Mahogany Row Studio

2nd US National Exhibition

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Jul 12 2010 | 2 Comments »

The Second US National Exhibition has come and gone and it was a great success. The quality of the trees and the exhibition were first class. Bill Valvanis asked that we not post photographs of the displays so I only have a few photos from set up and some candid shots.

Just a couple of observations prior to showing some photos. As with the first exhibition, the variety of the trees was outstanding. The range of trees matched the wide geographic range of the United States. There were over 70 varieties on display (I didn’t have time to record all the different varieties of the shohin trees so I estimate the variety of species at over 100. That’s more variety than any show that I have been to around the world including Japan and Taiwan). The level of refinement of the trees showed the long term care many of the trees received. Most of the trees, including the conifers were displayed without wire. There were only a couple of guy wires – showing a tree with a guy wire is personal pet peeve of mine. Several of the European shows I’ve been to, including the last Gingko, had many trees with guy wires on display tree- that is a no no to me. At this exhibition the use of wire was very restrained again reflecting the level of refinement of the trees. For example, the Japanese White Pine that won the Best Tree award had no wire on it!

Bringing trees to NY from around the US is an ordeal. The trip from Florida is 1,200 miles and takes about 2 full days of driving. I really feel empathy for the guys driving from the West coast of the USA.

Here are some photos of our trip.
My wife, Terry, and my copilot, Richard Turner can’t believe we fit one large Japanese black pine, two buttonwoods, one large portulacari afra, one large gardenia, a large ficus too little and a willow leaf ficus along with 6 shohin, and assorted accents and stands into a minivan. No wonder they look happy.

Space in the minivan was tight so we used some of the vertical volume to attach the 5 point shohin stand to the ceiling of the van. It worked great.

Grape country in western New York, but not wine country. These grapes are headed to Welches for grape juice and jam. Yummy.

Once Richard and I arrived, we quickly started the set up. We snapped a few candids during set up. This nice Scots Pine from the George Lebolt collection at the Motnreal Botanical Garden was next to a buttonwood I brought from Vi Allen of the Brevard club.
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Here is a gardenia from Mary Madison, Lake Placid’s Florida. Too bad it wasn’t loaded in flowers as it was 3 weeks earlier.

This is a quick shot of my tropical shohin display.
From top to bottom, a Chinese Elm in Takio Earth pot,Lake Helen Florida, Nea Buxifolia in a Castle pottery pot,Brooklyn NY, Willow Leaf Ficus in a pot by me, Indian Laurel Ficus in a Belota Pottery pot, Jacksonville, FL, and a Shimpaku Juniper grafted onto a prostrata Juniper over rock in a pot make by me. The tree on the left is a Dwarf Yaupon Holly in an Chinese pot. The accent plant is a bermuda grass divot taken from one of my rounds of golf in a Dale Cochoy pot.

Richard Turner is standing next to his award winning “Best Tropical Tree” at the exhibit. It’s a Dwarf Elephant Jade, portulaccaria afra.

Next is my Japanese Black Pine Exhibit, the Dragon’s Tale. No wire on this tree either. The photo isn’t from the front, sorry about that. Note the nice multi-tunk forrest planting in the background.

This is one of the other great shohin displays at the show.

One of the corners of the aisle showing wonderful trees.

Significant effort went into taking photographs of all the display trees.
Here is a shot of the photos being taken of my Japanese Black Pine, the Dragon’s Tale.

Next is a display of my Podocarpus, Buddhist Pine in a Chinese pot. This tree was gracious enough to put on a riotous display of fruit albeit the berries are a subdued bluish green. (Incidentally I beleive our cold winter accounted for the largest berry crop ever. The berries now have purple mushy drupes with seeds next to them.) The companion bonsai is a storied Willow Leaf Ficus in a Sara Rayner pot. The accent is a combinationof a house plant from Home Depot and some weeds I transplanted from the woods behind my house.

This Eastern Red Cedar from the North Carolina Arboretum won an award for best western display. I think the little bear swayed the judges.

Suthin Sukosolvisit in the middle and Mark Arpag, right, both won awards for their trees. Spider ____ last name I forgot is on the left.

Marco Invernizzi does a demo on a Juniper. Kunio Kobyashi did a demo the second day.

This was Mark Aprag’s award winning best North American tree, an Eastern White Cedar, collected over 20 years ago.

This is Vi Allen’s Buttonwood exposed root style. Vi is a fellow club member of the Bonsai Society of Brevard.

The vendor ares was decent but alas most trees for sale wouldn’t survive Florida’s weather. I did manage to snag quite a few pots including several by Rong Lang and Nick Lenz, great American potters.

Pedro Morales put together a very modern shohin display that won the award for best shohin display.

A rock video style recounting of the show can be found on You Tube here.

Beautiful sky over Pennsylvania on the long ride home.

Going to the BSF Convention

Posted by Rob Kempinski on May 25 2010 | Comment now »

I have two trees lined up to show at the upcoming BSF Convention in Orlando, Florida.

This exposed root Japanese Black PIne tree. Pot is by Tom Dimig,

And a natural broom style Chinese Elm. Pot is by Nick Lenz.

See you at the show.

Buddhist Pine Gets Show Ready

Posted by Rob Kempinski on May 04 2010 | Comment now »

This Buddhist Pine (Podocarpus sp.) has been selected for the US National Show. I thinned it out a few weeks ago and right now it is riotously full of new light green growth and the start of many fruit. It will be interesting to see how far the fruit and leaves get by the middle of June when it will go to Rochester for the 2nd National US Exhibition. The pot is a nice quality Chinese pot that actually says “Made in Japan” on the bottom.

This is not in the pinus family but it is a conifer. Podocarpus macrophyllus can be worked very similarly to a Japanese Black Pine. The big difference is the podocarpus will bud back like crazy. In fact the lower right branch I grew from an adventitious bud. It did not exist when I started on the tree. In this regard the tree seems more similar to a Yew. Once in a pot it is fairly slow growing.

The tree is very common in landscapes. For some reason in Japan, called Kusamaki, I have never seen one as a bonsai even though they grow all over the temple and shrine grounds. In Taiwan and China they are very desirable for bonsai. I heard because of their Buddhist connection, that they are routinely stolen from peoples yards in China. These are commonly used in landscapes in my part of the USA. They can take some cold weather and like the heat.

The first photo didn’t show the lighter colored foliage very well so here it is again with a outdoor shot.

Chinese Box Orange Internet Debut

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Apr 24 2010 | Comment now »

The Chinese Box Orange makes its first internet appearance.
This tree has an interesting history. It was imported into the USA by the Peoples Republic of China as a landscape tree at an Orlando attraction called Splendid China. The Chinese government vastly overestimated the American interest in their culture and in their somewhat educational entertainment. It appears Americans prefer to be entertained by people in mouse and dog costumes. Spleendid China went bankrupt and all of its assets were sold at auction in 2004.

This was a model of the great wall built brick by little brick.

The photograph has really destroyed the illusions of the pads – might have to trim it differently or try different lighting. While it still needs to grow out a bit the red foliage clouds are what I envision for the future to get it show ready. That pad on the lower right is the result of a bud that sprouted 4 years ago. Like I said it is very slow growing. I might not be able to wait for it and might prune it.

Maybe a round pot some day too.

The photo has apparently disguised the pad formation but nonetheless with its growth rate it will need a few more years to reach the silhouette intended. Something like the red lines in this photo.

The Cold War

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Apr 14 2010 | 2 Comments »

This past winter my area of Florida experienced its coldest winter weather ever. I don’t have a green house so I rely on covering plants and using lights and sprinklers under the plastic. I also move the smaller ones indoors and then back out. Even with that between being away on lots of business travel and seriosuly sustained freezing temperatures I lost many trees. While I am waiting for some to see if they recover, the list of casualties is fairly extensive. If we could have a moment of silence for my:
2 limeberries Triphasia trifolia (including probably my physically oldest tree)
2 buttonwoods shohin
1 sageria thezens shohin
14 ficus nerifolia shohin being grown for a workshop (I forgot about them)
1 pink pixie bougainvillea
1 sea grape (Thought it could take the cold as it is in the ground around here)
1 wrightii religiousa nana shohin
100 premma cuttings
3 elephant jade shohin
10 or 12 accent plants

Severely wounded were:
Dantes Inferno Buttonwood (we are hoping it recovers – looking really bleak right now.)
Tsunami Buttonwood
2 Black Olives Bucida spinosa
2 Tabeuiaa
3 Nea Buxifolia

We desperately need warm weather to rekindle what ever cambium remains in these wounded warriors.

<<<<<>>>>>
The warm weather has finally arrived. Temperature in the 90s on some days.
The 2 Black Olives have bounced back.
Both Tabeuiaas seems to be budding.
The Neas are trying to recover.

The Sea Grape upper branches are all gone but the root mass is resprouting. In a few years it might recover.

Dantes Inferno has lost many major branches but is still alive. Who knows what it will look like in the future. May need a massive restyle.
Same with Tsunami Buttonwood.

Unbelievably some of the Premma cuttings have survived and resprouted. It is interesting in a group of over 100 rooted cuttings which experienced the same temperature conditions, some have survived and some have not.

The Kracken Molts

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Apr 13 2010 | 3 Comments »

Now that the brutally cold weather has passed it’s time to work on my tropical trees. Here the Kracken has molted.

I have started to wire the next level up. No need to wire the very top as most of that will be pruned off when the bottom branches are where I want them. i used inexpensive Korean aluminum wire as it will not stay on the tree very long. Notice the wild movement to the branches. In order to maintain it the tree needs constant wire and pruning.

Here is a closeup of one side of the tree. I will remove the wire in about 2 months. The pot is still a bit large but as the Big Bad Wolf used to say “The Better to Grow You My Dear.”

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Here is the historical info on it.

I did some work on the Kracken. It’s coming along nicely. Here it is before any trim. It’s in an extra large pot to encourage growth. The goal is to have this be its final pot so it has a way to develop.

2009 08 Ficu M Kracken 1

Partly through trimming and defoliation.
2009 08 Ficus M kracken 2

Here’s a close up of the nebari. The roots you see were either the result of a chop or a graft (the middle semi-straight root was the graft.)
2009 08 Ficus M Kracken 4

The front had a large branch removed several years ago. The scar has closed and time will merge it with the rest of the trunk.
2009 08 Ficus M Kracken 5

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Here’s the back defoliated.
2009 08 Ficus M Kracken 6

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Here’s the front with some wire.
2009 08 Ficus M Kracken 7

And all wired up and no place to go – well not true – it went back on the bench.
2009 08 Ficus M Kracken 8

A close up view of the wire.
2009 08 Ficus M Kracken 9

I did this work about a month ago. The tree is already full of new leaves. I”ll try to post a photo later.

Here is a early development shot from 2008 of a Ficus microcarpa Kin men showing very contorted branches.

My 16 year old daughter, upon seeing me photograph this tree, named it the Kracken, after the sea monster, now starring in the Pirates of the Carribbean movie.

Its growing in a large plastic tub – plenty of room for development. While working on the branches I have also been working on the root system – hence the large pot. it will grow wild for a few months then I will cut it back hard again. A couple cycles of this and it will be ready for a regular bonsai pot. The trunk is about 8 inches across at the base.

Sorry I don’t have a before shot, I accidently deleted it from the camera prior to down loading.

A close up of the branches to show how brutal pruning builds taper and movement.

Here’s a photo of it from November 2004 when it was first styled. It’s a poor photo but it gives an idea of the development.
It’s been in the large tub the whole time.

2010 EPCOT Bonsai Show

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Mar 04 2010 | 4 Comments »

Yesterday we dropped off trees for the 2010 Walt Disney World EPCOT Flower and Garden show. This is the 15th or 16th year that the Bonsai Societies of Florida and Walt Disney World have jointly arranged this long exhibition. Over a million people see the bonsai trees at the Japan pavilion.

(BTW if you click on a photo and then click again in the new window you will see full size photos.)

Sometimes if feels like we are in Japan.

This has been the coldest winter on record for Florida and yesterday was no exception. In addition the show has started the earliest in the year ever – EPCOT feels it needs to run the show longer to get a better return on its investment. As a result, the selection committee had to limit the tropical trees on display for fear of damage due to a major frost. Nonetheless I submitted an Australian Pine and a Buttonwood figuring they can deal with the March weather. In addition, the committee arranged a person on cold stand by. Disney will provide the person a room at a Disney hotel and they will go to the exhibit and remove the trees and place them in a hotel room for the night if there is a frost warning.

Setting up the display is always a challenge as there are some big trees involved. This year Disney was prepared with two Lull lift trucks.

Here two Bonsai Society of Brevard club members show how life imitates art imitating life by photographing me as I photograph them. Ronn Miller with the camera and Dr Reggie Perdue with two pairs of glovers on.

The Bonsai Society of Brevard had 4 members show tree – Ronn and Reggie, along with me and Gene Callahan.

Disney now consolidates all trees on a trailer in a holding area and then drives the trailer to Japan. It’s easier to cross the Pacific that way The trailer is partially unloaded in this shot.

Jarbas Godoy, of Miami, stands in front of his Aussy Pine prior to placing it on a pedestal.

And here is the tree on a pedestal. The pot is about 40 inches across.

This is a Maphigia from Eric Wigert of Fort Meyers Florida.

Now in fuller leaf in April.

Eric also brought this interesting Live Oak bonsai.

Also in April in leaf. Cool tree.

I believe this Simpson Stopper was from Mike Rodgers of Deland.

Ronn Miller, Tittusville, displayed this large and old Willow Leaf Ficus.

The cool weather defoliated it but it is bouncing back in mid April.

Mary Madison, Lake Placid, stands near her Gardenia.

This fairly modest Japanese Maple is really a miracle that it lives at all in Florida. I believe it belongs to Mike Rogers of Deland. The cold weather will help it this year.

In April it was showing pretty leaves.

This Hackberry also by Mike Rodgers can take cold weather but really needs more ramification for a show.

Now in leaf mid April.

This is an interesting shot where the fine branching and layering of David Hammonds’, Orlando, Japanese Black Pine is mimicked by the large tree and pagoda in the background.

My Buttonwood Tree Spirit went by the restaurant. Hopefully it stays warm there.

My slant Style Aussy Pine was placed in the meadow.

In April having fun being admired by thousands of viewers.

An oblique view of the same tree.

Paul Pikel, Orlando, is the chairman of the event. He had this nice San Jose Juniper on display.

I didn’t get to photograph all the trees as it was so cold I decided not to linger. When it warms up I might go back to check out the rest. You can see a few more of the meadow trees in the background of this photograph. The Juniper on the left is actually a tanuki over buttonwood deadwood – very well done by Julie Trigg.

As promised here are a few more photos. This Japanese Black Pine was on of my favorites on display. The tree in the back is a Weeping Ilex schillings by fellow club member Dr. Reggie Perdue. They are a bit far and tall from the viewing area so sorry for the small images of the trees.

This Chinese Elm was in the back in the meadow.

This is a sumo Eugenia by Christian Casalles.

This Podocarpus was also in the meadow. I don’t recall who owns it now but I believe it used to belong to the original EPCOT committee coordinator Frank _________ who passed away a few years ago. (I have a brain fade and can’t remember his last name. If anyone can help remind me I’d appreciate it)

This is a very large banyan style Ficus natalensisi by Gene Callahan,

This Egret landed near the pond and was eyeing the koi.

It managed to eat a smaller one; see the lump in its throat.

Then it hung around awhile and poked at the larger koi. There was no way it could eat one so I wonder if humans are the only species that like to kill for sport!

Visiting Old Florida Nursery

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Feb 16 2010 | 4 Comments »

I spent an afternoon down at the Old Florida Nursery advising Richard Turner on his Japanese Black Pine stock. Richard has been developing some tremendous bonsai material for the past many years and is finally opening for business. A few years ago he started growing Japanese Black Pine bonsai material from seeds. So I visited to explain my approach for seedling development.

He had a bunch of 2 year old seedlings. These were small and had just been up potted. We worked on setting basic shapes and on some branch selection.

We also did some grafting and some basic styling on a few older trees.
The soil is a bit heavy so I recommended he move them to a spot where he can better control the water to allow the soil to dry out a bit between watering.
In a few years he will have lots of nice bonsai stock.
This reminded me I needed to start some more seedlings as I am getting low on material.

Here is Richard behind one of his large bougainvillea. His nursery is known for great bougy material. Sorry about shooting the photos into the sun but it was getting late in the day.

A nice elegant collected Florida Elm.

Due to the sun you can’t really see how nice this Sea Grape is. Awesome trunk.

Broom Updates

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Feb 09 2010 | Comment now »

Here is an update from 2010 of this Florida Elm Broom.

Here it was in 2009

After thinning and a bit of wire but only on the heavier branches as this tree’s growth is too prolific for lots of wire. Clip and grow works well for elms.

The pot is from Tokonome in Japan.

This is what it looked like in the past few years.
February 2006

In February 2007

Shortly after collecting in 2004.

Joy of Bonsai – Kawa 2010

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Feb 04 2010 | Comment now »

I went to the Kawa Bonsai Society annual club show that they call the Joy of Bonsai.
Here are some exhibit trees. The red and black ribbons show the award winners.