paint it. This is my first time using paint on my sculptures and I’m very happy with the results.” The person who wrote that is Ken To, the creator of the bonsai wire-sculptures that you see here and in several previous Bark posts. You can find even more of Ken’s exquisite little delights on his website, on facebook and on deviantART.

Ken To’s marvelous miniature wire bonsai sculptures just keep getting better. And now, because Ken has started using paint, can we look forward to an exciting explosion of color? Not that many of Ken’s little gems aren’t already colorful, still the possibilities….

Going rafting. Just in case you’re new to this game, this one depicts a raft style bonsai. Here’s an explanation.

Flowering bonsai. Color can be achieved without paint, though you can imagine the painstaking precision involved. Nice pot.

More flowering cascading trees. I wonder if Ken had Azaleas in mind when he made this one and the one immediately above.

At a glance it looks like the tree in this forest are in a line. But if you could look from the side, you’d see how they are staggered. In general, I find this style forest, with moss or grass covered open space in the front, very inviting. I guess that’s the point.

All of Ken’s sculptures are small, but this one is practically microscopic. I don’t think I’d ever have the patience or the dexterity to do something like this.

FREE Bonsai Wire. Wanna try your own wire sculptures? Or maybe just wire your bonsai? Either way, we have an immense selection of very reasonably priced bonsai wire at Stone Lantern. What’s more, we are giving some it away for FREE.

Deeply Discounted Bonsai & Japanese Garden Products at Stone Lantern