An Old Ponderosa Engulfed by 31 Little Mugos

There’s a very cool old Ponderosa pine hidden in there somewhere. The handiwork is by Colin Lewis. Here’s his caption: “Thirty-one approach grafts of mugo onto ponderosa. Got fed up with long needles that get longer as the season progresses. Wish I’d done this years ago.” I discovered the photo above at about 6am this morning while perusing facebook (the NY Times of bonsai news). Just looking at it and reading Colin’s caption (also above) begged more questions than I was prepared to answer. My solution was to bother Colin with 7:00am phone call. As always, Colin was gracious and … Continue reading An Old Ponderosa Engulfed by 31 Little Mugos

Pine Boom again

This gnarly old Mugo pine belongs to Walter Pall. It’s no doubt a yamadori (bonsai collected from the wild). Perhaps from the Alps? Yesterday was Walter Pall. Today it’s pines, two of which belong to Walter. This post originally appeared here on Bark in September, 2012. As far as I know, there is no Pine Boom. I was trying to type Pine Book as a filler until a more suitable name for this post came to me. Then, a simple typo, and now it’s Pine Boom. Anyway, I’m trying to pull myself to together to catch a plane, so, quickly, … Continue reading Pine Boom again

Mugo Pines & Bonsai Pirates

This wild and wonderful mugo pine was posted by Sandro Segneri of the Bonsai Creativo School and Academy. Still too busy, so we’ll dip down into our archives again. Most of what you see here originally appeared here in February, 2010. The exceptions are the tree at the bottom (from a Feb, 2011 post) and comments added today. There are at least two things that come to mind when I look at the wild Mugo pine above. First, it represents a break with traditional bonsai styles, particularly traditional Japanese bonsai. It just doesn’t look like what bonsai looked like not … Continue reading Mugo Pines & Bonsai Pirates

Power, Movement & Texture

Power, movement and texture. This astounding Itoigawa shimpaku juniper (Juniperus chinensis Itoigawa) received an Honorable Mention at the 2015 Crespi Bonsai Cup which was held at the Crespi Bonsai Museum. It belongs to Gino Costa. The photos shown here are from the 2015 Crespi Bonsai Cup. I cropped them all to bring the trees closer and to eliminate background noise. You can see the uncropped photos of all 65 entries here. Here’s the First Prize tree and I can’t say I disagree. It’s a Mugo pine that belongs to Paolo Riboli. I like the natural grey of the deadwood, … Continue reading Power, Movement & Texture

A Range of Bonsai Varieties & Styles, Along with a Flair for Experimentation…

This raft style bonsai belongs to Tony Tickle. Most of Tony’s trees are labeled by variety, but this one simply says ‘Raft’ (I spent some time searching Tony’s site for more on this remarkable tree, to no avail). I’m guessing it’s a Larch (Larix) or maybe not (see below). We could go further and guess European larch as the U.K. where Tony lives and works is considered part of Europe (by most people, at least) and Tony seems to favor yamadori that are collected in Europe (he calls his site Bonsai & Yamadori from Tony Tickle). Looks like I might … Continue reading A Range of Bonsai Varieties & Styles, Along with a Flair for Experimentation…

Photographing Bonsai – Which Background Is Best?

Background #1. This exceptional Mugo pine belongs to Walter Pall. The pot is by Peter Krebs. For more on this tree and others you can visit Walter’s Bonsai Adventures blog. If you’ve been following Bark for a while, you might have noticed that we have long advocated paying attention to the quality of the photos you present and that just shooting willy-nilly with little concern about background noise, lighting, space around the tree and so forth, diminishes the beauty of even the best bonsai. Walter Pall grows and styles great bonsai and goes the extra distance when it come to … Continue reading Photographing Bonsai – Which Background Is Best?

Adventures in Bonsai

This splendid Mugo pine with its impressive deadwood belongs to Walter Pall. You can find it on his blog, Bonsai Adventures. It was collected in Switzerland by Peter Thali in 2003. It is 60cm (24″) high and according to Walter, about 150 years old. The pot is by Derek Aspinall. Even though more and more bonsai action is moving to facebook, there are still a number of excellent bonsai blogs out there in our digital wonderland, and Walter Pall’s Bonsai Adventures is one of the very best. How Walter puts together, styles and maintains such a vast and impressive collection … Continue reading Adventures in Bonsai

A Four Course Bonsai Feast

Old Rosemary plants abound in Europe, so you’d expect to see some pretty good Rosemary bonsai and this semi-cacade certainly qualifies. It doesn’t hurt that it’s in a very cool pot. All the photos in this post are from old issues of Bonsai Today. They have all appeared here before, back in 2010 in a post called A Moveable Feast European Style. It’s a long story, but none were attributed then and none are attributed now. My apologies to the artists. All four trees shown here are from Europe and originally appeared in Bonsai Today issue 85. This twisty … Continue reading A Four Course Bonsai Feast

Bonsai Shape, Texture, Color, Density, Leaves, Trunk, Bark, Deadwood, Size, Pot, Overall Feel & More

Bjorn’s caption for this photo says: Shimpaku Juniper, great day’s work in AL. A mystery, but only for a moment. With just a little nosing around, we came up with Brian Van Fleet’s Itoigawa shimpaku. This photo and the others in this post are from Bjorn Bjorholm’s facebook feed. One thing you might notice about the three trees shown here is just how different they are. From each other, and in the case of the bottom two, from most other bonsai. Not different in terms of the five main traditional styles (two of them fall into the informal upright style), … Continue reading Bonsai Shape, Texture, Color, Density, Leaves, Trunk, Bark, Deadwood, Size, Pot, Overall Feel & More

Every Day Is Bonsai Day and Today Is Mother’s Day

The sculpted look. This Mugo pine by Mother Nature and Georg Reinhard combines wildness and elegance with its flowing lines and almost perfectly shaped robust live growth. I particularly like the way the deadwood twists and turns all the way back down to soil and the jagged lightening bolt on the left. Though I know that some people take issue with highly sculpted deadwood, this is so well done that I can’t imagine even the most dogmatic proponents of the naturalistic look being too worked up about it. Too much going on today, so we’ll dip back into our archives. … Continue reading Every Day Is Bonsai Day and Today Is Mother’s Day