For much of the northern hemisphere, seeing snow-covered bonsai in winter is nothing out of the ordinary. For Keiichi Fujikawa, proprietor of the Fujikawa Kouka-en bonsai garden in Osaka, the sight is far from normal.
Snow-covered bonsai at Kouka-en
Shimpaku juniper
When our small tour arrived at Fujikawa’s garden, I asked how many times it snowed like this in a given year. His answer was never!
White pine
Camellia
I wasn’t sure how long we’d want to walk through the snowy garden, but the longer we stayed, the more I appreciated the beauty of snow-covered trees.
Pine
Trident maple
A few of the temperature sensitive bonsai were moved inside when the snow started, but the rest stayed outside on the benches. The snow wasn’t expected to stick around for more than a day.
Snowy bench
Shimpaku juniper
Pine
Every once in a while an apprentice reluctantly went outside and brushed snow off the branches to prevent them from breaking under the weight of the snow. Within minutes, the trees were covered again.
White pine
Pine
Ume flowers
After a day visiting gardens in the snow, our group headed up to Tokyo for the Kokufu exhibit. More on that next week!
News & Updates
[Southern California Event]
There’s one day left of the Bonsai-A-Thon, one of Southern California’s biggest events of the year! The Bonsai-A-Thon is an annual fundraiser held at the Huntington in San Marino, California.
Headliner Sergio Cuan will share a presentation about deciduous bonsai from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. Additional demonstrations will be held from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. featuring Mel Ikeda, Robert King, Bob Pressler, and Al Rivera.
The weekend will also feature a tour of the bonsai area by Daniel Deephouse at 11:00 a.m.
A number of vendors will be on hand with an assortment of trees, pots, and supplies, plus live and silent auctions means there are lots of opportunities to shop!
The Mammoth Fundraiser will be held on Saturday, March 7th (auction), and Sunday, March 8th (general sale and vendor area). Learn more at the Bonsai Garden Lake Merritt website. More details coming soon!
Last month the Japanese Bonsai Association hosted the 100th national exhibit, the Kokufu, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno Park, Tokyo.
The event was busier than it has been in recent years, and a larger percentage of the visitors were foreign. As for the bonsai, there was a good number of special trees that are always a treat to see.
Rose
Black pine
Some of my favorites won awards, others simply made the room look great. Some, like the Chinese quince below, were so twiggy that I had to reset my thinking about what’s possible with the species.
Chinese quince
Chinese quince
A lot of the trees that stood out to me this year were deciduous.
Japanese maple
When standing in front of these trees, it was easy to get lost following the branches as they meandered from the trunk out towards the edges of the canopy. Trees like these had been skillfully worked on for decades – and it showed.
Korean hornbeam
Korean hornbeam
Trident maple
Of course there were spectacular conifers in the exhibit as well. Here are some of the remarkable junipers on display.
Shimpaku juniper
Shimpaku juniper
Shimpaku juniper
Although in recent years it’s become common to see large junipers with massive trunks, it’s the exceptions that stand out the most to me. The juniper below has fantastic character along the trunk. Slender lifelines supported by undulating deadwood feature more delicate movement with give this old tree – and its viewers – a very different feeling.
Shimpaku juniper
Up next, highlights from the second half of this year’s two-part exhibit.
News & Updates
[Northern California Event]
The Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt’s annual fundraiser, the Mammoth Auction and Sale, will be held this Saturday and Sunday in Oakland, California. On Saturday the main event is the largest auction in Northern California. On Sunday, it’s a plant sale and vendor area. Learn more at the Mammoth Auction & Sale website.
[Auction Tips]
In preparation for this weekend’s auction, here are some tips to help you get the most out of the event.
If you’re interested in taking home an item but want to feel good about the purchase, set limits ahead of time for how much you’d like to spend (and how much above this limit you’re willing to actually bid).
Check the health of the tree before setting your buy price. For deciduous trees, check the health of the buds and look out for dead branches or dead areas along the trunk. For conifers, check the number and size of visible buds as well as the color and character of the foliage.
Don’t let inside information influence your bids. A long time ago, I stopped bidding on a tree because I knew how much the owner had originally paid for it. It didn’t feel right to pay twice as much as my friend had paid for the tree. This was foolish as the second the bidding ended I remembered that the tree was worth almost double the amount it went for.
Take note of who you’re bidding against, but stick to your plan. Once I stopped bidding on a tree because I didn’t think I could keep up with the other bidder. When the bidding ended, the other bidder ran over with a big smile to let me know how relieved he was I stopped bidding as he’d reached the limit he was willing to pay for the tree. Another lost opportunity!
Above all, remember that the event is a fundraiser. Bonsai auctions are typically organized by volunteers who work hard to provide us with the opportunity to build our collections and have fun while doing it. Keeping the spirits (and the bids) high can make the event a pleasant experience for everyone.
For the past twelve years, the Kokufu-ten has been divided into two halves. For these double shows, the organizers set up the exhibit and open it to the public for a few days, then close for a day or two to reset the show with all new displays. This year the exhibit featured a whopping 181 displays in each half for a total of 362 displays!
Large displays
Shohin displays
This years exhibit featured some pretty big bonsai – here are some of the large conifers.
Shimpaku
White pine
Needle juniper
Semi-cascade white pine
Shimpaku
One of my favorite medium-size trees in the exhibit was a black pine shown with a trident maple. I liked that the tree had strong movement to the left and a surprisingly large trunk for a tree under 18″ tall.
Trident maple and black pine
Black pine
One of the trees that received the most attention in part two was a juniper with a slender trunk. The movement was fantastic and the ribbon of deadwood that formed the trunk was surprisingly thin.
Shimpaku
The deciduous bonsai were equally awesome. Here are some of my favorites.
Each half of the Kokufu exhibit features a small number of shohin displays. The exhibit is set up to present the large trees first, then the medium bonsai, and finally the shohin. They’re the last bonsai you see before leaving the exhibit.
Six-tree shohin display
Like the larger trees in the exhibit, shohin bonsai are eligible to receive the Kokufu prize. However, instead of awarding an individual small tree, the award is presented to the top display.
The display above received the Kokufu prize in the first half of the event. The display below won the award in the second half.
Shohin display
Not all of the displays featured six shohin bonsai. Some displays featured five trees. Displays with mini bonsai featured far more trees.
Shohin display featuring a Rokko-style stand
Mini-bonsai display
The conventions for displaying shohin bonsai are relatively narrow by US standards. Junipers are the most common species displayed across from the box stand. They are typically shown on root stands, some taller than others.
Junipers on root stands
Some of the individual trees in these displays were fantastic. Here’s a small sample. Note the remarkable branch density for trees that are roughly 8″ tall.
Black pine
Trident maple
Black pine
Japanese maple
Black pine
Kinzu (dwarf kumquat)
News & Updates
[Southern California Exhibition]
If you’re thinking about submitting to this year’s Naka Memorial Exhibition, August 22-23 in Los Angeles, the deadline is June 15th. The event website has instructions for How to prepare your submission.
And like so many other bonsai events, the Naka Memorial would not be possible with the generous support of donors and volunteers. Learn how you can help at the John Naka Memorial Exhibition website.
The Omiya Bonsai Art Museum is a favorite stop of mine on bonsai tours. It provides visitors with a little history about the Omiya Bonsai Village – a collection of historic gardens, several of which are still operating today – and features a courtyard garden with a rotating selection of bonsai.
Most of these trees have been in training for a long time and show a maturity that’s harder to find outside of Japan.
Ume – Omoi-no-mama Estimated age: 120 years
Black pine Estimated age: 100 years
One reason I come back to the museum so frequently is that there is ample space around every tree. Getting to see great bonsai from all angles is great for studying the trees’ shape and structure.
Shishigashira Japanese maple Estimated age: 120 years
Hinoki Estimated age: 70 years
The brown foliage on some of the conifers is a response to cold weather. The trees typically green-up when the weather warms in April.
Cryptomeria Estimated age: 70 years
Ginkgo Estimated age: 50 years
Some trees, like the ginkgo above, look much older than their estimated age suggests. Other trees are much older than we might casually guess.
Black pine Estimated age: 250 years
Korean hornbeam Estimated age: 150 years
More important than age in some cases is the time in training. Each of these bonsai look like they’ve been cared for as bonsai for a long time. This gives them a unique character that distinguishes bonsai from trees found in the natural landscape.
The American Bonsai Association, Sacramento, will hold its 66th Annual Exhibit April 11-12 in Sacramento, California. Guest artist Jennifer Price will perform demonstrations at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Club sales and vendor area open both days. Hours 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Learn more at the ABAS website.
The Kusamura Bonsai Club will hold its 66th Annual Exhibit April 18-19 in Palo Alto, California. Headliner Jennifer Price will perform a demonstration (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.) Saturday and will lead a critique (at 10:30 a.m.) and workshop (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m., open to public viewing) on Sunday. Tours, benefit drawings, and club sales open both days. Hours 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Saturday and 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Sunday. Learn more at the Kusamura Bonsai Club website.
The Bonsai Society of San Francisco will hold their annual bonsai exhibit at the 2026 Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival. The exhibit will be held in the Issei Memorial Hall on Saturday, April 18, from 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Learn more at the Cherry Blossom Festival website.
[Regional Events]
The MidAtlantic Bonsai Societies are hosting their Spring Festival on April 17-19 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I’ll be presenting and leading workshops together with special guests Kaya Mooney and Peter Warren throughout the weekend. Learn more at MidAtlanticbonsai.org.
One of the most common stops on bonsai tours in Japan is Shunka-en, the garden of Kunio Kobayashi. By car or train it’s about 20 minutes east of Ueno Park, home to the Kokufu exhibit, in Edogawa.
I first visited Shunka-en, or “spring flower garden,” twenty-seven years ago. Since that trip, the garden has changed a lot. There are several new growing areas and more than double the number of trees, including these junipers and pines in the main courtyard.
Shimpaku juniper
Black pine
Shimpaku juniper
Black pine
Shimpaku juniper
The garden is jam-packed with trees, mostly conifers, in every direction you look.
A section of Shunka-en
Although most of the trees are presented for garden display (the facility is billed as a museum) there are a few prominent trees in development, including the maple grafting project below.
Thread grafts on a Japanese maple
Inside, visitors can enjoy several tokonoma set up with seasonal displays. On the day we visited, the display rooms featured a juniper, a chojubai, and a maple, among other species.
Japanese maple with crazy surface roots
Chojubai
Shimpaku juniper
Just outside the display rooms, a large collection of deciduous bonsai sat on the ground under the protection of the main building’s eves.
Among the handful of gardens I’m happy to visit every time I go to Japan, Taisho-en is a favorite. World-class trees. World-class work.
Taisho-en is managed by Taiga Urushibata. His father, Nobuichi Urushibata, was a prominent shohin professional. Taiga, who apprenticed with Masahiko Kumura, is well-known for working on trees of all sizes.
Walking among the trees in Taiga’s garden is a pleasure because each bears close investigation. The following are good examples of the bonsai you’ll find if you get the chance to visit.
One of the most anticipated stops on our tour this year was a visit to Kimura’s garden. The section that’s open to the public is relatively small and almost exclusively filled with pines and junipers. The most famous of these is a shimpaku named Toryu no mai (“Dance of the Ascending Dragon”).
Shimpaku – Toryu no mai
Seeing Toryu no mai in person makes a good case for why we appreciate twisting lifelines and sinuous deadwood in juniper bonsai. When appreciating other junipers in the garden, it’s easy to see that tree movement and deadwood features provide the trees with interest, whether they’re super twisty or not.
Informal upright shimpaku
Semi-cascade shimpaku
The pines in the garden are exemplars of what we look for in massive pine bonsai: big trunks with fantastic bark and full branch pads arranged in an artful manner.
Black pine
Black pine
Black pine – note the huge cascading branch
There are a few red pines in the garden too, including the famous specimen below.
Red pine with fascinating movement and deadwood
For the past decade or so, Kimura is best known for more creative designs. One of the most recognizable is the hinoki forest planted on two interlocking slabs.
Hinoki
Many of the new works coming out of the garden are juniper plantings growing on manufactured stones.
Junipers on manufactured stone
Planting young trees on stones has long been a great way to create a compelling composition with modest material. That said, where do so many small junipers come from? From air-layers!
Juniper air-layers
Almost any material can be used in this fashion as long as there are branches big enough to serve as the trunks and shoots that can be wired to fill a silhouette.
Do you have an old, funky juniper that can be layered to create small trees? If so, start looking for compelling stones (or learn to make manufactured ones) and by the time the layers take you’ll have some great new projects lined up for the following repotting season.
Next up – highlights from the MidAtlantic Bonsai Societies’ Spring Festival.
The Mid-Atlantic Bonsai Societies is a network of eleven bonsai clubs in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Each spring these clubs are invited to display trees at the region’s annual convention, the Spring Festival.
Peter Warren, Kaya Mooney, and I were invited guests at the event and we had a great time. In addition to performing demonstrations and leading workshops, we had the opportunity to critique the exhibit. When the time came for us to get started, Kaya and I decided to blend our groups together and do a group critique which was fun as we got to point out different things that had been done well and offer multiple suggestions for improving the trees on display.
Before we got to the exhibit, we got to enjoy trees from the Longwood Gardens’ Bonsai Collection.
Eastern white cedar
Exposed root satsuki azalea
The trees in the exhibit were mostly set up in traditional displays with stands and accents with awards recognizing excellence in several categories. One award winner was the white pine below. It’s a great example of an informal upright bonsai with good balance from the highest branches to the lowest.
White pine
This hinoki cypress has been in training for a long time. Kaya noted that although the tree doesn’t take the typical formal upright form, it has gentle movement appropriate for a hinoki and branch pads that convey age as well as the trunk.
Hinoki
I really enjoyed the Chinese elm forest below as it does a good job of suggesting a much larger stand of trees growing in nature. The slender branch tips and ascending primary branches are the composition’s key features for suggesting scale.
Chinese elm forest
The critique participants enjoyed an extended conversation about flow when looking at this Colorado blue spruce. Although it’s clear that the owner intends the tree to flow to the left, different elements of the design suggest flow to the right which to create an interesting composition.
Colorado blue spruce
The larch forest below makes a nice contrast to the elm forest above. Because the trunks are larger and the primary branches extend from the trunks slightly downward, the composition creates an impression of much older trees. As fine twigs continue to develop, this group planting will convey age well.
Larch forest
The last three trees were shown together in a kifu-size display. They’re great examples of the branch density that results from good techniques applied repeatedly over time.
Black pine
Shimpaku
White pine
Thanks again to everyone who participated in the event and took the time to say hi. To learn more about how you can participate in the future, visit the MidAtlantic Bonsai website.
2026 Spring Intensive Dates
It’s been a number of years since I’ve made time for teaching regular classes at my workshop and I’m really excited to get back to it! I’m starting with intensives as I’ve found them to be the most effective and satisfying way to improve one’s trees and skills.
This season’s courses will cover timely techniques including pinching, pruning, and decandling plus other seasonal topics. The dates are June 6-7 for session 1 and July 11-12 for session 2.
When I have the time, I test out every container I can find when I’m repotting to see which I like best for a given tree.
Size is the most important attribute to consider (to keep the tree healthy), followed closely by shape. From there I consider color and quality (I don’t like using show containers when trees are in development).
The more I’ve tested different options, the more I’ve learned about which attributes of a container can complement, or fail to complement, a tree’s best characteristics.
While repotting a Chinese cork bark elm this winter, I realized I had a lot of options on hand. We looked at fourteen different containers, many of which would make a good new home for the tree. Here are the options shown in pairs to give an idea of the effect that color and shape can have on the selection process.
Options 1 and 2, Yamaaki ovals
Options 3 and 4, Rayner and Shuho
Options 5 and 6, Mazan ovals
Options 7 and 8, Rayner and Mairhofer
Options 9 and 10, Yamaaki and Atkins
Options 11 and 12, Hanna and Chinese unglazed rectangle
Options 13 and 14, Chinese unglazed oval and Rayner
I went with a green oval not because it was my favorite but because I thought it was a good match for the current stage of development. The size and shape are about perfect for the tree, and the color is dark enough that it’s a good match for the dark, craggy bark.
Chinese cork bark elm in glazed oval by Mazan
To give a quick rundown on the other containers, I can say that the first two options are both too “heavy” for the tree. They’d be suitable for a more massive tree with a larger trunk.
Options three and four have less pronounced lips and may be good options if the crown fills out with lots of heavy branches and lots of small twigs.
Five and six are a bit deep for the trunk but the simple shapes are a nice fit. Seven and eight are shallower but I don’t know that the shapes of these ovals are as effective at complementing the shape of the trunk (they might be better with trees with more flare low on the trunk). Comparing five and six with seven and eight can give insight to whether one prefers brighter colors or more subtle colors.
Although nine and ten are both nice colors for the tree, both feel overly heavy for the tree. Nine is too deep and ten is too wide. Were ten smaller and the silhouette of the tree much wider, it could be a good option.
Eleven and twelve are outliers. Eleven offers the most drama whereas twelve would only be an option if the silhouette were much larger and even then it would still be a bit much for the tree.
Finally, thirteen and fourteen are fine options for training pots. Thirteen has no characteristics that show off the tree’s best features unlike fourteen which calls attention to the texture of the trunk. A slightly smaller version of fourteen could work if one is going for a more quiet approach to container selection that eschews color.
Looking back over the options above, I wish I had something red as bright colors can be fun for trees with craggy bark.
Have any other suggestions? Feel free to make them in the comments below.
News & Updates – World Bonsai Day Edition
[Northern California Tree Sale]
Lotus Bonsai is hosting their annual sale in Placerville, California, on May 16-17 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. both days. This year’s event is unique as all of their trees are for sale. To learn more about the nursery and find contact information so you can plan your trip, visit the Lotus Bonsai Nursery website.
[Washington D.C. Area Event]
The Potomac Bonsai Association’s Potomac Bonsai Festival is this weekend. Held each year on World Bonsai Day weekend, the Festival is hosted on the grounds of the U.S. National Arboretum. The weekend activities include bonsai displays, display critiques, vendors, workshops, demonstrations, bonsai learning sessions, children’s activities, and museum tours. Former curator of the Arboretum’s bonsai collection Jack Sustic and I will provide the critiques and demonstrations.
I’m really looking forward to the event and I hope to see you there! For more information and a complete schedule, visit the PBA website.
[Pacific Northwest Event]
The Pacific Bonsai Museum is hosting its annual Bonsai Fest this weekend from 10-4 on Saturday and Sunday. The event features a show, demonstrations, shopping opportunities, and the opening of Bonsai United, the highly anticipated exhibition focusing on the impact of culture on bonsai style and development. Learn more about Bonsai Fest and Bonsai United on the Pacific Bonsai Museum website.
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