Urushibata

Urushibata’s garden is somewhat of a hot-spot these days. Known for dramatic collected material and outstanding shohin, there’s plenty around to capture the imagination.

Shimpaku

The day we visited 3 foreign students (from Germany, Spain and Poland) and 2 Japanese were hard at work on trees in large workshops at the end of the lot. The European students were there for visits measuring between 3 weeks and 2 months.

Shimpaku

Urushibata’s son “Tiger” was on site to answer our questions. He’s a recent graduate of Kimura’s garden and the influence shows. Many large shimpaku bore signs of intense carving, sometimes to very dramatic effect. It was clear Tiger had learned well.

Shimpaku

Japanese black pine

For each large tree we may have seen 100 shohin bonsai. Below was one of very few mid-sized trees I saw that afternoon – technically a chuhin – with super movement:

Shimpaku

Shimpaku – trunk detail

The sheer number of shohin in the garden was overwhelming. The photo below captures the main shohin area, but there were others scattered elsewhere.

Urushibata’s shohin

Trees that seemed repetitive from far away proved interesting on closer inspection. Urushibata’s was quite the miniature forest.

Japanese black pine

Japanese white pine