This past weekend marked the GSBF Bonsai Garden Lake Merritt’s Mammoth Fundraiser – the annual auction and sale event that brings so many of Northern California’s bonsai enthusiasts to Oakland each February. This year’s auction comprised nearly 100 lots including some impressive trees from a private collection. Tools, pots, stones and bonsai took their turns […]
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Japanese plum before and after
This year’s work on a Japanese plum didn’t involve much more than minor cutback and repotting. Daisaku Nomoto trimmed the branches and I repotted the tree in the same pot. Japanese plum – before After minor cutback and repotting When I reviewed the photos from the work, I was struck by how different the feeling […]
A project pine
I’m fond of referring to selected trees as “project” trees when the journey to become a bonsai is a long one. The black pine below has something resembling a bunjin feel – a euphemism, in this case, for a tree with no branches along the lower part of the trunk. I removed the top half of […]
From landscape tree to bonsai – part 3
Last year I started working on a Japanese black pine that was developed as a landscape tree (here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of the story). This year’s work was less exciting than last year’s, but it made me much happier. Why? Because I’m now committed to a design direction (i.e. I cut off most […]
Preparing a black pine for exhibit
Not long before last month’s Bay Island Bonsai exhibit, Boon mentioned that there was room for more trees if I was interested. I looked around my backyard for candidates and found that one of my black pines had filled in nicely after the previous year’s decandling. I brought it to workshop to see if it […]