The next morning saw us bright and early at Shinji Suzuki’s wonderful garden. Everything about Mr. Suzuki’s garden spoke of taste and refinement, from the trees, to the garden environs, the pots…even the tea, and obligatory snacks, were tasteful and high class.

While most all of the nurseries we visited had at least one, if not several, Kichou(registered large bonsai masterpiece) or Miyabi(registered shohin and chuhin cultural treasure) Bonsai, At the Suzuki garden, there were nearly more Kichou bonsai than we saw the entire rest of the trip!

American apprentices Matt Reel and Tyler Sherrod hard at work. In addition to these two talented gentlemen, Michael Hagedorn was also a Deshi here, once upon a time.

The first trees one sees upon entrance: those are NOT shohin. Around 5 feet tall, with the massive pots.

And, turning a corner…
A Few Bench Shots

Some Individual Trees

Mr. Suzuki’s famous Tosho

Sono in cerca di un vaso adatto a questa zattera, penso che se lo possa meritare un bel tokoname ;).Zattera di fagus crenata

My friend in the hotel lobby.

On Saturday morning we went to the opening of the Choseki Kai Suiseki Exhibition before heading on to the Taikan Bonsai Exhibition. We actually got there at 9am and the show opened at 10, so it was a quiet time to appreciate, study and photograph the stones and displays. The suiseki exhibition is annually held at the Kenniji Temple, the 800 year old Buddhist Temple, oldest in Kyoto. The old buildings are beautiful and unique, as are the ancient paintings and other art. Seiji Morimae, S-Cube in Hanyu, is the prime organizer of the event, and, as usual, did a smashing job with the show.

There were three full wall formal tokonoma each displaying one susiseki and a grass planting companion. The other stones were displayed along the walls on dark blue felt runners. Several interesting grass plantings were used as accents. The display…

Although beautiful, the Japanese maples in the garden temples are not quite at their peak of color yet. So, rather than share photos of colorful maples, I thought I’d share an interesting colorful character I saw in the sales area.

At first I noticed his hat and was wondering where he got those magnificent pins, then I looked closer and he freely posed for me.

Today was the opening day for the 33rd Taikan Bonsai Exhibition and I spent all day studying the bonsai. The exhibition was not quite as crowded as in the past, perhaps because its only Friday so I hope more visitors will come during the remaining weekend. There are quite a number foreigners at the exhibition, many from Europe.

I received a question about the last photo in Part 3 of a rather unusual display so today I got the information. The display is a “Horticultural…