After a long hiatus, the US again has a juried bonsai pottery competition. After an initial pair of events in 2001 and 2002 and a follow-up in 2015, we now have an updated competition sponsored by the American Bonsai Society and managed by Angelica Ramirez. Angelica Ramirez Angelica’s dedication to promoting bonsai potters is unparalleled. […]
Pots
The bonsai pottery of Nao Tokutake
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. As luck would have it, Andrew Robson introduced me to Portland ceramicist Nao Tokutake at this year’s event. Nao toured the exhibition with Andrew […]
Pot selection exercise – dwarf wisteria
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). Next we looked at the process with a live tree – a dwarf wisteria. After performing the […]
Pot selection exercise – contorted quince
Now that temperatures have cooled a bit, I’ve started repotting. Sometimes I return trees to the pots they were growing in, and other times I select new containers. Here are eight options I considered for a contorted flowering quince. Do you have a favorite? Pot #1 – round Yamaaki Pot #2 – unglazed Japanese Pot […]
New pot for an exposed root black pine
Just over a year ago, I reworked an exposed root black pine and started thinking about what kind of pot it could go in (see “Refining a young exposed root pine“). Exposed root black pine – December 2017 Last month I took the tree out of the pot, did some root work, and started looking […]