Home

For the past three years, I’ve been working on a Ponderosa pine with large branches on the upper half of the trunk. I spent the first two years getting the tree healthy enough to work on and I lightly pruned and repotted it last year. The tree responded well and is now ready for styling.

When most of the leaves on deciduous trees have turned color or fallen away, it’s time for fall cutback.

Last weekend the Yamato Bonsai Kai hosted their 50th annual exhibition in Union City, California. The event featured demonstrations both days by club sensei Johnny Uchida, vendors, club sales, and a fun mix of show trees – several of which are among my favorites in the Bay Area.

Over the years I’ve written about various causes of yellow foliage on black pines. In an effort to record all of this information in one place, I’ve created a new guide that provides info on the following categories of yellow foliage:

One of the highlights of attending the U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition, held every other year in Rochester, New York, is meeting and catching up with people from across the bonsai community.

During a stroll through the 7th National Bonsai Exhibition last month in Rochester, New York, Andrew Robson and I took the opportunity to talk record conversations with a number of friends for a new episode of the Bonsai Wire Podcast.

Earlier this month, Andrew Robson and I got a chance to walk through the 7th U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition, held on September 11th and 12th in Rochester, New York, and record a critique of ten trees that caught our attention. You can listen to the conversation, which includes commentary from special guest Nao Tokutake, at the Bonsai Wire Podcast.

Thank you for checking my blog. I finally figured out how to list the Virtual 3D video. Check it out, I think you will enjoy the work Jason Henderberg created.

default
This year’s exhibition was held on September 11-12, 2021 in the Total Sports Experience in East Rochester, New York. The 55,000 square foot facility is composed of two indoor fields. One field was used to display over 200 bonsai while the other field, surrounded by plexiglass had over 45 vendors. There were more than 90 shohin bonsai this year. Although the total number of displayed bonsai was a bit lower than in the past, it was clear to many the beauty and quality of bonsai is rapidly rising in the United States. This was the first bonsai gathering of over 400 visitors in about three years and provided for meeting long time friends and fellowship.

Before heading east to the U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition, I put together a display for a Yaupon holly. I didn’t have a good second tree for the display so I borrowed a small shimpaku from Eric Schrader. Eric and I then tried dozens of combinations of stands and accents to see which we liked best.