An Impressive Collection of Delicious Little Trees

These delicious little trees (shohin bonsai) are all from Cliff Chong’s bonsai gallery. I don’t know if all the trees are his, but his or otherwise, it’s a very impressive collection of photographs. Cliff lives and practices the art of bonsai in Malaysia. Here’s another impressive Shohin Bonsai it’s Morten Albek’s classic and it’s full of a wider range of how-to & other information on small bonsai than most of us ever knew existed And the price is right

The Biggest Challenge with the Smallest Trees

I won’t guess the species this time (crabapple?), I’m not good at it anyway. What I will guess is that these are fairly normal human fingers, which means this is a very small bonsai. This and two other photos in this post are from Eric Sin’s facebook page. Last two days of vacation. Rather than actually work at putting together a new post, we’ll dive back into our archives. This one appeared just over three years ago (Tiny Bonsai). We’ve done some essential editing, enlarged the photos and added one tree. The biggest challenge with the smallest trees Mini bonsai … Continue reading The Biggest Challenge with the Smallest Trees

More Bonsai Berries

This sturdy Contoneaster with its rich berry display is from our 2010 Bonsai calendar. Bill Valavanis just informed me that this an Ilex serrata (he calls it a Japanese fine tooth holly). I’ll always defer to Bill, though I’ve never seen a Japanese holly that looks like this tree. Last post featured Pyracantha bonsai with its inedible (some birds love ’em though) berries so we might as well feature another bonsai variety with inedible berries. This time it’s Cotoneaster (well, sort of – see above). Another sturdy Cotoneaster bonsai with berries, only this time a little one. It’s the … Continue reading More Bonsai Berries

Watering Bonsai by Installing Alarm Bells in Your Head

This Japanese white pine won the Prime Minister’s Award at the 2005 Sakufu Ten Bonsai Exhibition. Though it has nothing more to do with watering than any other bonsai, the photo is from Michael Hagedorn’s Crataegus Bonsai, as is the text below. Yet Another Watering Problem… The following is by Michael Hagedorn from his website Crataegus Bonsai. “Probably the worst thing we might encounter when we have a hose in our hand is a tree that, when we think about it, has not dried out in three days of sunny summer weather. That ought to send off all kinds of … Continue reading Watering Bonsai by Installing Alarm Bells in Your Head

Who Needs Flowers? Suthin Bonsai Before & Mostly After

After. This Bougainvillea is a uniquely compelling bonsai with or without flowers. Still, it would be nice to see it in full bloom, We’ll keep our eyes open and let you know. All the trees and the photos in this post belong to Suthin Sukosolvisit. Just the other day I wrote that Suthin Sukosolvisit is one of the great American bonsai artists. We could amend that to one of the world’s great bonsai artists. This post and all our numerous other posts featuring Suthin’s bonsai help support this contention. Further support can be found by visiting Suthin on facebook and his … Continue reading Who Needs Flowers? Suthin Bonsai Before & Mostly After

Easy to Move and a Delight to Behold…

I think this one qualifies as Mame (‘bean’ in Japanese). Bonsai-wise, mame is a common word for the very smallest bonsai. When we originally posted this, I didn’t know who this lovely little bonsai belonged to. I’ve since been told that it is a Haruyosi tree. Strange how once you know something it’s obvious. And btw, the sweet little pot was no doubt made by Haruyosi as well. Oh, and I’m pretty sure the tree is a Pyracantha. On the road again (and out of the bone chilling cold for a precious minute) so we’ll go archiving once again. This … Continue reading Easy to Move and a Delight to Behold…

Majesty in Miniature

Winter or early spring (it looks like there might be some leaves starting to push, but it’s hard to tell). Two things that jumped out when I first saw this photo are, the rather unusual shape of the stand and the shear number of trees in the display. No companions, no figurines, no stones (well, maybe one small one in the middle) and not much internal space either (though there is plenty of space around the whole display). Just nine mini bonsai and one very well chosen larger tree. The photos shown here were taken by Morten Albek at the … Continue reading Majesty in Miniature

Improving Excellence

Morten Albek’s virtual restructing of Hans Vleugels’ Shohin display (the text and arrows are very helpful, though it would have been great to see a second version without them… but we’ll take what we can get). This photo and the three just below are from British Shohin Bonsai. The original. It’s a real eye opener when you realize that something this beautiful and simple can be improved upon. If you look at Morten’s virtual enhancement (above) the beauty and simplicity are still there, but a more dynamic element has been added. Here’s a piece of the text from British … Continue reading Improving Excellence

Fall Transplanting: Taking Full Advantage of Next Year’s Growing Season

Time to repot. Morten Albek intentionally broke the pot to show this Cork bark Japanese black pine’s dense root mass. From Morten’s book, Shohin Bonsai (Stone Lantern Publishing). Vacation ended around midnight last night. Still, in light of a whole slew of post vacation demands, I’m going to indulge in one more journey into our archives. This one is from August, 2009, which in the life of this blog, qualifies as ancient. We’ll stick with our current topic, fall transplanting. With one caveat: opinions abound on how to do most anything, and fall transplanting (really almost any bonsai task) is … Continue reading Fall Transplanting: Taking Full Advantage of Next Year’s Growing Season

Summer Relief

Deciduous Award at the 2012 U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition for the Finest Deciduous Bonsai. It’s a Japanese Maple by Suthin Sukolosovisit of Royal Bonsai. It has nothing to do with the topic of this post, at least directly, but the 3rd (2012) U.S. National Bonsai Exhibiton is now on special at Stone Lantern. This post originally appeared here on Bark last summer. It’s important enough to run again, especially given the season we entering. While we’re at it, I’d like to remind you that our 50% off Sale for 10 or more 100 gram rolls of Bonsai Aesthetics Wire ends … Continue reading Summer Relief