Bonsai tree: Spring bonsai display

Bay Island Bonsai’s annual exhibit is held in January each year. It is a great time to show bonsai, but it’s not always the most colorful time of year. At a recent BIB monthly meeting, we worked on a display that included a Japanese black pine and a Japanese maple. In winter, the maple would be bare. In spring, the foliage is bright green.

Boon setting up a display at a BIB monthly meeting

Or bright red. Boon brought two maples to try with the display, one green and one red.

Green and red Japanese maples

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Bonsai tree: Thinking Inside the Box

This radically tilted Prunus mume (Flowering Japanese apricot) is by Chiharu Imai.

After. Mr. Imai saw something when he put it in the box, and this is it.

Before the big tilt and some well executed artistry that included removing the strange second trunk that runs up to the first branch.

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Bonsai tree: Same François Jeker

Okay. More François. After all, he’s coming to the U.S., so why not? And, he just sent us these images and I like them and thought you might like them too.
Check out François’ excellent book, Bonsai Aesthetics, now on special at Stone Lantern.
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Bonsai tree: Win a Free Gift Certificate

 
A River in India, by Lew Buller. From his book, Saikei and Art: Minature Landscapes.


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Bonsai tree: Repotting a Japanese maple

Back in winter I took a few photographs of an air-layered Japanese maple getting repotted during a Bay Island Bonsai workshop.

Combing out the roots – Japanse maple ’sango kaku’

The new roots are well established. The next step is to get them to fuse while improving the ramification. Jeff, the tree’s owner, kicked off this phase by bare-rooting the tree and repotting it into a large, shallow, growing container.
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Bonsai tree: Land of Paradise

Land of Paradise, our forth in a series of plantings from Toshio Kawamoto’s Saikei classic. The trees are seven 5 to 7-year-old rock cotoneasters (4″ – 7″ tall) and seven somewhat shorter 3-year-old satsuki azaleas. Though you can’t really tell in the photo, the pot is very large (48″ x 16″ – 122cm x 41cm).
 
Side view diagram.
 
Bird’s eye diagram. This shows what looks like two rocks are actually fifteen joined together.
The purpose of this section is to show how to create a saikei that depicts two wild rocky mountains that are dotted with beautiful old trees. The photo taken together with the drawings, create the impression that the author is inviting you to duplicate his work.
What looks at a glance like two large rocks are actually fifteen stones joined together. The original text says: secure the rocks with peat and sphagnum moss then fill in the spaces between the rock with soil. The remaining materials are green moss and river sand.
The Land of Paradise refers to the indescribably beautiful Pure Land that is described in some Chinese and Japanese Buddhist scriptures.

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Bonsai tree: François Jeker bonsai artist

It’s a little fuzzy, but you can still see the time consuming detail in François Jeker’s carving. It’s especially noteworthy because the tree is a yew (taxus), a genus known for the hardness of its wood.
This post is a continuation of the day before yesterday’s post about François appearing at Rosade Bonsai Studio on May 15th.

Borrowed from François‘ website. I’m not sure what it is, but I know I like the pot, the tree and the creative presentation.
 
Also from François’ website.

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Bonsai tree: A Wild Larch

Inspiration for your bonsai. This photo is from Bonsaimania. If anyone has any clues, I would like to know where this photo was taken.
Here’s what Bonsaimania has to say about their gallery in English: “These trees are real and they can be found in nature. They are on this album because they are models that should inspire us to create our bonsai. If you want to propose a tree in nature that will inspire us, send me a message through my Facebook profile”.
Larch Master Nick Lenz’s Bonsai from the Wild has an extensive section on collecting and growing larch. Nick know larches like know one knows larch.

Here’s another one from the same gallery. Buttonwood?

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Bonsai tree: Transplanting Tips: An Uncommon Technique

Mystified? If you are not familiar with the technique shown here, you just might be.
The technique shown here is particularly good if you want to replenish the soil while leaving some of the roots undisturbed. Doing this lessens stress and hastens recovery.
The technique is useful when you want move a tree from a larger to a smaller pot, or into a pot that has a different shape. It also works when you want to replenish some of the soil and then put the tree back into the same pot and is particularly useful for repotting forest plantings.
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Bonsai tree: Styling a white pine bonsai

My friend Konnor brought this Japanese White pine to my studio for a wiring session this past week. It was originally an imported tree from Japan. We did not get a shot of it before we started, but when it was about 3/4 finished we did finally get the camera out:

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