The Japanese black pine below was one of the many great trees I saw in the workshop during my visit to Aichi-en last fall. I caught Peter Tea cleaning it up for the sales area at Gomangoku. You can see a before photo on Peter’s blog. What made the tree stand out to me? The fullness, the […]
Styling
Styling bonsai gives trees their charm. Read the posts below to learn about the artistic decisions we make when working on bonsai.
Unconventional branches
Every once in a while I see interesting bonsai with extra-interesting features. One of the more common is the extra-long branch. A white pine that fits this description caught my attention at last year’s Taikan-ten. White pine – 2011 Taikan-ten The first branch shoots straight out and then rises up, providing the tree’s primary point […]
Styling a Japanese white pine
The first tree I worked on at Aichi-en was somewhat unusual. The second tree I worked on made the first tree look easy. From a distance, the white pine looked unremarkable. Japanese five-needle pine – front The tree’s exposed roots were covered by foliage in the front, but easy to see from the back. Japanese […]
A twisting black pine
The back pine below appeared on the turntable and I was asked to make the tree “more beautiful.” What an unusual tree! Twisted pine Before looking very closely, I immediately got to work plucking old needles. That gave me a chance to study the tree and let me put off figuring out what to do […]
Which way does it go?
I brought my hinoki to a Bay Island Bonsai workshop last weekend. It was the first time I’d thought much about the tree since I worked on it last year. It had filled in quite a bit and I wanted to give it some attention. I also had yet to decide what tree I’d be […]