I received some good questions following the previous post about a Sierra juniper. Why aren’t you planning to keep foliage on the upper branches? Why did you decide to graft and where are the grafts? How did you decide which branches to cut? What’s the overall plan for developing this tree and how long will […]
Styling
Styling bonsai gives trees their charm. Read the posts below to learn about the artistic decisions we make when working on bonsai.
A simple test to evaluate the integration of foliage and deadwood
A trick for evaluating the design of bonsai with prominent deadwood features.
Rocky Mountain juniper – first wiring
The initial branch work comes after four years of working on the roots and reducing unnecessary branches.
Kokufu 101: shohin
Today I’d like to share a single tip for styling shohin bonsai – focus on branch density. As you look at photos of shohin displayed at this year’s Kokufu exhibit, you’ll notice that all of the trees are full. There’s a good reason for this. Because the trees are displayed in groups, it makes sense […]
Kokufu 101: conifers
You can often tell the species of a tree by its shape. The tree below could be one of three different species – needle juniper, cryptomeria, or hinoki cypress. Looking closer at the foliage,we can see this is a hinoki, a species that’s commonly styled as formal upright bonsai with highly refined branch pads. Formal […]