My visits to Japan for the Kokufu exhibit aren’t limited to bonsai excursions. One of my favorite side trips is just a few flights of stairs up from the show. The Japan Suiseki Exhibition has, in its seven year history, quickly become the suiseki show to catch in Japan. Here is a small selection of […]
Japan
Studying trees at the Koishikawa Botanical Garden
My recent trip to Japan included a morning at The University of Tokyo’s Koishikawa Botanical Garden. The garden got its start as a medicinal herb garden in 1684 when it was established by the Tokugawa Shogunate (learn more here). Today it’s a research facility with 4000 species in the living collection, 20,000 books, and 1,000,000 […]
Highlights from the Omiya Bonsai Museum’s garden
The Omiya Bonsai Museum’s garden area features a rotating selection of 40-50 trees from the museum’s collection. Many of these trees originally belonged to the Takagi Bonsai Museum. Over time, the collection has grown to become one of the more impressive bonsai gardens in Japan. The museum garden The garden is best appreciated from the […]
“Bonsai: Quest for Beauty” at the Omiya Bonsai Museum
The Omiya Bonsai Museum held an exhibit this winter featuring the work of Tomio Yamada of Seiko-en. “Bonsai: Quest for Beauty,” is the third exhibit in a series featuring the work of contemporary bonsai masters. From Yamada: It’s been over fifty years since the way of bonsai first called to me and I started creating […]
A visit to Fuyo-en, the garden of Hiroshi Takeyama
On my first visit to Japan, one of the gardens in the Omiya Bonsai Village left a particular impression – the garden of Horoshi Takeyama. Takeyama is the creator of some of the top deciduous and forest-style bonsai in Japan. Although the garden is beautiful year-round, it’s in winter when you can see the deciduous […]