Part II of our trip to Japan earlier this month…

Tyler Sherrod, in one of those lucky shots of light and opportunity that make it one of my favorite photos of the trip. This was a spectacularly odd red pine he was working on, reminding me of the odd bends and flattened reaction wood that some of our native lodgepole can get involved in. In any event, Tyler did well with it.

Looking a lot like a post from two years ago, here’s the weird side-opening truck that Suzuki uses to transport the Kokufu trees, which thankfully arrived on one of the non-snowy days.

Matt Reel, in one of his famous ‘make a face’ photos. I’ve rarely got a shot of him not hamming it up. Here he is with one of the platforms used to transport the Kokufu trees back to Nagano, in the greenhouse that is protected from…

Here is a short photo essay of a styling session in the Midwest with a client tree:

Last weekend, for two day’s a local club called Kihachi Kai, put on an exhibit of their tree’s at the Shinpakuji Temple. The group was founded by the late Kamiya-San (one of our senpai’s, Boon’s Oyakata). When he passed away it was taken over by my Oyakata. We were there to help out setup and break down the next day. I had a short time frame to whip round and take a few pics.

As well the local club exhibition tree’s, some of the private collection of the head priest (Oomura-San) was on display, as it always is. Here are some of the tree’s on display outside.

The collection includes two Kokufu winner’s (A white pine and a Chinese quince) and Oomura-San has exhibited at Kokufu for the last 20 years.

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The swindon show has become over the years a real must view bonsai show on the UK bonsai calendar, and while the lighting this year had been replaced in the main hall for crisp white light giving superb conditions. The trees where of a superb quality, while all sizes where on show I was drawn to the shohin trees.

Very nice cork bark elm without as many have the inverse taper.

Another but this one has that classic inverse, but has good ramification.

Hornbeam size wise this is just outside shohin.

This one was interesting, while a nice idea I feel for me it was too large for the pagoda as the framework broke lines of the tree.

This chojubai is a favourite for me for shohin bonsai.

Here are a few of the accents that caught my eye.

Nothing quite says spring like snow drops.

This is a rare…