Utah juniper, Juniperous osteosperma, is a desert tree or shrub found throughout the southwest. The Utah can survive extreme heat with very little water and live for hundreds of years. In particularly dry years they sacrifice branches to conserve moisture. When further stressed by wind or inhospitable soil, Utah junipers twist and bend as they […]
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.
Singleleaf ash
While hiking around Moab looking for Utah junipers, Konnor and I came across a number of neat deciduous trees I was not familiar with. My favorite was the singleleaf ash, Fraxinus anomala. The species, a member of the olive family, is an anomoly among ash because it has a single rather than a compound leaf. […]
Pinyon pines
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 […]
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. […]