Over the past year, Andrew Robson and I spent a lot of time talking about small trees. The result is Shohin School, an effort to promote the understanding and appreciation of shohin bonsai. Andrew setting up an all-deciduous display Our first offering is Winter Shohin School, a two-day seminar held in Portland, Oregon, on January […]
Shohin
Pruning shohin olive
Summer is a good time to prune olive bonsai. By pruning when the weather is warm, I can expect olives to produce new growth until the weather cools in fall. For two small shohin, cutback consisted of reducing long shoots and pruning to silhouette. Here’s what this looked like. Shohin olive – before pruning After […]
Decandling a shohin black pine
Late June through mid-July marks the end of the decandling season in my area. This means it’s time to start working on the smaller pines in my garden. The tree below is sixteen-years-old. It grew strong this spring which is a reflection of the fact that the tree is still young and not fully ramified. […]
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 […]
Evergreen highlights and displays from the 17th Shohin Seminar
Junipers and pines were the most common evergreen species at the California Shohin Society’s 17th biennial Seminar exhibition. Here are a few that were display. Japanese black pine Shimpaku juniper Shimpaku juniper Exposed root black pine Kinzu Juniper Cork-bark black pine Cypress I only have a few photos of the displays themselves. Most of the […]