Last weekend Konnor Jenson and I visited Moab, Utah, to scout for junipers. As both of us have a deep appreciation for pines, we found – to no one’s surprise – pines! Pinyon pines have a number of characteristics that are great for bonsai. The needles are small, the branches are nimble, and when grown […]
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.
Bonsai Focus
Patience, perseverance, and humility can help us become better bonsai artists – so long as we have good teachers. Their lectures, workshops, demonstrations and guidance form the core, for many of us, of our bonsai knowledge. For inspiration, perspective and reference, we can thank the publishers. For more than 10 years, René Rooswinkel, as Publisher, […]
Hashimoto
We spent a lot of time on trains in Japan – sometimes the view was pretty great. Mt. Fuji from Shinkansen Our final train ride brought us to a familar nursery about an hour outside of Tokyo. It belonged to Makoto Hashimoto. This was the first nursery I had visited in Japan ten years ago. […]
Taikan Bonsai Museum
The Taikan Bonsai Museum is the ward of Shinji Suzuki, onetime student of Hamano and now one of the better-known practitioners in the field. Located in Obuse, the museum is home to an outstanding collection of bonsai. Visitors photographing each other Benches anyway. The museum is in the process of moving from its original location […]
Green Club
I remember it clearly – the first time I saw really good bonsai was at Bai ten, the bonsai sales area in Ueno Park set up to accommodate bonsai shoppers visiting the Kokufu ten. I had been in bonsai for six years and had seen many California exhibits, but never had I seen trees so […]




