A Brief Tutorial in Pinching Japanese Maples
This 20-year old Japanese Maple has never been pinched. Freely grown, a maple will have a coarse shoot structure, but this early period of no pinching develops the trunk and branches and roots. Pinching a maple when young stunts development. This Japanese Maple might be pinched this year. The branching is past tertiary and has […]
Repotting Situations, With Notes
This week, an assortment of puzzlers from this spring’s repots, with comments. A Japanese Beech with an unfortunate root system. Chunks of roots have died, identified by being black, unlike the living ones, which are light brown. Spraying with water helps see which is which. Then cut away the black areas until you see healthy […]
Suggested Books For Bonsai Enthusiasts
For those who can’t get enough words about trees, here are a selection of books you might enjoy. These books cover a wide arc of tree storytelling, from their lives in nature to how we interact with them. They are not about bonsai, but rather might illuminate why bonsai captivate us. Tree: A Life Story— […]
A Limber Pine Goes On A Corian Slab
I collected this Limber Pine with Steve Varland and Dan Wiederrecht about a decade ago. It looked younger than the delicious, half-deadwood trees on the slopes nearby. Then a couple years ago bark started to peel in the front and—delight of delights—the whole front had died, leaving a swath of shari. Last week we potted […]
The Nebari Of The Kokufu
The Kokufu show is a goldmine. You can walk through it or flip through a show book and realize you’re just looking at the stands. Or the branch setting. Or the pots. In this year’s Kokufu I took some closeups of the nebari. Here’s a handful of them. Japanese Maple with a wide, fused nebari. […]
Japan 2026: Last Notes
A few final stories from my Japan trip. The first hour in Obuse was bittersweet. You might recognize this tree from a photo in Post-dated: The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk. Walking home after a long day I’d pat its trunk or raise my fist passing under it, and say some version of, you […]
2026 Kokufu-ten: Part 2
Many thanks to Evan Cordes, Carmen Leskoviansky, and Masaki Shimada for these photos of Kokufu-ten Part 2. The Kokufu is well-known to showcase impressive, thick-trunked, dizzyingly developed old bonsai. I’ve included some of those meat and potato trees, but whimsy also shows up here and there. In this Part 2 I’ve included some of that. […]
2026 Kokufu-ten: Part I
A few of the ridiculous trees in Part I of the Kokufu-ten. Wednesday was the take-down and switch-out to new trees. And now it’s open again for Part II. The entrance to the show looks down on the large displays. This is in the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno. This view gives a sense […]
A Week In Okinawa
Here is an interlude post about my trip to Okinawa. Next week, back to bonsai, where I hope to share some wonderful old bonsai on Honshu. The city of Naha, at the southern end of Okinawa. At the top of the main island is a large laurel forest. I went up there for a few […]
Japanese Black Pine Styling: #3
Here’s one more rough Japanese Black Pine. There hasn’t been much taper on these 3 pines. A large cut to a new leader is in order for this one as well. After cutting back. The big shoot comes off a promising new leader. After setting the branches. We left that strong shoot on to thicken […]