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This morning the 45th 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 compositions as well as chuhin (medium) size bonsai. I have been fortunate to have visited and study this exhibition 40 years ago! At that time it was in a large two-story brick building with poor lighting. The current building, Miyako Messe is a modern building with superb lighting, which, unfortunately is a major cost for the organization.

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 details).

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 bonsai as well as many still in training, some in wooden boxes. But, perhaps this is the pinnacle where you can see fine quality bonsai formally displayed. There are about 12 individual alcoves, in formal, semi-formal and informal styles to study as well as displays in corners and an authentic working tea house. Tea masters often teach here because of the quiet atmosphere, beauty and workmanship of the buildings.

 
Our first day of touring the Japanese bonsai world included Mr. Morimae, Mr. Kimura, Omiya Bonsai Art Museum and the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum.

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 tree would turn out. It’s a mature ‘Kozan.’

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 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.