A visit to Masahiko Kimura’s garden

One of the most anticipated stops on our tour this year was a visit to Kimura’s garden. The section that’s open to the public is relatively small and almost exclusively filled with pines and junipers. The most famous of these is a shimpaku named Toryu no mai (“Dance of the Ascending Dragon”).

Shimpaku – Toryu no mai

Seeing Toryu no mai in person makes a good case for why we appreciate twisting lifelines and sinuous deadwood in juniper bonsai. When appreciating other junipers in the garden, it’s easy to see that tree movement and deadwood features provide the trees with interest, whether they’re super twisty or not.

Informal upright shimpaku

Semi-cascade shimpaku

The pines in the garden are exemplars of what we look for in massive pine bonsai: big trunks with fantastic bark and full branch pads arranged in an artful manner.

Black pine

Black pine

Black pine – note the huge cascading branch

There are a few red pines in the garden too, including the famous specimen below.

Red pine with fascinating movement and deadwood

For the past decade or so, Kimura is best known for more creative designs. One of the most recognizable is the hinoki forest planted on two interlocking slabs.

Hinoki

Many of the new works coming out of the garden are juniper plantings growing on manufactured stones.

Junipers on manufactured stone

Planting young trees on stones has long been a great way to create a compelling composition with modest material. That said, where do so many small junipers come from? From air-layers!

Juniper air-layers

Almost any material can be used in this fashion as long as there are branches big enough to serve as the trunks and shoots that can be wired to fill a silhouette.

Do you have an old, funky juniper that can be layered to create small trees? If so, start looking for compelling stones (or learn to make manufactured ones) and by the time the layers take you’ll have some great new projects lined up for the following repotting season.

Next up – highlights from the MidAtlantic Bonsai Societies’ Spring Festival.