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I can’t believe it – the Pacific Bonsai Expo opens in four weeks! Here are the latest updates.

Bonsai stands are small tables used to display bonsai. They’re commonly found in exhibits or in formal indoor displays. We rarely see them in the garden as few stands are built to last outdoors.

This year’s suiseki exhibit was held in the Greenhouse Gallery at the International Bonsai Arboretum on September 10-11, 2022, in Rochester, New York. An active membership of 13, from a much larger group of the Suiseki Study Group of the Bonsai Society of Upstate New York shared their prized suiseki with visitors and answered many questions. A few weeks ago we had our annual stone collecting trip and a few of the newly collected stones were displayed as suiseki. A stone or rock does or become a suiseki until it is collected and appreciated for its artistic suggestions of natural scenic formations or of objects.

This fall’s Pacific Bonsai Expo is coming together quickly. As a result, all of us working behind the scenes wanted to share some updates so here we go!

Today we finished setting up my displays to welcome visitors to my garden for this weekend’s Open House & Sale. Each of the individual displays was very carefully designed, and the entire four displays as well. Each display is unique, all trees, containers, display tables, accessory plantings have not been duplicated. Even all of the flat stands under the accessory plantings differ.

The lowest area of bonsai is one of the most important features which creates beauty and the character of the bonsai. We work the surface root area quite a bit when transplanting. Please note that nearly all of these bonsai have spent their entire lives in a container, carefully shaping and allowing the trees to mature slowly during the past 60 plus years under my care. The Ginkgo, Chrysanthemums, Larch, Satsuki, Korean Hornbeam and only one Trident maple were trained from field grown of collected material. All others have been completely container grown.

For those of you curious to learn which trees scored best in the recent Kokufu scoring exercise (see part 1 and part 2 for details), here they are!

This week’s topic is scoring multi-point displays – displays that feature more than one bonsai within a six-foot space.

The 44th Mid-America Bonsai Exhibition was sponsored by the Midwest Bonsai Society. It was held at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois, on August 19-21, 2022 and is one of the largest regional bonsai shows in the nation. The tree quality has significantly improved throughout the decades, but took a giant leap forward this year with many refined developed bonsai. There were workshops, demonstrations as well as two courtyards filled with vendors. About 50 world class bonsai from the permanent collection of the Chicago Botanic Garden were displayed in two outdoor courtyards. Curator of the bonsai collection, Chris Baker, set up a unique contemporary display of bonsai on tables over a long hallway water tray. They were suspended and supported with wire.

In the run-up to this fall’s Pacific Bonsai Expo, I’ve been thinking a lot about evaluating bonsai. We’re working on a scoring system for the Expo judging panel and wanted to give everyone who’s interested a chance to test the approach out.