Bonsai Tonight

The Taikan Bonsai Museum is the ward of Shinji Suzuki, onetime student of Hamano and now one of the better-known practitioners in the field. Located in Obuse, the museum is home to an outstanding collection of bonsai.

Visitors photographing each other

Benches anyway. The museum is in the process of moving from its original location to a new home across the street. The space is great, punctuated with little – or in this case huge – details that provide character to the garden.

Large stone with moss

But where are the trees? Obuse is near Nagano, home to the 1998 Winter Olympics. It gets cold enough to warrant winter storage for bonsai. Suzuki keeps the trees under his care in a series of greenhouses. Not ideal for viewing, but great for keeping trees alive until spring.

At last. And wow! Here are a few that I could see well enough to photograph.

Tosho

Tosho

Shimpaku

Ezo

A lot of trees caught my attention in this garden – almost all of them actually. As I walked from one marvel to the next I began to get a sense of Suzuki’s eye for bonsai. Almost any variety commonly grown as bonsai can be found here, and each is worth a closer look.

But there’s something else. I’d visited gardens where all of the trees are pretty. What I had not seen were gardens in which all of the trees were good. Suzuki has a knack for picking up quality trees, regardless of what shape they are in. And based on the trees he’s worked on for some time, it’s clear he can get them into shape.

An example. My face lit up when I recognized this white pine from Bonsai Today (story #31, cover #43).

The tree had clearly seen better days. But now, planted in a large wooden box and under Suzuki’s care, it’s on its way again.

Looks like a great place to study bonsai, doesn’t it? Turns out it is. Michael Hagedorn spent his apprenticeship here as Suzuki’s first non-Japanese student (read all about it). Michael’s senpai was a young man named Tachi who is now graduating and starting his own bonsai business. That makes this man the new senior apprentice.

Matt Reel of Portland, Oregon, has studied with Suzuki for some time now – and it shows (that’s his work on the black pine above). Matt’s planning to complete a full term apprenticeship with Suzuki. That means in a few more years, we’ll have another very capable professonal available to work on our trees. Outstanding news for anyone who wants to see bonsai in the US improve!

Boon, Matt, Jeff, Jonas and Vlad standing before two red pines formerly of the Imperial Collection.

Clockwise from far left: Tachi, Matt, Omachi, Boon, Yusuke (Matt’s kohai), Maciej (student from Poland).

(click monkey to see more pics from Japan)

One last note: if you get a chance to visit the Taikan Bonsai Museum, see if you can’t head a little further up the road to the Jigokudani Monkey Park where Japanese macaques watch tourists freeze from the comfort of their natural hot springs.