Down and Out in Beverly Hills

You often think of LA as a concrete Jungle but I did find a few nice trees on my travels. Most of them in Beverly Hills where each street in the main residential area has a specific tree planted on it.

Some great Ficus nebari in there and I just love the purple flowering tree, an Australian native I believe. Anybody get the movie reference?

Huntington Gardens – The Bonsai Exhibit

I felt some excitement as I approached the exhibit. The set up was excellent and showed the trees well. I took in the first area thinking that was it only to find another courtyard full of trees. Quality was varied as you’d expect when trees are donated but I was thrilled to see my first California Junipers and a few trees created by the pioneers of American bonsai. Condition and heath was generally good with only a few showing signs of stress. I fell in love with the Cali Junipers and a few of the olives. Also nice to see shohin getting a display in there even if a few of them were below par with the rest. Perhaps accents would have added to the whole display but again, this might be hard to maintain in an exhibit like this. Well done to all those who donated to make an exhibit like this possible for the public. I can only dream of something like this being possible in Ireland someday.

I was also lucky enough to visit another exhibit by the GSBF at Lake Merritt, but more on that later in the week.