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You might have noticed we’ve got a brand new website, but with that we also have a brand new blog!

Go on over and have a look!

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19^th Utsunomiya Satsuki & Flower Fest

67^th Tochigi Prefecture Satsuki Association Exhibition

Well, we had one more unexpected final surprise. We heard about another Satsuki exhibition which was held in Utsunomiya at a “Romantic Village” about half an hour away from our hotel. After asking Mr. Morimae about it he strongly suggested we go as the quality was a bit better than the Satsuki shown at the Kanuma City Kaboku Center Exhibition and Ueno Satsuki Festival. Boy, was he correct! There were no steps and the main exhibition was in an air conditioned greenhouse complex.

Mr. Morimae graciously had one of his staff drive a few of us to the exhibition. It was even over 30 minutes from the FuGa Exhibition. When we left, at closing time in the late afternoon we had a difficult time getting a taxi. So w

e walked a while…

FuGa Bonsai Exhibition

Usually our tours enjoy unexpected surprises. One of the additional unscheduled visits this time was to the FuGa Bonsai Exhibition sponsored by S-Cube, Seiji Morimae’s business. This elegant exhibition of fine quality bonsai was in the Kanuma City Kaboku Center complex, up at the top of a small hill, more stairs, in a specially built exhibition building by the Tochigi Prefecture.

Everything Mr. Morimae does is beautiful and with class, including this bonsai exhibition of his study group and clients. There were five long rows of individual alcove areas with plain backgrounds. Unlike all the other Satsuki exhibitions, most individual displays had hanging scrolls and companion plantings. This was a formal bonsai exhibition, complete with a pleasant mix of classical music, not the Japanese type Americans use in shows.

Mr. Morimae’s entire family and staff were on hand to make visitors feel welcome, guide them around, answer…

43^rd Kanuma Satsuki Festival

The main reason our tour traveled to Japan is to see Satsuki azalea bonsai. The 43^rd Kanuma Satsuki Festival is probably the largest in Japan. It is held on the grounds of the Kanuma City Kaboku Center. The two acre complex includes: a permanent exhibition and sales area over a half acre alone, one and a half acre area auction area, and greenhouses. Additionally the complex has a garden tree sales field of seven acres, additional greenhouses, restaurant and a 66 acre wild bird forest, plus more. This is a truly unique center for Satsuki azalea bonsai production, exhibitions and sales. It’s the finest, largest and most complete garden center I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, I only wish shopping for plants was permitted for foreigners.

The temperature was 93F, which I’ve been told is not normal for this time of…

We had a long and enjoyable today, well, every day is full of beautiful bonsai, highlighting Satsuki azaleas. We took a subway and four taxis from our hotel to the Shunka-En Bonsai Museum of Kunio Kobayashi. He is well known for his award winning Japanese black pines and Satsuki azaleas. In fact, this is the first time we have visited him when he was not at his museum. He was judging a Satsuki exhibition in Yokohama and his senior apprentice Hiroyuki Suzuki was setting up another Satsuki exhibition at the Ueno Green Club– that’s one we will miss. Mrs. Kobayashi did a great job, as always welcoming us and serving us green tea.

Since Peter Warren is teaching in Florida and Hiroyuki is at the Ueno Green Club we had Jin Yasufumi, who speak English, translate for us and give us a grand tour of the tokonoma displays all featuring…

Itoigawa before photo

The workshop I chose to participate in this past weekend was the Itoigawa juniper workshop with Ryan Neil. In this post I hope to point out some of the things I learned, guiding us through the process of styling just as we did in the workshop. So get your notebooks out, this is going to be a long one.

The first step of the styling process (assuming you’ve already chosen the tree) is to identify the following, in order of importance:

1. Find the best base for your tree. By this I mean view your tree from every side, the idea is to find stability. Trees that have an unstable appearance (generally caused by a very thin trunk entering the ground) create an unstable feeling in the viewer. In most cases you’ll want to pick the view where your tree looks the widest at the point where…

MASAHIKO KIMURA

Saitama City

Our first stop today was at the private garden of Masahiko Kimura where we saw magnificent, mostly large size bonsai. Nearly every tree was an evergreen, many with dead wood, but not all. Three were numerous famous masterpieces as well as Important Bonsai Masterpieces and award winning trees from the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition.

Mr. Kimura was a gracious host and all of group were served tea and Japanese cookies. Of interest to most of our members was not a large size tree, nor evergreen, but rather a small tropical tree. A few knew the name was “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” but could not think of the botanical name. So, I took out my iPhone and searched and discovered the name is Brunfelsia pauciflora, a small plant native to Brazil. I’ve seen it in Florida and it’s beautiful with purple, white and pink flowers on the…