Experimental Forms & Other Ingenious Bonsai Ceramics

This highly textural pot is but one of a whole range of ingenious and original bonsai pots and sculptures at Lang Bonsai Containers (no one pays for content on Bonsai Bark – it’s just an accident due to time pressure or maybe lack of imagination, that this post read like an ad). Today and tomorrow have been set aside to move bonsai into winter storage and to finish wrapping some deliciously edible landscape plants with deer netting. So we’ll try to keep this short and to the point. I was a little miffed to discover that we have never featured … Continue reading Experimental Forms & Other Ingenious Bonsai Ceramics

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

Imperial Pots Up Close

All the photos shown here are from a post on Kigawa Bonsai Blog titled Imperial Palaces and ‘Bonsai Pots’ in Beijing. We’ve cropped some (including this one) to give you a closer look. I just stumbled upon yet another excellent bonsai blog (I often wonder if, when we introduce you to a new blog, you’ll wander off and we’ll never see you again. I suppose it’s a chance worth taking; there such a wealth of good stuff out there and we’re all in this together anyway…). The blog is called Kigawa Bonsai. The post is titled: Imperial Palaces and ‘Bonsai … Continue reading Imperial Pots Up Close

Joan Miró, Paul Klee & Horst Heinzlreiter

This unique example of ceramic art is by Horst Heinzlreiter as are all the pots in this post. Just when I thought Horst Heinzlreiter’s pots couldn’t get any better, I discovered these wild and wonderful examples of art disguised as bonsai pots (that’s what I wanted to call this post until I discovered Ceramic Art Disguised as Bonsai Pots on some obscure bonsai blog). I spent a year of my youth in Europe, with a sizable hunk of that time wandering around art museums (one of the best things I’ve ever done BTW). Two of the handful of artist who left … Continue reading Joan Miró, Paul Klee & Horst Heinzlreiter

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 … Continue reading Serendipitous Birds & Bonsai Pots

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 … Continue reading Creative, Daring, Fascinating & Maybe…

The Right Pot and Just a Touch of Art

This unusual gem is part of an excellent selection of Kusamono from Tony Tickle’s garden. In Tony’s own words… “I have a large collection of dwarf Hostas, these flourish in my rather damp garden, in summer the other Kusamono come into flower and leaf. Here are a few they include Astilbie, Thrift and sedums. Most of the Pots are from my friend Dan Barton but there are pots from Gordon Duffet and many other European Potters.” Five of the nine photos in this post are Tony’s. One of the great things about companion plants (Kusamono or Shitakusa) is that they … Continue reading The Right Pot and Just a Touch of Art

Absolutely Very Cool

This absolutely very cool bonsai pot has to be one of the sweetest hand-painted ceramics around. We’ll call it Village Life (are the two people in the middle dancing?). Part of the description say: “Wei Miao Wei Xiao” This Chines phrase means ‘lifelike, or remarkably true to life.’ The photo is from here as are all the photos in this post. Of the well over two thousand people who visit Bonsai Bark every day, I suspect most don’t bother to read what we have to say (I’ve seen better humble brags but this is the best we’ve got right now). They … Continue reading Absolutely Very Cool

Bonsai Flowers & A Certain Kind of Provincialism

Wisteria bonsai doing its profuse thing. It belongs to Gerard Schoofs of the Bonsai Society of Victoria. Being a North American I just figured Victoria BC, Canada without a second thought, until I read this caption: “I managed to get this photo about Oct 2011…” Turns out, there are several Victorias in this wide world and this one is a state somewhere in that over-sized island south of Indonesia (just kidding sort of, with only a hint of irritation about a certain kind of provincialism that assumes*…. or maybe I’m just cranky). I think it’s a good time to start … Continue reading Bonsai Flowers & A Certain Kind of Provincialism

Transplanting: The Happy Zone

Here’s Michael Hagedorn’s caption: “This maple in Shinji Suzuki’s tokonoma is in a pot typical of this kind of tree. It works better aesthetically, in two ways. A shallow pot will make the nebari continue spreading, and the delicacy of the trunks is enhanced by a shallower pot. But a maple is also a tree that appreciates water. And a shallow pot will retain more moisture than a deeper one, in a soil-to-soil relative way. It’s a wetter pot.” All the photos in this post are from Crataegus Bonsai. We’ve been talking about basics a lot lately. Specifically watering, fertilizing … Continue reading Transplanting: The Happy Zone