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I’d like to highlight a comment from the last post:

There are some obvious signs that indicate when it’s time to repot a tree – like when the water fails to percolate or when a pot breaks.

The Koto Hime Japanese maple, Acer palmatum ‘Koto Hime,’ is in the dwarf or yatsubusa group of plants which are prized for bonsai training. This cultivar is best when trained as a shohin or small size bonsai because of the diminutive and tightly congested foliage.

I’ve been on the search for the “perfect” container for one of my favorite shohin bonsai Koto Hime Japanese maple started over 30 years ago from a cutting. During the past four months I’ve purchased three containers. A few days ago during our bonsai tour of seven top potters in Tokoname, Japan, I was fortunate to find another three “perfect” containers. A glazed container was obtained from Ikko Watanabe. That was about an hour after I purchased two unglazed containers from the Reiho Kiln.

Toward the end of 2014, I picked up an old cork oak bonsai that belonged to a former member of Bay Island Bonsai. The tree hadn’t been repotted for maybe 5-10 years. Getting it out of the pot took several hours – the whole repotting took more than a day.

The 5th Japan Suiseki Exhibition took place on February 14-17, 2018, in the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno Park. This is the same venue as the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition on the second floor.

Here are the last images from this year’s tour to Japan to visit the Kokufu Bonsai & Japan Suiseki Exhibitions, Omiya Bonsai Village, S-Cube, Masahiro Kimura and Kunio Kobayashi’s gardens.

 
The 92nd Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition is being held in two parts again this year. The second part II runs from February 13-16, 2018 and here are a few photos of bonsai which captured my trained eye. Please remember that the bonsai are displayed in the exhibition are for live viewing, NOT for photographing. It is extremely difficult to get a good image of a tree because of different lighting and different backgrounds in each area. Plus the ceiling heights are also different and the exhibition is full of people trying to enjoy the beauty of the bonsai. Many of these photos were actually taken by my new iPhone X, not my Cannon DSLR. Then after trying to take a decent and acceptable image they must be adjusted for lighting, color balance, detail enhancement and the background seams must be removed, including their shadows on the display tables. Often the name tag, display number tag and information sheets are also removed to present an image of the displayed bonsai. Again, finer quality photos will be appearing in a future issue of International BONSAI.

When everything goes just right, a tree collected from the mountains begins to grow and gain vigor. After a while, it’s ready to begin the journey of becoming a bonsai.

The 92nd Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition is being held in two parts again this year. Here are some more images from the first part. I saw a great number of foreigners this time, many from Italy.