Great Trees, Great Pots

Much of the bonsai in Taiwan seems to pair truly remarkable trees with truly remarkable pots. Not that the best bonsai elsewhere aren’t usually in suitably excellent pots, but still, there’s something both bold and refined about these uniquely beautiful hand-painted Taiwanese pots that create extra excitement and pleasure (something like that anyway).

I found these photos on facebook a while back, but now, after spending 30 minutes looking for the source, I’ve given up. This is a little embarrassing because I’m usually a bit of a fanatic about attribution. I guess we’ll just have to wait for Jose Luis to come to the rescue (stay posted to the comments below).

 

 

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Bay Island Bonsai Tonight

I like the way the shari is understated, relative to many juniper bonsai at least. It contrasts nicely with the striking reddish bark, which someone went to a lot to some trouble to clean up. It’s a Sierra juniper, which as you might guess from the name, is native to the Sierra Nevada Mountains (and further north into the Cascades). The photo is  from the Bay Island Bonsai’s 15th Annual Exhibit. Aside from the fact that this is an excellent bonsai with potential to become even better, the fact that it’s a native North American species is an added plus (this has something to do with the future of bonsai here, but we’ll save that for another time). This photo and the one below are by Jonas Dupuich of Bonsai Tonight.

When it comes to bonsai excellence there’s nothing else on the web quite like Bonsai Tonight. Not only is the quality of the photography unrivaled, but Jonas keeps finding great trees to shot.

I’ll just give you a little taste here and encourage you to click your way over to Bonsai Tonight as soon as you can spare the time. It’s a great show and it’s only the tip of the iceberg.

 

The elegant, rangy Ponderosa pine is another native American. It grow from the Rockies to the mountains of the far west. Sadly, it is one of the trees that is being decimated by the mountain pine beetle. At least in parts of its range. Note, if you look at the bark, you might think this is a Lodgepole pine rather than a Ponderosa, which usually has more reddish bark with larger plates that tends to be less shaggy than what you see here. But it’s hard to tell from a photo and there can be a plenty of variation within a species.

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Boxwoods? Serissas? Or…?

This unusual and creative arrangement is from Aus Bonsai on facebook. It would be nice to know who the artist is, but they don’t say. In any case, I like the way each planting looks like it could stand alone, and the way they all work together (even given the one with the mismatched rock). Are they Boxwoods? Serissas? Both? Something else? It’s hard to tell from here.

 

Cropped so you can see a little more detail.

Closer (fuzzier too). Is that a flower and some buds? Could it be a Serissa?


Here’s another one from Aus Bonsai. The variety in this case is undeniable; it’s a Shimpaku and an exceptionally sweet little Shimpaku at that. Artist unknown (by me at least).

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Raw Energy & Backwards Bonsai

This powerful Nea buxifolia by Nelson Hernandez won 3rd place in the 2013 World Bonsai Federation Bonsai Photo Contest. You don’t see too many Nea bonsai outside the tropics, though they do pop up from time to time. Buxifolia means ‘box leaf ‘or ‘boxwood leaf’ which seems suitable for a variety with such tiny leaves. This one is resides in Puerto Rico. This and the other two photos in this post are from the North American Bonsai Federation.

Third first? I’m not trying to make a statement by showing the 2013 WBFF photo contest third place tree first and the first place tree third. It’s just that the raw energy of Nea above caught my eye first. It reminds me of the towering Sugar maples that are so predominant up here in the nether reaches of the Northeast.

Speaking of reminding, the Casuarina equisetifolia below immediately brings to mind California live oak (Quercus agrifolia) groves that are so common in the coast range north of San Francisco (and elsewhere). The first place winner (bottom photo) serves as a reminder of just how many great Shimpaku juniper bonsai there are in Japan.

 

Second place. This raft style Casuarina equisetifolia forest seems to catch that precise spot between movement and balance. It’s by Eddy Sebayang of Indonesia.

 

The Grand Winner of the WBFF Saburo Kato Memorial Award. Another great tree from that vast Japanese reservoir of magnificent Shimpaku bonsai. The tree belongs to Naotoshi Takagi.

Our Masters Series Juniper Bonsai book. Not only will you find some of those magnificent Shimpaku junipers in this famous book, you’ll discover a wealth of valuable easy-to-follow how-to instructions.

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Our First Fuchsia – It’s About the Flowers

This full-of-flowers Fuchsia turned up on Aus Bonsai on facebook. They don’t say who it belongs to, which unfortunately, is what we’ve come to expect on facebook. This is not to complain about Aus Bonsai, I like what they’re doing and they do bother with the species (genus in this case) which is more than many facebook regulars. Here they are on facebook and here’s their website.

A first. We’ve been posting mostly every other day for five years (lately every day) and have never shown a Fuchsia bonsai (I had to search Fushsai just in case, and did turn up one reference, but no photos). Anyway, I’m happy and even a little excited that we’ve finally come across one; which, as it turns out, is pretty sweet.

It’s about the flowers. If this attractive little tree wasn’t in flower, it would most likely consigned to a back bench somewhere. However, it is in flower and it’s beautiful. This is a common theme with flowering bonsai. Though you will find some that are show-worthy without flowers, with others it’s mostly about the flowers.

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Pot Contest – We Have a Winner!

Pot #2 finished first.

Just over three weeks ago we started a contest called Choosing the Right Pot. Here’s the link if you’d like to recharge your memory.

A total of 139 people entered the contest. It turned out to be a neck and neck race between two pots. Pot #2 started very strong and looked like it would win going away. Then in the last week or so, pot number 5 gave a valiant chase, finishing a mere one vote short. The breakdown on the favorite pot-tree combination is as follows:
32 chose Pot #2
31 chose Pot #5
23 chose Pot #7
21 chose Pot #3
17 chose Pot #6
12 chose Pot #1
3 chose Pot #4

The winning person just happen to be the first person to enter. His Name is Steve Gregory. Though he accurately picked pot #2 as his guess, his favorite was pot #7 (if this doesn’t make sense, here’s that link again).

About half of you picked the same pot for your favorite and your guess for other people’s favorites. I won’t break those guesses down, except to say that the overall favorite-verses-guess ratios were pretty close to one to one. For example, 32 people guessed pot #5 and 31 guessed pot #2, an exact reversal of the above.

All the pot/tree images were borrowed from Boon Manakitivipart (Bonsai Boon).

 

Pot #5 was a very close second.

 

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Santa Nella or Bust

I don’t know who this little pine belongs but I’d bet there are a bunch of people out there who wish it belonged to them. It’s from Bill Valavanis’ Bonsai blog.

Santa Nella or bust. I guess it’s bust in this case, unless you were there at the The 14th California Shohin Bonsai Seminar, you just missed it. Fortunately, Bill was there and he took some great photos that he just posted on his blog.

 

Here’s another of Bill’s photos. There are a lot more on his blog.

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An Irresistible Ponderosa Pine

Couldn’t resist. We featured a tree and pot by Sara Rayner a few posts back, so I was looking for some pots by Sara as a follow up, when I stumbled upon this little gem at The Art of Bonsai Project. The caption says ‘Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) pot specially made for this bonsai by Sara Rayner bonsai and photograph by Andy Smith.’

One of the reasons I couldn’t resist this sweet little tree, is because it’s by Andy Smith, one of the best known and best North American wild bonsai (yamadori) collectors* and owner of Golden Arrow Bonsai. As it turns out, we sell two excellent DVDs by Andy. We also sell The book on Ponderosa Pine Bonsai by Larry Jackel.

Both of these excellent DVDs by Andy Smith are on special at Stone Lantern.

*Bonsai collector, not to be confused with collector in the sense of art collector – Andy finds the wild trees, digs them, keeps them healthy, sometimes styles them, and sells them at reasonable prices.

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Opulent, Outrageous & Outstanding

This Itoigawa Shimpaku (Juniperus chinensis ‘itoigawa’) by Dougie Smith qualifies as opulent for sure. Outrageous? Well there is that huge rock jutting up from the skinny little (but very handsome) pot. As for outstanding; that goes without saying. Note: I don’t know what the smaller trees down low are. Maybe azaleas? Myrtle? This photo and the others in this post are by Philippe Massard, though I cropped them all to bring the trees closer.

All the photos in this post are from the Noelanders Trophy XV which was recently held in Belgium. The photos are all borrowed from Philippe Massard (cropped to bring the trees closer). The five chosen here are a drop in Philippe’s photographic bucket. I picked these five mostly because they are unusual. This is not to say that there weren’t numerous other unusual trees featured; Europeans seem to be on the cutting of edge of unusual bonsai these days.

Just in case anyone is ready to jump to any misunderstood conclusions, all three words in the title, Opulent, Outrageous and Outstanding, are meant in the positive sense. Opulent as rich rather than ostentatious. Outrageous as unconventional, surprising or even shocking, as opposed to very bad or wrong. Outstanding simply means outstanding, in every sense of the word.

 

A very uncommon, Common juniper (Juniperus communis) by C.Przybylski. Not very opulent, but outrageous for sure. And undeniably outstanding. Especially considering you almost never see good Common juniper bonsai (American bonsai artist, Nick Lenz provides some exceptions).

 

This stubby Trident maple (Acer buergerianum) is by John Pitt. I’ll guess that the excellent pot is also by John. The nebari most def qualifies as opulent, outrageous and outstanding, though such things are not uncommon on Tridents.

 

Austrian pine (Pinus nigra) belongs to Mauro Stemberger. This one just might be my favorite. It and its wonderful pot qualify in every sense; particularly opulent and outstanding. We’ll leave the outrageous up to you. BTW: great shadow, just in case you missed it.

 

English yew (Taxus baccata) from the fertile mind and sure hand of  Tony Tickle. Outrageous! Outstanding! Not so opulent (well, maybe the books). And then there’s that excellent bridge type slab that the tree is clinging to. It’s by Erik Križovenský. We’ve featured his innovative pot art here on Bark.

 

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