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.
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Joe cosio says
Thank you for sharing these beautiful photos of some amazing bonsai that we can only aspire to creat ourselves.
Mats F Hagstrom says
I feel lucky to have visited Mr Kimura’s garden last year. I was pleased to learn all his most famous trees are still at his nursery even if they have been sold.
I first got the idea of twisting juniper branches then air layering them off when I read your post on the work being done by Kazuo Onuma. Since then I have several junipers in large pots just for this purpose.
I would love to learn more about growing trees on rocks or making rocks for this purpose. Maybe you could offer a juniper on rocks workshop?
Thanks again,
Jonas Dupuich says
That’s a great idea – I’ll make a note for that next winter. In the meantime, we’ll have to make lots of junipers and other trees we can plant on the stones when the time comes!