By far the best Bay Island Bonsai field trip of the year was our visit to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in California’s White Mountain range. The slow-growing Bristlecone Pines are a marvel – and this is the best place to see them. Along the Methuselah Trail alone, 11 of the 19 known 4,000+ year-old […]
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Deadwood story
In nature, animals, insects, rocks, wind, snow and self-sacrifice expose heartwood to the elements creating the oftentimes beautiful shapes and patterns we recognize as “deadwood” in bonsai. Deadwood always suggests a story – the cause of the trauma to a tree that killed part of it off. Some of these stories are more compelling than […]
REBS 26th Annual Show
The Redwood Empire Bonsai Society held their annual show on August 29 and 30th in Santa Rosa, CA. The show is the biggest in Northern California and among the best in the state. The trees, demonstrations and vendor areas are always a late summer treat. Korean Hornbeam Over the years Frank Bardella, and more recently […]
Where to start?
This Western juniper, Juniperus occidentalis, was one of the more fun projects that made it to Akio Kondo’s workshop at Boon’s last month. After a few years in a pot the tree is very healthy and is now ready for its first styling. Typically, after finding the roots the primary task is determining the front […]
Akio Kondo critique
Membership has its benefits. This month’s Bay Island Bonsai meeting featured a critique from Akio Kondo, a Kokufu prize-winning bonsai artist from Japan. Kondo sizing up a procumbens juniper by Peter Tea Kondo first visited California in 1996 to practice bonsai for a year after completing his apprenticeship to Kihachiro Kamiya at Kihachi-en. Kondo offered […]