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Highlights from Shinji Suzuki’s garden

February 23, 2016 by Jonas Dupuich

It’s inspiring to walk through a beautiful bonsai garden.

Japanese maple

A visit to Shinji Suzuki’s garden is a visit to a lot of really, really, good trees.

Looking up at a Chinese quince

The garden is arranged in a series of greenhouses with courtyards between them. In winter, nearly all bonsai are brought indoors to shelter them from the cold. In one room we found a group of trees bound for Kokufu.

Shimpaku displayed at 90th Kokufu-ten

Shimpaku displayed at 90th Kokufu-ten – one of my favorite trees from the exhibit

One of the main rooms was dominated by one of the more famous trees in Japan – a red pine famously designed by Kimura.

Red pine

Below, you can see what makes the tree remarkable: unbelievable bark.

Outstanding bark

Fans of the dwarf Japanese quince ‘chojubai’ found many great specimens.

Small chojubai

Medium chojubai

Large chojubai

One deciduous tree that caught my attention was a Japanese beech undergoing significant re-tooling after the tree lost several branches in an accident.

Japanese beech

Noticing my interest in the tree, longtime apprentice Yusuke brought out a book showing how the tree used to look.

Beech as it appeared a few decades ago

Walking through the garden, Boon was all smiles.

Boon Manakitivipart

Eric Schrader was all smiles in a room full of white pines.

Eric Schrader

Actually, were were all grinning.

Back row: Eric, Paul, Tyler, Matt, Jonas; front row: Jeff, Boon, Bobby

As we headed through the garden for a final pass before catching the train back to Tokyo, the sun began to cast a golden light in the room. It was a nice send-off.

Shimpaku

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Filed Under: Excursions Tagged With: Japan, Shinji-Suzuki

Previous Post: « A beautiful garden in winter
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. swo8 says

    February 23, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    Beautiful artistry.
    Leslie

  2. john saxton111 says

    February 23, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    we want the books john

  3. Sage Dmith says

    February 23, 2016 at 5:15 pm

    Incredible trees. Absolutely magnificent!!!!!! What a privilege to walk through that nursery.

  4. Zach says

    February 24, 2016 at 11:40 am

    Do you happen to know how old that red pine is?

  5. Jonas Dupuich says

    February 24, 2016 at 12:16 pm

    I don’t know how old it is. There was an article about the tree, not sure where, that might have more of the story.

  6. Don Erickson says

    February 24, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    Great photo story of a great trip. Was excited to see the Oregons there!

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