The Japanese flowering apricot below was displayed at this year’s Kokufu exhibit in Tokyo’s Ueno park. Ume – Japanese flowering apricot When deciding whether or not to accept ume bonsai for display at Kokufu, the judges consider the odds that the tree will bloom during the exhibit. If a flowering bonsai shows up a few weeks […]
Ume
Bonsai museum at Shinpukuji Temple
Adjacent to the Shimpukuji Temple in Okazaki, one can visit a very fine bonsai museum. A rotating selection of trees fills both indoor and outdoor displays. When the ume bloom, they fill the indoor display area. I like ume because they capture some very important aspects of bonsai. The bark shows great age. The flowers, […]
Witnessed in a recent workshop – grafting follow-up and junipers
You can’t have too many branches on ume – or at least I can’t. Getting ume to ramify has proved difficult for me. I made several grafts this year and fortunately most of them took. See “Ume – cutback and grafting” for details about the grafting process. My job now is to help the scions […]
Ume – cutback and grafting
Sisyphus comes to mind when I think about my ume. I’ve been working on the tree for roughly 10 years, grafting, each winter, branches with white flowers onto branches that naturally sport double-pink flowers. Because the variety doesn’t bud back like other deciduous varieties, I find myself re-grafting branches year after year. This year was […]
Repotting and grafting ume
Almost 15 years ago, I signed up for my first Kathy Shaner workshop. I’d been informally studying with Kathy for some time – this would be my first opportunity to work with her on one of my own trees. Or soon to be mine. The trees for the event were included with workshop registration – […]