During my recent visit to Portland, Oregon, I spent the bulk of my free time at Rakuyo-en, the bonsai garden of Andrew Robson. Andrew started Rakuyo to focus on deciduous bonsai. Although I’d seen photos of the garden before visiting, nothing prepared me for the scale and scope of the collection. For starters, many of […]
Excursions
Excursion posts feature visits to bonsai gardens in the U.S. and in Japan, visits to the Kyoto's Most Renown Gardens, and trips into the mountains to see junipers and pines in their natural setting.
Highlights from the Bonsai Society of Portland’s Farm to Table seminar
Last weekend the Bonsai Society of Portland held “Farm to Table,” an event that focused on techniques for developing field-grown material. About 100 participants from Oregon, Washington, and California enjoyed two days of education at the Milwaukie Community Center from bonsai teachers John Eads, Michael Hagedorn, Matt Reel, Andrew Robson, and me. Andrew Robson critiques […]
A visit to John Thompson’s garden
If you’re a fan of oak bonsai, you’ve likely heard of John “JT” Thompson. For those who don’t know JT, he’s one of the most generous bonsai teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’d seen JT’s trees in exhibits for years but I hadn’t seen his collection until last week when I visited to […]
Visiting ancient Sierra junipers
Highlights from a hike to see some spectacular Sierra junipers.
Studying trees at the Koishikawa Botanical Garden
My recent trip to Japan included a morning at The University of Tokyo’s Koishikawa Botanical Garden. The garden got its start as a medicinal herb garden in 1684 when it was established by the Tokugawa Shogunate (learn more here). Today it’s a research facility with 4000 species in the living collection, 20,000 books, and 1,000,000 […]