Mahogany Row Studio

Shohin Trees

Posted by Rob Kempinski on Jan 09 2007

Shohin trees have a dear place in my collection. They have much going for them – easily handled, less expensive (normally – although good ones can still be expensive), take up less space, faster to work on, more portable, and can capture the essense of a tree is a small package. (Shohin in Japanese means “small goods” so shohin trees are small bonsai trees.) Here are a few of mine.

Here is a shohin Japanese Black Pine in a high quality Tokonome pot. It is on a stand I made that features a dragon engraving and my family coat of arms.

Perhaps my favorite species for making a shohin bonsai is the Willow Leaf Ficus, Ficus nerifolia (sometimes called Ficus salicifolia). This formal upright, in a pot that I made, really captures the essense of shohin. It has a great nebari and very solid branch placement.

Winged Elm, Ulmus alta, grown from a wild seed in a flower pot. Started in 1994. It is in a signed Japanese pot I picked up while visiting Japan.

This is another Winged Elm, Ulmus alta, although not quite ready for show. This photo is only two years after it was chopped and had no branches or apex. Started in January 2005 from a native tree nursery offering. The pot is Chinese.

This Crape Myrtle, Lageostromia indica Pokomoke, is in a pot by Horst Heinzrietler. Here you see it in a little bit of fall color. We normally don’t get much fall color in this part of Florida. A small price to pay for a gloriously long golf season.

This is a Chinese Hackberry, Celtis Sinesis. This tree, while a shohin has had extensive work, including multiple severe chops and ground layering. The pot is a nice hand made and signed Japanese pot.

Satsuki azaleas struggle in my area. We are just too far south. This was one I brought home from Japan in 2000. A nice root over rock style – it never really flowered profusely. The pot came from Tokonome. The orange gives an idea of scale. It lasted 6 years before it finally succumbed to the heat in the 2006 summer.

On the other hand this hybird variety I found as a little cutting at Home Depot for $2.99 in the spring of 2000 flowers profusely and seems to tolerate the Florida summer heat. The pot is a hand signed one I bought from the potter in Tokonome in 2000.

I call this shohin Ficus nerifolia, Wasabi, as it reminds me of a dollop of that potent Japanese horseradish. I believe I purchased the pot in Taiwan, but my memory is not certain on that. When repotting this guy yesterday, I took a saw and cut across the bottom to lower the tree in the pot. Ficus nerifolia will make tubers that will actually raise the tree out of the pot.

This is Wasabi back in 2004 next to a Miller beer can for scale.

Another Ficus nerifolia root cutting I regrew as a shohin bonsai. It is in a pot that I made. It also got a drastic root prune. Photo taken in 2006.

This is what this tree looked like in November 2004. Not bad for 2.5 years of growth. The scar at the second chop has totally healed.

Both trees are about 5 inches above the pot with no leaves.

This shohin Serissa (Serissa foetida) has filled in nicely. The canopy surrounds a stocky trunk that is a form of exposed root. The wide fat exposed roots give it a sumo bonsai look. A sumo bonsai has an aspect ratio near 1 – that is the trunk is at least as wide as it is tall. Mike Page of San Fransisco was the first I heard refer to a short squat tree as a sumo bonsai and the name stuck. I like it as it conjurs a vivid image.

This was it back in 2005, shortly after I got it.

Here’s a close up of the trunk.

In March 2006 it looked like this.

Serissa make small white flowers. When it is full of flowers it gets its common name “Tree of a Thousand Stars”.

Eventually it will need a better pot, but for now this low budget Chinese variety will do. This tree is placed on my bench such that is gets morning sun and afternoon shade. It also gets a fair share of water, although one is cautioned never to give a serissa water after it losses all it leaves. That will cause root rot and death. The species can be finicky in that regard. For this reason serssia has adherents that like it and detractors that hate it.

I’ve been showing trees in leafless state – so how about something different. Around November this shohin Firethorn, Pyracantha sp., has berries. The red berries make perfect Christmas decorations.

I imported this shohin tree from Japan in 2000. It was legal then with a permit which I had. It does well in Florida and has been a prolific berry producer. It lives under my pool enclosure so the birds can’t eat the berries. It presently resides in a glazed pot by Sara Rayner.

This shows the tree a few years ago. And in Flower back in 2004.

A close up of the flower and subsequent berries.

Latest shot.

Porky the Fig – a chunky trunked sumo style bonsai. The new foliage this spring has an orange cast to it and looks nice.  This tree has had a lot of work over the years. The pot is by Sara Rayner.  Stand is by moi. Black Walnut with dark polyurethane stain.

The below photo shows the tree in 2004. After this shot I rotated the tree a bit clockwise – I gave up trunk taper to get better branch placement. The taper is still pretty good and looks more tree like from the new view. The nebari spreads nicely around the trunk – one of the nice things about a ficus nerifolia. With proper treatment and care they make awesome root spreads. This tree’s original left side nebari was much higher but I pruned three major roots to lower the nebari to a wider spread. Now you can’t even tell where the work was done. Ficus nerifolia root scars seem to heal faster than trunk scars.

Truly a fun tree to make shohin bonsai – I have a bunch of them.

Here is a slanting style Willow Leaf Ficus (ficus nerifolia). This shohin started as the top of a larger ficus bonsai that I layered off.

I then worked the branches and placed it in this commemorative pot from the World Bonsai Convention in Washington DC in 2005. Certe of Italy made the pot but the design was based on a pot in BCI President, Mr I. C. Su’s, Taiwanese collection so I imagine it was an original antique Chinese design. It is not easy to find a tree that can go in this shape pot but I feel this tree works well with the it.

The main branch to the right had the wedge technique applied. That technique entails removing a wedge from the branch to bend it. It recovered very well.

Here it is as of today. The canopy stands 9.5 inches over the pot and is 11 inches wide so it can be considered a shohin even though it has a chunky trunk.

A more formal portrait of it.

This was it in 2005 when I first bent the right hand branch with the wedge technique. I believe Jerry Meislik was visiting that day although I can’t find a photo of us together.

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Several years ago I bought one of Guy Guidry’s patented Satsuki Azalea Wakabisu “Sweet Lorraine.”

After two years the top shriveled – so I converted it to a cascade. Here it is flowering very well for this time of year in Melbourne, Florida. The pot is an artistic rendition by Gus Miller, a local pottery artist, who moved north in 2006.

It would be nice to see more of the trunk, so I might work on that next year.

This was it last winter without flowers.

The Ixora is about 9 inches above the pot top. This variety is attributed to Norm Nelson according to Ed Trout, who gave me the plant.
When it gets totally covered in flowers it will be very attractive – perhaps in a couple of years.

To show a bit of progression, this was the tree in September 2005. Since then I changed the front.

This Ficus Nerifolia was bought at a club auction in 2005 from Charles Bevan. I reduced the top and put it in this BSF 2004 commemorative pot by Horse Creek Pottery. Now that the basic sillhouette is there I can work on ramification. Initially the nebari was nonexistant on one side but in the past two years some nice roots have grown.
The tree is about 9-10 inches above the pot.

This was it in March of last year. I didn’t take a photo when I first obtained it.  This tree joined another club member’s collection this year.

This is a shohin display I made for the 2009 Bonsai Societies of Florida convention.

This is a shot of the Dwarf Yaupon Holly on the left in the shohin display at the 2009 Florida convention reflecting a new front. I will repot it in January 2010. Probably too late to do a repot this year.