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Masahiko Kimura Studio
Today’s tour was visitation to the private studio of Masahiko Kimura, the great and innovator of unusual, fine bonsai. His garden is always changing and on today’s visit I noticed a great number of new bonsai, mostly Sargent juniper, Japanese five-needle pine and Japanese black pine. One of the reasons I enjoy his garden is that many of the trees on display are still in training with heavy rebar, lots of wiring and numerous trees he is changing the foliage with superior varieties. Also, he is friendly and answers all my questions.

Kora Dalager, my tour organizer and leader, Dave Steele and I arrived last week to attend the 100thAnniversary of Omiya Bonsai Village ceremony last week, before our formal tour begins tomorrow.

After the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, which leveled the region, bonsai artists in the destroyed Tokyo needed to relocate. They selected an area near Omiya, north of Tokyo with clean air, good water and among a grove of tall Japanese red pines. In 1925, 100 years ago, three pioneer bonsai artists, Ritaro Shimizu, Tokuo Kuraishi and Tomekichi Kato combined their talent and effort to establish Omiya Bonsai Village in March 1925. By December 1926 19 bonsai gardens were founded and enthusiasts began moving to the Omiya Bonsai Village to grow, train and appreciate bonsai.

A white-out exercise is a fun way to explore design options. It helps see a new design without needing to cut off a branch. 

Here’s a handful of October projects and what we did with them. 

This Japanese maple, Acer palmatum, is from seed, not a cutting, graft or air layer of any special cultivar. It was grown in a field for about 8-10 years, then container grown and trained for about 30 years. The mature bark is an indication suggesting age.

A couple of week ago I had the honor and pleasure of teaching at the Tropical Bonsai Symposium, sponsored by Bonsai Shohin Society in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The previous two blog entries have photos from that beautiful exhibition of unique tropical species trained for bonsai. The group arranged for me a couple of unique garden visits.

A bonsai truism is that in fall we get to clean up the mess we initiated in the spring. And for pines, this mess is most apparent for the multiple flush species, like Japanese Black Pine.

After the post about birds in bonsai display I received a note from a friend. She reminded me that there’s more to display than location and season, and that birds (and animals) have personalities and presences that spark an emotional response.

Attending regional events like the US National Bonsai Exhibition is a good way to gain an understanding of the work happening within a given community. At the National, the community showing trees represents a big swath of the US. As a result, it features a lot of great trees.