Spotted in the Wild
Historical Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and RSS posts previously curated by the club (2017–present). Not authored by the club — preserved here since the original source feeds no longer carry this history.
Kito Memorial Bonsai Exhibit
When our tour visited Seiji Morimae last week in his garden, he took me aside and told me of an important bonsai exhibit we should visit. I asked the name of the exhibit and the location in case we were in the area or…
BC Collecting Trip #2 For 2020
2020 90th Meifu Bonsai Exhibition
The 90 th Meifu Bonsai Exhibition was held on January 10-12, 2020 in the Fukiage Hall in Nagoya, Japan. It is sponsored by Chubu Bonsai Cooperative, which is a professional bonsai organization. The exhibition is held in…
2020 45th Gafu Ten Shohin Bonsai Exhibition– Part 3
C Sales Area Like most exhibitions, this is the most popular area of the event. Most foreigners go past the bonsai exhibition upon entry and head directly to the sales area. Nearly anything you need or want for bonsai…
2020 45th Gafu Ten Shohin Bonsai Exhibition– Part 2
Special Displays There are several special display in this year’s Gafu Ten Shohin Bonsai Exhibition. It was interesting to view the special display of Registered Important Masterpiece containers, all in clear plexi…
Huckleberry #5 Potted
2020 45th Gafu Ten Shohin Bonsai Exhibition– Part 1
This morning the 45 th Gafu Ten Shohin Bonsai Exhibition opened in Kyoto, Japan. This is the highest-level exhibition to show small size bonsai. Although a shohin bonsai exhibition, there were quite a few mame bonsai…
Pot selection exercise – dwarf wisteria
Earlier this week, I presented a program on repotting for the East Bay Bonsai Society. We started by covering techniques for securing trees into containers based on the numbers of holes in the pot (see “ Securing ” for…
Shunka-en Bonsai Museum & Taisho-en Bonsai Garden
Shunka-en Bonsai Museum The Shunka-en Bonsai Museum of Kunio Kobayashi is always a special treat for our bonsai tours. Located in central Tokyo it is easy to find and visit. Here you can see superb developed masterpiece…
How To Make Good Material A Lot Better
A Visit To Saitama Prefecture
Our first day of touring the Japanese bonsai world included Mr. Morimae, Mr. Kimura, Omiya Bonsai Art Museum and the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. Seiji Morimae’s S-Cube business and Uchiku-tei Garden Located about an hour…
Thinning a mature satsuki azalea
I was relieved when it was time to clean up the last azalea on the bench. A friend and I had thinned around forty trees over the previous few weeks (thanks Dylan!) but I was still looking forward to seeing how the last…
BC Trees With Knees Are The Bee’s Knees
The story behind The Little Book of Bonsai
Happy New Year! I’d like to kick things off by sharing the story of how The Little Book of Bonsai came to be. Two years ago, I received a note from the gardening editor at Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random…
Developing grafted cork-bark pines
Two years ago I received a note from Pete in Virginia about his work grafting dwarf and cork-bark black pines. He was curious if his grafting was appropriate for bonsai so he sent me some samples to evaluate. I’ve…
Tale Of A Hawthorn Cutting
Bald Cypress Progression
Refining a young root over rock black pine
I’ve been working on a root over rock black pine for the past two years. The tree was created by Eric Schrader ( phutu.com ) and is thirteen years old. Root over rock black pine The basic branches are set, but need…
Harvesting A Hefty Huckleberry
What Lies Beneath – Zag When You Gotta
Cutting back and wiring a young cascade pine
Some of my cascade black pines are almost six years old. Black pine pre-bonsai Now that the basic curves are set, the main focus is to improve the branch structure. I do this by cutting back to two branches per…
The Bonsai You Only Need To Buy (Or Nab) Once
Setting design goals for refining mature bonsai
On Tuesday, I posted an update showing fall work on a cork-bark black pine (see “ Cutback ” for details). Today I’d like to critique the tree and talk about design goals for future development. For reference, here’s the…
Cutback on an old cork-bark black pine
It’s been a year-and-a-half since my last update on an old cork-bark black pine. I didn’t thin the tree last fall so the foliage was extra dense when I brought it into the workshop. Cork-bark black pine The cutback took…