The Bonsai Blog of Peter Chan

Sorry if you have not heard from me for a while, but I am still very much involved with bonsai. KoB readers will know that I am not a blogger – I have to really drive myself to write a new post. But better late than never – so here is my blog for July.

So what have I been up to lately?

Spring was a very busy and hectic time at Herons. We had to recruit two new staff for the nursery. Lots of training and teaching to be done as neither of them had any previous experience working in a nursery. But they are coming along well.

We finished all our repotting by late March and before we knew where we were, all our Japanese Maples had burst into leaf. We had our usual tree lifting spree in our growing fields, when we dug up trees that were getting too large. I just love making bonsai from big trees, so this year’s dig will keep me busy for some time to come.

We have had many visitors from abroad visit us this year, and it was a real pleasure to meet Rob Kempinski. He spent a day with us and I was able to show him our nursery and growing fields.

The highlight of the year so far was my visit to Japan with my daughter Angela. We were there to buy our next shipment of bonsai. But it wasn’t so much the bonsai that caught my imagination – rather it was a trip we had in the mountains that really took my breath away. We visited the Chichibu National Park where we saw Mountain Maples some 150 tall and Red Pines growing out of sheer cliff faces – the sort of thing you see in Chinese paintings.

Here are just some of the many pictures I took on this trip

The picture below is of some of the Mountain Maples that were growing wild along the river bank. They grow out of the rocks and soar to at least 150 ft. high. They were breath takingly beautiful!

Here is a clump of Red Pine (Pinus densiflora) growing in Kabudachi or clump style – This is the sort of image that inspires bonsai artists to create beautiful bonsai.

In this particular area, we came across some impressive waterfalls and rapids like this one. The rocks are huge – some were as much as 50 ft long.

Most of the trees we came across were either Red Pine or Mountain Maple, but we did see some huge Styrax Japonica trees in bloom. Here are some of the flowers which are lying on a bench on the roadside.

This huge Mountain Maple is said to be 150 years old. And in the fork of this old tree I came across a new seedling that had just germinated.

What a privilege to hold the first two leaves of what might turn out to be another mighty tree which will in its lifetime produce millions of leaves in years to come.

It really makes you feel humble that trees will outlive us. When we are dead and gone, they will (hopefully) continue to live on.

My daughter and I had a most wonderful time admiring nature and seeing full size trees growing in their natural habitat. Makes a change from bonsai I must admit.

That was our day out. The following day, it was back to the grind. We had the opportunity to visit Kawabe San’s nursery where we saw some of his stunning works of art. This is one of them.