I spent Thursday morning on my way to Narita Airport en route to Indonesia at Kunio Kobayashi’s Shunka-en Bonsai Museum in Tokyo, Japan. I’ve had numerous opportunities to visit his beautiful garden with the many bonsai tours Kora Dalager and I lead to Japan and also when photographing for our large-format book Fine Bonsai. However, it’s not often that I have the rare privilege to just wonder around his garden, alone, uninterrupted attempting to appreciate, study and absorb the beauty of Mr. Kobayashi’s bonsai, distinctive alcove displays and to look for new ideas to adapt to the western bonsai community.

Formal display of Japanese black pine bonsai

As always Mr. Kobayashi arranges eight formal alcove displays along with several others in his museum to visitors can sit and enjoy the beauty. Ever see me just sit and study a bonsai display?

Informal display of Japanese paulownia

A very simple and elegant…

A tree prequel….here are three trees that have me intrigued and looking forward to playing with: A Mountain Hemlock, a Vine Maple, and another Mountain Hemlock-

We brought back this massive Mountain Hemlock from the PNBCA convention in Victoria, BC a couple weeks back. Very curious descending branch. This tree was collected by Anton Nijhuis. We’ll be restyling this tree soon, and will be sure to have photos up here for you to laugh and jeer at-

This was an interesting recent capture. I collected this in the Cascades this fall, a Vine Maple in the rocks. It had a massive tap root which I recut when we made the box, and out of curiosity I took a loupe and counted the rings… 180 years old! And with some strong young branches, too. One of those examples that makes you rethink the common conceit that understory trees and shrubs have…

Akio Kondo and his Needle Juniper received the Prime Minister Award

The Japan Sakufu Bonsai Exhibition (Japan Creator’s Bonsai Exhibition) is the only exhibition for professional bonsai artists in Japan. This is a very competitive exhibition and winning artists usually get more publicity and clients upon winning the coveted awards, plus the value of the bonsai is increased.

Judges before ceremony

The 2014 40^th Sakufu Bonsai Exhibition judging was held a few hours ago on October 15, 2014 at the Ueno Green Club. In the morning the bonsai finalists were selected and were moved to the third floor where the final selections would be made. Mr. Fukuda, chairman of the Nippon Bonsai Association and chairman of the World Bonsai Friendship Federation and Mr. Hamano, one of the judges invited me to this special event. I’ve been fortunate to watch the judging of many Taikan Bonsai Exhibitions and Kokufu Bonsai…

A friend asked me to take over this white pine’s recovery back in March. It was given a death sentence at a master’s workshop last year, because it has a large wound on the trunk that bled profusely. My friend managed to stop the bleeding with cut paste, and stabilize the tree, but didn’t have enough sun in the yard to kick start the recovery.

When I received the tree, it had been slip-potted into this white crate, loosely wired in, and packed with mulch. For a white pine that needs to be pumped up, we need a different course of action. It needs to be immobilized in a freely-draining coarse soil that can dry quickly after watering.

So what to do with a weak tree at repotting time? Start over, assertively, and quickly. When I got it to my garden in early March, I removed it from the mucky…