Learning to evaluate bonsai is a big part of the Bay Island Bonsai experience. If one doesn’t understand a tree’s good and bad points, it’s hard to improve the tree, and it’s hard to know how much to pay for it. We’ve been using a simple form designed by Boon for over 10 years. The […]
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.
Extended bonsai study with Boon
Last fall, two bonsai students from the Southern United States visited Northern California for an extended bonsai study with Boon Manakitivipart. Tim and Tyler became fixtures at Bay Island Bonsai workshops where they worked on their technique in advance of trips to Japan. Tyler is from Hickory, North Carolina. He’s been studying bonsai for two […]
Megumi’s Bonsai Art
Upon learning I would visit Australia last month, I wrote to a local Bonsai Tonight reader about which nurseries I might visit around Sydney. I received a good list of recommendations as well as a tour-guide for the adventure. On the appointed day, Scott, along with Craig and Bree, picked me up for what turned out […]
Chinese Garden of Friendship
I had the fortune to visit Australia last month. After a long, sleepless flight, I arrived in Sydney unable to check into my hotel for several hours. So I wandered around. Just five minutes from the hotel, I stumbled into Sydney’s Chinese Garden of Friendship. And right inside the front gate, I found myself in […]
What’s with the white stuff?
A visit to the GSBF Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt this spring will reveal an intriguing bonsai technique – paper-wrapped bonsai wire. I learned about the technique from the garden’s curator, Kathy Shaner, not long after she completed her apprenticeship to Yasuo Mitsuya in Toyohashi, Japan. Copper wire is more commonly used on conifers than […]