Growing Better Roots & Trunks

In addition a one of the most perfectly developed crowns you’ll ever see, with its amazing profusion of tiny leaves; this Trident maple (I must’ve been drunk, any fool can see that this is a Zelkova) provides one of the best examples of trunk and surface root (nebari) development you’ll see anywhere. Neither are overstated; providing a welcome relief from overdeveloped trunk taper and nebari that you sometimes see in Trident maples. But then, you might expect perfection from this tree, it’s from the Grand Master Saburo Kato’s collection (Kato-sama’s most excellent book, Forest, Rock Plantings and Ezo Spruce Bonsai is offered by Stone Lantern).

The photo is from a series of photos on Morten Albek’s Shohin-Europe website, titled Mansei-en 2011. Mansei-en is the name of Saburo Kato’s bonsai garden and Morten Albek is the author of Majesty in Miniature, Shohin Bonsai (Stone Lantern Publishing). Mr. Kato died in 2008 (Phoenix Bonsai has an excellent biography). Morten is, as far as I know, alive and well in Denmark .

Growing better shohin roots and trunk
Morten Albek has just posted a practical guide to growing better roots and trunks. It’s for Shohin bonsai, but you can apply the techniques to larger bonsai as well.

One of a series of photos by Morten Albek on growing better shohin roots and trunk.

 

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Weekly Wire: Bonsai Surperstar, FREE Fertilizer, Making Uro, Spring!

Goyo-matsu (Japanese white pine) from the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum.

 

FREE FERTILIZER! We are giving away our favorite fertilizer over on Stone Lantern.
Just for the fun of it (and to encourage you to place an order and to  feed your bonsai!)

 

Happy white Easter from Walter Pall. This morning Walter posted a whole bunch of photos a lot like this. There’s even some scary photos that shows fully and partially leafed out maples covered with snow. Here’s the good news from Walter: “While I am posting these photographs it has stopped snowing and even the sun is coming out. It seems that this nightmare is over and has caused no harm.”

 

Marco is coming to Montreal. Marco Invernizzi, Italian bonsai superstar, will be at the Vendredi le 4 mai, à l’auditorium du jardin botanique à 19 h 30 (that’s the Botanical Garden auditorium, May 4th at 7:30pm, for us linguistically challenged folks).

 


Delicious! I think we posted something about this a while back, but now I can’t find it. Anyway, as you can see, it’s a mame bonsai pot. The artist is Horie Bikoh. The photo is from Albek Bonsai Studio, which is Morten Albek’s blog. Morten is, among other things, the author of our Majesty in Miniature, Shohin Bonsai.

 

 

Restarting a Trident maple by Peter Tea. From bonsai pot, back to training pot.

 

What’s a uro (besides an overpriced currency)? If you like to find out what a uro is and how to create uro on your deciduous bonsai, bonsai4me has an excellent post on the subject.

 

Celebrating Spring (snow, rain or sun). New England Bonsai Gardens 25th annual Spring Members Day Celebration is coming very soon. And you don’t have to be a member to go.

 

Bonsai Hungary blog

 

 

In our last Weekly Wire I originally posted the wrong dates on this one. I corrected it soon after it was posted, but just in case: the dates are June 21-24.

 

Much more than just corn, soy and pigs. The Iowa State Fair Bonsai Show will be held July 1 in Des Moines.

 

Speaking of eccentric bonsai. From Cliff Chong’s photo album.

 

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NEW High Carbon Steel Bonsai Shears & FREE Fertilizer

3 NEW Stone Lantern high carbon steel bonsai shears. With this set, you’ll have almost all of your bonsai pruning tasks covered; from the very tip of the apex all the way down to the lowest roots. If you don’t need the set, you can buy them individually.

They’ll cut your bonsai and your costs
We are very high on our new bonsai tools. So high in fact, that we’ve decided to brand them with our Stone Lantern name. They look good, feel good, cut like butter and, perhaps best of all, the prices won’t bust your budget. Far from it. When I first saw these tools almost a year ago, I expected them to cost at least twice as much as they do. I’m sure you’ll be as pleasantly surprise as I was.

FREE Our Favorite Bonsai Fertilizer

We’ve got a little bonus for you…

Place an order of at least 25.00 with Stone Lantern and you will receive the following gift of Green Dream (our fertilizer of choice), from us to you:

1 8oz bag of Green Dream with any order from 25.00 to 50.00  (not including shipping)
 

1 lb of Green Dream with any order from 50.00 to 100.00

2lbs of Green Dream with any order of 100.00 up (plus your 5% discount)

That’s all. You don’t have to do anything else. We’ll take care of the rest. However, don’t wait; this offer is for a limited time only.

Note: our warehouse will be closed the week of April 16th. All orders receive after 12:00 noon (U.S. EDT) April 13th will be shipped the week of April 23rd on a first-come, first-serve basis.

 

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Eccentric Bonsai: Pushing Invisible Boundaries

Unusual, yes. Eccentric, somewhat. Sweet, definitely! The compressed quality (like a very large foot stepped on it) and the way the foliage sort of clings to the trunk, make for an unusual bonsai. Even the pot and the reddish brown ground cover are different. But aside from its more eccentric qualities, there’s that wonderful trunk. The image is from Joko Sulistianto’s facebook photos, as are all the images in this post. I don’t know who the tree belongs too (ditto on the others).

Pushing invisible boundaries
Way back in the recesses of time (2009 & 2010) we featured a whole series of posts titled ‘eccentric bonsai.’ Lately, we’ve backed off a bit. I think this is partly because unusual bonsai are more common as people from around the world are breaking away from more formulaic approaches to bonsai and pushing the invisible boundaries, and then using the internet to share what they and others are doing. Not to say that people weren’t breaking away and pushing boundaries in earlier times, just that, like with so many things, there’s a rapid acceleration going on.

 

There was a time twenty years ago or so, when this bujin would have been considered unusual, even eccentric. Now trees that are this wildly expressive are popping up all over the place.

 

Just like the tree above, bonsai like this are no longer that unusual. The question that this one begs, is the issue of naturalistic bonsai versus more stylized bonsai.

Too eccentric? Ugly? I’ll let you be the judge.

All the photos in this post are from here.

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A Levitated Bonsai Platform

After. A twin trunk Mountain hemlock that was collected, styled and placed on a very thin piece of plastic by Michael Hagedorn and friends.

It’s been a while…
…since we featured Michael Hagedorn (Crataegus Bonsai). This is partly because lately we’ve been focusing more on international bonsai than North American bonsai; and partly because if we do too much Michael, you might suspect there are kickbacks involved (Michael is way too clean for that; as for me…).

Mountain hemlock on levitated nylon board
I won’t say too much about the nylon board or the steps that were necessary to cause it to levitate. What I will do is show you three photos to whet your appetite and provide links to Crataegus Bonsai so you can satisfy that appetite.

 

Before. Collected Mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana).

 

What’s this?

Post-Dated is still the most enjoyable bonsai book I’ve ever read.

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Weekly Wire: Bodacious Bark, Bonsai Bliss, Viva Brasil & Slovakia Too

Bodacious bark. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen bark quite like this. Its uniquely patterned texture and color adds an abundance of character and age to this wonderful old live oak. Furthermore (and at the risk of excess word proliferation), have you noticed the pot? How much character it has (and how small it is for the tree)? No mention of who made it with the photo, but whoever did deserves some love. The tree and the pot are from the ‘My Trees’ section of Mauro Stemberger’s website.

 

Rocky Mountain bliss. The dates are June 17-20 21-24. Here’s the ABS link, and here’s the BCI link.

Our Stone Lantern warehouse will be closed the week of  April 16th
All orders received that week will be charged and shipped the following week on a first-come, first-served basis.

Overrun by spam
If you didn’t see your comment on a recent Bonsai Bark post it’s because our spam filter gave up on us and we were overwhelmed by spam for a few crazy days. We’ve got a new filter now and it seems to be up to the task, so things should be back to normal.

 

Suthin Sukosolvisit will be at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum for the Potomac Bonsai Festival, May 4 – May 6
Here’s the whole scoop, straight from the National Bonsai Foundation’s website: Co-sponsored by the Potomac Bonsai Association (PBA), the National Bonsai Foundation, and the U.S. National Arboretum, this unique festival features a show of PBA member trees, a new-talent competition and a vendor tent filled with bonsai trees and supplies. A juried exhibit of bonsai will be on view in the Special Exhibits Wing of the museum. Free demonstrations will be given by PBA members and bonsai master Suthin Sukosolvisit. There will also be fee-based workshops.


Smiling Suthin. We don’t usually feature photos of people in this blog, but I couldn’t resist. Suthin will be at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in May (see directly above).

 

Ficus review. I stumbled upon this Columbus Bonsai Societies review of the book, Ficus, the Exotic Bonsai while I was looking for the Society’s  reviews of our pine and juniper books (the good people of Columbus assure me that these reviews are coming soon).

 

Another masterpiece by Isao Omachi. Two distinctive features jump out at first glance: that strange round whirl at the top of the trunk, and the luscious crown. If you linger for a moment, you might also notice the web of small branches that support the crown and the negative space created by the trunk’s split shari.

Save the date! June 9th and 10th. The world bonsai community will be again enriched by the display of bonsai gathered from across the United States for the 3rd U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition. See you there!

 

World class bonsai books. Soon there will be three (and then four, and so forth). We have a limited number of these beautiful collectors’ books left. When they’re gone, they be gone; they won’t be reprinted.

 

Viva Brasil! This one looks good and there’s plenty of time to plan.

 

Bonsai Slovakia. This one also looks good, but you better hurry.

 

Delicious, delicate color. From the New Korea Bonsai Museum.

 

Capital Bonsai, Ryan Neil & Nature’s Way Nursery. We featured a post from the Capital Bonsai blog not too long ago. We’ve also featured Ryan Neil’s bonsai several times, but I don’t think we’ve ever featured Nature’s Way Nursery. Now, with a simple click, you can enjoy all three in one place.

 

Colorful Realm: Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings by It? Jakuch? (1716–1800) at the US National Gallery of Art until April 29th.

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Back to the Source

Tokonoma with a large pine bonsai and scroll. From Kunio Kobayashi’s Shunkaen Bonsai Museum.

Back to the Source
I think it’s a good idea to check in on Japanese bonsai now and then. After all, it’s one of the two most important historical sources for bonsai (the other would be China) and still produces a very large share of the highest quality bonsai in the world.

Kunio Kobayashi
Kunio Kobayashi is one of best known and most accomplished bonsai artists in Japan and beyond. He has received numerous prestigious bonsai prizes and has taught extensively throughout the world. He has also established the Shunkaen Bonsai Museum to display bonsai.

The photos
The two tokonoma photos in this post are from Kunio Kobayashi’s website. The others are by Antonin Ott.

 

A bird’s eye of part of Mr Kobayashi’s collection and the museum. This photo and the three immediately below are by Antonin Ott.


You say you like nebari and strong taper?

 

 

Another tokonoma shot. The tree looks like a camellia. I wonder why the figurine is so small. Is it to create a sense of vastness in the display? Or to bring humans down a notch in the scheme of things? Maybe the scroll explains it.

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Introducing Our Excellent NEW Stone Lantern Bonsai Tools

These new Stone Lantern stainless bonsai tools are truly remarkable. The quality is excellent the the prices are much lower than you would expect for such high performance tools.

We could easily call these Master Grade tools
I’ve owned a set of these for a year now, and can say with absolute confidence that these are first rate tools. It would not be a stretch to call them ‘Master Grade’ tools, but we already have Master Grade stainless tools and I don’t want to confuse the issue. Just suffice it to say that these are simply the best high quality bonsai tools for the price that I have ever seen.

Stone Lantern Tools
We are so taken with these wonderful new tools, that we’ve decided to put our name on them (by agreement with the manufacturer). Stay posted for our new Stone Lantern high carbon steel tools soon.

Individually, or by the set
You can purchase our new Stone Lantern tools individually, or by the set.

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A Walk on the Wild Side

A wonderfully convoluted Sabina juniper after a little taming by Gabriel Romero Aguadé. If you look at the before photo below, you can see that Gabriel did quite a bit to tame what started out as tree with a world of potential but also with a crazily unruly crown and a  trunk with poor taper. It’s not too hard to see how the crown was brought under control (some very detailed labor and some time for new growth to fill in). But the taper is a bit more mystifying; not much has changed, but somehow it looks much better. BTW, the lead tree in our last post also belongs to Gabriel.

Not much to add here
I’ve been gone for a few days and need to catch up on literal and figurative piles of paperwork, so this post will be a quickie. Just a couple photos of a uniquely wild juniper and a remark or two (above). It would be good to know where the tree came from originally, but I’m going to leave any further research up to you.

 

Before. A world of potential and challenge.

 

Speaking of Junipers, our immensely popular Juniper bonsai book is on special for only 19.95.

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Two Bonsai Firsts (at least)

A formal upright collected European olive? I’ve seen a lot of magnificent collected European olives, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any as perfectly shaped and stupendously gnarled at the same time. The artist is Gabriel Romero Aguade.

Noelanders Trophy 2012
The four trees shown here are all from the 13th Noelanders Trophy Exhibition, which was held in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium, way back in January. I borrowed the images from Bonsai – Living Art, the English version of the Slovenski blog (I recommend a visit, it’s a great bonsai blog, one of the best).

A couple firsts
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a formal-upright collected European olive (see above). I’m not even sure that everyone would agree that it’s a formal-upright because of the trunk’s uneven base, but if it isn’t, it’s pretty close, and either way, it’s an exceptional bonsai.

The other first (for me at least) is using a piece of driftwood as a companion. I’ve seen all kinds of plants and plantings, stones, figurines and even what looks like a human skull, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a simple piece of driftwood serving as a companion (it’s the second photo down).

 

I don’t think there’s anything more compelling in our wonderful world of bonsai, than a well done Bunjin (Literati style bonsai). This elegantly meandering beauty, that ends up almost where it started, is by Vaclav Novak. It’s a Sabina juniper.

 

The tree is powerful and wonderful, but it’s the companion that really caught my eye. Have you ever seen a piece of deadwood used as a bonsai companion? This Taxus (yew) and charming little piece of deadwood are by Mauro Stemberger.

 

Raw, rugged and very sweet. Another excellent naturally dwarfed, collected Norway spruce, with its small needles and ancient bark. It belongs to Nicola Crivelli.

Thanks to Bonsai – Living Art for all the photos in this post.

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