Bonsai Before & After – Three Year Progression

A three year progression on a Himalayan juniper (Juniperus squamata) by Josef Burschi

We’ve got new Before & After for you. This time with an intermediate stage between the before and after. There is a small caveat however. The tree is a Tanuki* (Phoenix graft).  I think most Japanese bonsai artists frown on Tanuki, or at least they don’t value them as much as other bonsai. But the tree looks good, so I don’t think it’s a big deal. You can see this tree and some other good ones on Josef Burschi’s fb timeling

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After

 

Cropped for a better look at the trunk

 

Cropped even more. In addition to the deadwood, you get a good look at the living vein

 

More deadwood

The artist at work

*Tanuki (Phoenix graft) is when you attached a living plant to a piece of deadwood in an attempt to make it look as though it’s one plant. When it’s well done, it can be difficult to tell a Tanuki from other bonsai with deadwood

 

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Bonsai Forest Rock Plantings

That's Ryan Neil's hand (Bonsai Mirai) posing for a professional photo with a very large root-on-rock planting. Here's his caption: "In the studio today with @hornbecker shooting for the Artisans Cup promotional material" (from 2015). He doesn't say what the tree's are. If you'd like to see the uncropped original, it's here

We’re on a bonsai forest binge these days, so let’s keep going. Though it’s questionable if you’d call these rock plantings forests, they do share the multiple tree and some of the landscape features you’ll find with more conventional bonsai forests

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juniper-bonsai-rock-omiyaThree robust Shimpaku junipers on a rock. From the Omiya Bonsai Museum

 

buxifolia-luisa-alfaro

Empire Bonsai's caption says "Buxifolio Bonsai forest, planted on a rock, by Luisa Alfaro." The Buxifolio part is a bit of a mystery. Buxifolia (with an a) is a species name, but without the genus, it could be any number of things. The leaves look tiny, so we'll try Neea buxifolia.

 

Juniper penjing

Juniper penjing

I borrowed this photo from a Bonsai Tonight post on Penjing. As usual, I'm impressed with the choice of material and the quality of photos on Bonsai Tonight and this one is no exception. For more detail, there are several very good closeups just a click away.
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Thief Steals Over $100,000 Worth of Bonsai* Including a 400-year-old Shimpaku Juniper

This rare 400-year-old Shimpaku juniper was due to be entered in a Japanese competition this month

Theft of anything is always shocking and doubly so when the missing objects are irreplaceable, one of a kind living items. When and if they are ever found, missing bonsai might be badly damaged or even dead. And the chances of ever finding them are often slim

Here’s an except from  our source WENY News (courtesy of  Eugene Sekulow) …
“A bonsai thief has stolen seven… trees worth at least 13 million yen ($118,000)* from a garden space in Saitama prefecture near Tokyo.

“The loot included a rare 400-year-old shimpaku tree, a star of the bonsai world, which was due to be entered in a Japanese… competition this month…” 

“The prize shimpaku alone was worth over 10 million yen ($90,000), according to Fuyumi Iimura, wife of the bonsai master who crafted the trees.”

Here’s a link to rest of the article and here’s a google link to several pages of articles on stolen bonsai.

*I’m always a little wary of precise value placed on bonsai (especially if insurance claims are about to be filed). No bonsai has a fixed value. At least until someone buys it. When that happens, you could say the purchase price is  the tree’s value at that moment

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Flowering Cherry Bonsai – Few and Far Between

This is perhaps the strongest Flowering cherry we've featured in our ten years of posting. Its muscular trunk, aged bark and profusion of lovely flowers make for an impressive showing

Good Flowering cherry bonsai seem to be few and far between. In our ten years of posting (about 3.500 posts), we’ve only featured three flowering cherries and I’m not sure about one (here’s one,  here’s another  and here’s the one I’m not sure about). We found this one on Michael Bonsai fb timeline, a steady source for quality bonsai photos

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Close up of the trunk from the opposite side. That appears to be a piece of bark sticking out on the right. The white looks like a lichen of some sort

 

The other side. It sure does look like a piece of bark. It seems a little strange that is was left on the tree, but I suppose it tells a story. The fingers give a sense of scale

 

Cherry blossoms!

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Mixed Forest Bonsai (& Others) by One of the Original Grand Masters

This magnificent mixed forest is by Saburo Kato, who was one of the original old masters of Japanese bonsai. You can find it and other remarkable trees in his timeless classic Forest, Rock Planting & Ezo Spruce Bonsai. You can also find some of the moist comprehensive how-to bonsai instructions anywhere

Continuing with our forest theme, today it’s four now famous forest plantings by one of Bonsai’s Grand Masters, Saburo Kato

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This remarkable slab planting shows how much drama and power one strong tree can add to a forest. It's also a good example of what you can do with ground cover to enhance realism and beauty. Though the original, which appeared in Bonsai Today* issue 23,  doesn’t say, it might be safe to guess that it's also by Saburo Kato. The trees look a lot like Ezo spruce (Picea glehnii), a specialty of Mr Kato's

Forest, Rock Planting and Ezo Spruce Bonsai
By Saburo Kato
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This very large forest was on display at the 2017 World Bonsai Convention in Japan. Like so many other Ezo spruce forests, it was originally created by Saburo Kato. The photo was borrowed from Mark Fields, one of our lucky friends who made the trip to Japan.

 

Same forest, different perspective. Both this photo and the one above include people, which helps show just how immense this planting is. The photo was sent to us by Felix Laughlin, who is, in addition to being another lucky friend, is the President of the U.S. National Bonsai Foundation.

 

fcu

Close up. Realistically sized ground cover is an important piece in most great forest bonsai. This photo was also taken by Felix Laughlin.

 

B1KATO-2

The Remotest Hill, Mr Kato's most famous Ezo spruce forest from the cover of his internationally renowned book, Forest, Rock Planting & Ezo Spruce Bonsai. Here's Mr Kato's caption: "Ezo spruce (Picea glehnii). Sixty years ago I often traveled with my father to Ezo spruce in the large virgin forests on Kunashir Island off the cooast of Hokkaido. I selected the finest material to create this bonsai entitled The Remotest Hill."

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The Magician’s Ezo Spruce Bonsai Forest

Before and after,three years later. Masahiko Kimura 'The Magician' styled this Ezo spruce (Picea Glehnii) planting with a high mountain stand of conifers in mind

Continuing with bonsai forests from the last two days…
Looking at the after forest above, you might notice how the trees on the outside lean out in search of sunlight, which is what you would expect in a natural stand of trees (more on this below)

You may also notice how Kimura enhanced the feeling of age by removing or jinning about half of the limbs (this is most evident in the intermediate to after photos below). Trees tend to shed limbs as they age. This is especially true of trees in forests where there’s competition for light; with more growth at the tops and edges and less in the shaded areas where branches tend to weaken and even fall off.  All three photos in this post are from Bonsai Today issue 26*

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Freshly planted. Kimura started with inexpensive untrained trees. The placement of each tree is carefully thought out to create a natural and harmonious feel. We'll discuss some of the concepts behind placement in future posts. Meanwhile, an excellent book on the subject is Saburo Kato's Forest, Rock Planting & Ezo Spruce Bonsai

 

The Magician
The Bonsai Art of Kimura 2

 

This intermediate stage is one year after planting (below) and two years before the top photo. It's quite powerful at this stage and I suspect most of us would be delighted to have a forest like this exactly as is. Notice how each trunk is wired and all are almost perfectly straight and vertical. One of the next steps will be to bend and lean the outer trunks and make more subtle adjustment to the inner ones

 

I like the photo just above but Kimura wasn't satisfied. So many trunks so close together and straight up wasn't quite right. In fact only the main tree is perfectly straight in this photo. In nature, each tree that pops up after the main trunk, will grow out a bit in search of more light. This process continues all the way out to edge of the forest

 

Forest, Rock Planting and Ezo Spruce Bonsai
By Saburo Kato

 

Closeup of the lower trunks and ground cover

Much of this post is from 2009, our first year blogging. We featured an updated version last year and added a photo and revised the text today. I hope these changes are helpful 

*Thanks to Bonsai Focus for use of the photos

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Elements of a Bonsai Forest

pall11I stumbled across this European hornbeam (Carpinus betulas) by Walter Pall on his Bonsai Adventures blog. The shot looks like spring with some trees lagging behind others

Following up on yesterday’s forest post, here’s one that originally appeared here in 2014. I think it’s one of our best on forests and worth another look

Focal point. Without the dominant tree this forest planting by Walter Pall would be a lot less interesting. With the dominant tree contrasted with rest of the trees, the planting has a focal point. With that focal point  to organize around, balance, scale, a feeling of age and that more elusive quality we call interest, are easier to establish
Continued below…

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pall21Same forest. Same time. Different backdrop. Walter usually shoots his trees with two or three different backdops.

Continued from above…
Balance. If you look at the silhouette of the whole planting you’ll immediately see how everything flows from the dominant tree, creating an overall sense of balance and harmony. This has a lot to do with the natural strength and dynamism of scalene triangles and something called The Golden Mean or Golden Ratio (Magic Thirds)

Scale. Notice how the large tree is in the front. Not only does this show off its size and power, it also highlights a sense of depth when contrasted with the medium sized trees in the center axis (left to right) and the smaller trees in the back. Rather than seeing these trees as smaller as they go back, we tend to see them as further away.
Continued below…

twohornbeams

Contrasting these two shots provides a pretty good idea of how different backdrops effect our perception

Continued from above…
Age. When it comes to age, there are two types of natural forests: ones where all the trees are more or less the same age and size (for example a stand of trees that grew up after a forest fire) and an old forests with trees that show a mix of ages and sizes

This planting is a good example of the latter, with the main tree emphasizing and even exaggerating the contrast. You might even imagine that at one time the dominant tree stood alone and seeded the others
Continued below…

pall6

Same planting, fall foliage. You can see how the individual trees turn and drop on different schedules

Continued from above…
Walter Pall often shows several photos of the the same bonsai with different backdrops and at different times. I think this is a good idea, especially given that no single photo  can completely capture the power and dynamism of a good bonsai

pall4One of the rewards of cold hardy bonsai

 

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Powerful & Realistic Bonsai Forest

Impressive! I don't know what the trees are, though they look like conifers, maybe even pines. It would be nice to have a closer look, but beggars can't be choosey

When I first saw caught site of this planting on Quoc Viet Tran‘s timeline, I was immediately struck by how powerful and realistic it is. I wish I could tell you more about it, but no information is provided. I guess we’ll have to settle for simple appreciation of the artist’s mastery
Continued below…  

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Left side, closer up. I cropped the original photo for closer looks (here and the next two). One thing that distinguishes this plant from many others is the in-scale foliage. Still we're not close enough to be tell what kind of foliage it is

Continued from above…
I’m pretty sure Quoc Viet Tran is a Vietnamese name, so you might assume the planting is in Vietnam. though as mentioned above, Tran provides no caption, so it’s all guesswork at this point

Right side. Another mystery about this tree is the long narrow whitish things on the ground. They must be little soaker hoses, or am I missing something?

 

Middle section, with a good look at the pond and rocks

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The famous Masahiko Kimura with his demo planting sitting on a Green T Plus at the World Bonsai Convention.
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Two More Bonsai & Two Special Events at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

This dynamic and wild looking Shimpaku juniper, aka Sargent's juniper (Juniperus chinensis var. Sargentii), with its barely visible living vein (or veins?), was donated to the U.S. National Bonsai & Penjing Museum (Japanese Collection) by Kenichi Oguchi in 1976. It has been in training since 1905. The Museum's logo (below) was inspired by this tree

Today we’ve got two special events from the U.S. National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, sandwiched between a couple Junipers from the Museum’s Japanese Collection. Stay posted for more events and more magnificent trees from the Museum’s new website

 

This Shimpaku juniper was donated by Doug Paul in 2015. Age and years in training unknown. To my eye, a couple things make this tree unique; the two almost equal in girth trunks (in most twin trunk trees, one trunk is clearly stronger), and the ground cover like foliage on the right that appears to be growing from a third smaller horizontal trunk

 

The Museum logo

 

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