Three Before & After Bonsai – Two Junipers & a Pine

Before and after bonsai styling by Juan Andrade. The trees are from top to bottom: Shimpaku juniper, Japanese black pine and a Needle juniper trunk with Shimpaku juniper foliage grafted on. Juan Andrade was a long term apprentice at Bonsai Aichien nursery in Japan. We’ve been following Juan’s progress for a long time (here’s a Bark post from 2012 that features a tree of his). Juan posts regularly on facebook, which is where we found these photos. MID WINTER SITE WIDE SALE 20% OFF EVERYTHING PLUS AN EXTRA 10% TO 20% OFF ROSHI TOOLS and AN EXTRA 10% OFF BONSAI POTS … Continue reading Three Before & After Bonsai – Two Junipers & a Pine

Two Before & After Bonsai – Juniper & Pine

We found these two photos at Bonsai Shikoku. All the text is Japanese and there are no intermediate photos, so what you see is what you get. At a glance you can see that the foliage has been thinned in order to expose most of the trunk and some of the branching. This allows for an unobstructed view of the deadwood and the lower sections of the living veins. Another obvious change is the result of meticulous cleaning and brightening of the deadwood and living veins. Continuing with our recent Before and After theme, we’ve got couple good ones for you. Both … Continue reading Two Before & After Bonsai – Juniper & Pine

Before & After Root-Over-Rock Black Pine Bonsai

Root-over-rock Japanese black pine by Suthin Sukosolvisit. No major restyling, but still a striking improvement. Sutin’s caption reads simply… “Japanese black pine 2011-2013” The original before and after photos are from Suthin’s timeline Still on vacation, so we’ll simplify by borrowing from our archives. This one first appeared here almost exactly one year ago Continuing with before and after bonsai from two days ago… A big part of bonsai involves transforming rough stock into beautiful, or at least passable bonsai. However, it’s equally important to do the periodic work necessary to keep a bonsai beautiful, or soon enough it will lose its shape and start to look like … Continue reading Before & After Root-Over-Rock Black Pine Bonsai

Walter’s Wild Sabina Juniper

A recent photo of Walter Pall’s wild Sabina juniper. There’s a much older photo of this tree below Second leg of our journey to the sun this morning, so once again we’ll take the easy way out and continue with a Walter Pall posts from our archives. This one is from May 2017, with a newly discovered lead photo NEW SITE WIDE SALE 20% OFF EVERYTHING A GOOD TIME TO STOCK UP – This photo of the same tree, guy wires and all, dates back quite a few years. We found it on The Art of Bonsai Project. The pot is by Bryan Albright … Continue reading Walter’s Wild Sabina Juniper

Bonsai Adventures, Three Hornbeams

Oriental hornbeam (Carpinus orientalis) from Walter Pall’s Bonsai Adventures blog Staying on track with Walter Pall for at least another day. This time it’s three hefty Oriental hornbeams from Walter’s Bonsai Adventures blog. Time is of essences (leaving for a couple weeks in the sun later today) so we’ll provide the links and you do the research if you’re inclined in that direction NEW SITE WIDE SALE Everything Is At Least 20% off Including items already discounted discounts are computed at checkout – Another beefy Oriental hornbeam from Walter’s blog. No leaves this time so you can see the profusion of small … Continue reading Bonsai Adventures, Three Hornbeams

New Year New Day New Bonsai Essentials

There’s something about Quince flowers… Here’s Bill Valavanis’ caption: “A small size Toyo Nishiki Japanese flowering quince, Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Toyo Nishiki’ with multiple colored flowers. Although red, pink and white blossoms are common for this great cultivar, I’ve often seen red branches grafted onto specimens to improve color distribution.” Welcome to 2019. My other New Year’s resolution (see yesterday) is to avoid recycling these same trees for a forth time next year. Stay posted to see how we do. I guess a passable excuse is just how good these trees are. They’re from the 2015 Kokufu Bonsai Exhibiton and were lifted directly from … Continue reading New Year New Day New Bonsai Essentials

Bonsai Berries & a Failed New Year’s Resolution

This prolific Pyracantha was our 2018 New Year’s tree. I don’t know who the artist or owner is (more about this below), but my guess is the tree is Japanese Here’s my New Year’s resolution from 2018… No more unattributed trees on this blog (uh… except for the one just above). So I failed on the first day last year and the failure reoccured throughout the year (you can take this as a metaphor if you’d like). In light of this, here’s a more realistic resolution for this year… I will attribute the trees we post when possible and encourage all of us who have been … Continue reading Bonsai Berries & a Failed New Year’s Resolution

Bougainvillea Bonsai, Before & After

Bougainvillea, before and after. Now you know how Suthin gets those thick trunks on such small bonsai… hint, he cuts older larger plants way back (obviously, there’s more to it than just that, but you have to start somewhere). This works best with tropicals that can handle the stress and have no problem putting out new buds Continuing with Suthin Sukosolvisit’s bonsai (see yesterday’s post). I borrowed these photos from a post we did on some of Suthin’s tropicals back in March 2015 (with some doctoring and rearranging today). To enjoy more of what Suthin is up to, you can visit him on facebook … Continue reading Bougainvillea Bonsai, Before & After

Festive Bonsai

I don’t know if you’d call this tree festive, but it has a bright spirited quality. It’s an English yew (Taxus Baccata) by Stefano Frisoni from Italy I just spent 30 mins cruising fb looking for a Christmas decorated bonsai to feature, but came up blank. I did find this in our archives. It has a bit of Holiday flavor and I like it, so why not? Continued below… Roshi Bonsai Tools 30% off Plus and extra 10% off on orders 150.00 or more Roshi Tools are famous for precision, durability, beauty & reasonable prices this special ends Dec 26th at 11:59pm … Continue reading Festive Bonsai

Bonsai Holiday Greetings from Another Place & Time

Chinese hackberry by Lo Min Hsuan It’s the Holidays and we all need a little down time, so today it’s back to our archives. All of today’s photos are from Lo Min Hsuan’s Bonsai blog and they all appeared here exactly eight years ago. That’s a great thing about bonsai of this magnitude… they are already so old that eight years might as well be yesterday Roshi Bonsai Tools 30% off Plus and extra 10% off on orders 150.00 or more Roshi Tools are famous for precision, durability, beauty & reasonable prices this special ends Dec 26th at 11:59pm EST – I’ve always appreciated a good … Continue reading Bonsai Holiday Greetings from Another Place & Time