Old Bonsai Tell Stories

I like this little tree. It tells a story – any tree that grow to over 250 feet (see below) in optimal conditions and yet looks like this, has a story. It’s a Poderosa pine. I don’t know who collected it, but it belongs to Colin Lewis (unless he sold it). Yesterday was Ponderosa pines, so we’ll continue on that track today. BTW: I didn’t set out to make this post about rare cork bark Ponderosa, but it has headed in that direction, at least in part. This is because some of the photos and text here are from a … Continue reading Old Bonsai Tell Stories

Bonsai & Magnificently Beautiful Towering Trees

Walter Pall and Mother Nature conspired and came up with something really good. It’s a Ponderosa pine that was originally collected in the Rockies. Got a couple Ponderosa pine Yamadori today (Yamadori is the Japanese word for bonsai that were collected from the wild). Just in case you never been to the mountains of the western U.S., Ponderosa pine are magnificently beautiful towering trees (obviously they don’t all tower, but in optimal conditions that’s what they do) with distinctive reddish bark. Unfortunately millions of acres of Poderosa have been wiped out by an ongoing Mountain pine beetle infestation. Previously these … Continue reading Bonsai & Magnificently Beautiful Towering Trees

What You Do to the Land You Do to Yourself

Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum) collected by Andrew (aka Andy) Smith and first styled by Walter Pall. It would hard to find a better pair for the job. Andy (Golden Arrow Bonsai) is a professional forester, master collector of wild bonsai and a bonsai artist in his own right, and Walter Pall is a world famous bonsai artist, teacher, trouble maker (in the positive sense of course) and owner of a very impressive bonsai collection. The photograph is by Walter. My apologies for the fuzz. It’s the result of dramatically increasing the image size. On balance I think this size … Continue reading What You Do to the Land You Do to Yourself

Fat Guy & Tall Guy

Tony Tickle, a man with a sense of humor worthy of his name, calls this Hawthorn ‘Fat Guy’ and the one just below ‘Tall Guy.’ Yesterday we featured some of Tony Tickle’s wild and wonderful yamadori bonsai, with a little confusion thrown in (courtesy of yours truly). Today, it’s Tony’s trees again, but this time we’ll do our best to limit the confusion. So much for limiting confusion… I just noticed that the links from yesterday’s post don’t go to Tony’s website, but instead to an interview with Tony on ABC’s website. However, I distinctly remember copying http://yamadori.co.uk, from Tony’s … Continue reading Fat Guy & Tall Guy

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…

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

Putz Pines & Pots

The rugged and somewhat worn look of the pot mirrors the well-aged bark and overall rugged feel of this European black pine (Pinus nigra Austriaca). All the photos in this post are from Wolfgang Putz’ Bonsaigalerie (a click well worth making). It’s archive time again… Sunday morning, sunny in Vermont and I need to get outside. This post originally appeared in August 2012. The time is ripe This isn’t the first time we’ve featured the bonsai of Wolfgang Putz, but it’s the first time since our original backyard bonsai feature (way back in 2009) that we’ve dedicated a whole post … Continue reading Putz Pines & Pots

Backcountry’s Cork Bark Ponderosa Pine (with a Little Help from Bonsai Mirai)

Backcountry Bonsai doesn’t show any Ponderosa bonsai, so we borrowed this yamadori Ponderosa pine from Ryan Neil’s Mirai, American Bonsai. There are signs of what some people might call corking (see the close up at the bottom of the post), but I don’t think Back Country Bonsai would qualify it as a cork bark Ponderosa. I just stumbled across a new Backcountry Bonsai post and, in addition to getting all excited about rediscovering Steve and Dan’s excellent blog (here’s the original discovery), I learned something new. Namely that there is such a thing as a Cork bark Ponderosa pine. Here’s … Continue reading Backcountry’s Cork Bark Ponderosa Pine (with a Little Help from Bonsai Mirai)

A Method to Mike’s Madness

Looks like an old yamadori California juniper with its heavy twisted trunk. All the bonsai shown here were lifted from the Bonsai Blog of Mike Page. They are all rather unique and they all stray from the trees we usually feature, but to my eye at least, they all stray in more or less in one direction. There is a method to Mike’s madness. This Japanese black pine by Mike won the Yoshimura Award for the Finest Classical Bonsai at the 1st U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition (way back in 2008). The luminous grass, the unique pot and the … Continue reading A Method to Mike’s Madness

A Rare Find and an Old Complaint

It’s rare to find a wild tree that needs very little for it to become a great bonsai (other than digging, keeping it healthy and a little refinement, which are far from very little). I was delighted to stumble across the the photo above (here) but was disappointed when I read the following: “Saw this picture on FB. A natural growing juniper that already looks like a great bonsai.” It would have been simple to provide a link to the source, where more information may (or may not) be available. Like who took the photo, what kind of juniper is … Continue reading A Rare Find and an Old Complaint