Mahogany Row Studio

It’s safe to say there is no place in America like the Omiya bonsai village.  Within a few mile radius there are over twenty bonsai nurseries featuring many of the trees you’ve seen in the national bonsai magazines.  We feasted our eyes on marvelous conifers and deciduous trees.  We found all of the nursery staff polite, especially when they realized we were ready to spend money.  At Saburo Kato’s nursery (Mr. Kato is president of the Japan Bonsai Association) we bought some pots, rocks and magazines.  The staff treated us to green tea, some rice crackers and their kerosene heater (to fend off the chilly rain).  After wrapping our purchases, they even dispatched an apprentice to give us a ride to the train station in their van.  

Dave with Japanese Red Maple

Dave and I are also interested in Japanese gardens, so in addition to the bonsai nurseries, we visited many famous Japanese gardens, both in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.  We wore out a pair of shoes walking through one century old garden after another.  The ideas and construction techniques we absorbed have already found a home in both of our Japanese gardens. 

Rob next to a garden Japanese Black Pine at the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto

As if the gardens weren’t enough, Kyoto is the site of the Taikanten show. The Taikanten fall show is one of three seasonal bonsai shows in Japan.  The only major show outside Tokyo, it attracts bonsai lovers to Kyoto, the beautiful old capital Of Japan.  Held at the Miyako Messe Convention Center, the show ranks with the Philadelphia Flower show in splendor but with more shibui.  It’s primarily for professional bonsai growers to show off their personal collections and skill.  At this show, over 100 Japanese masters gathered to feature 300 magnificent trees, several of them masterpieces worth thousands of dollars, and more.  

Typical Taikanten bonsai tree

As a fall show, the highlights of the exhibition included multicolored displays of Japanese maples, Trident Maples and Hornbeams.  Fall also meant fruit on trees and the apricots, quince, and Ilex Serrata had a wide variety of colors and  shapes setting off the bare branches beautifully.  Not to be outdone by the splendor of the deciduous trees, the conifers took one’s breath away. Immaculately styled black pines with verdant foliage sat next to 600 year-old junipers with magnificent driftwood.  

One of Mr. Kato's shimpaku juniper

The bonsai display demonstrated the Japanese commitment to showing trees properly.  Every specimen sat on a stand with specially erected neutral backgrounds.  Accent plants and or stones complemented each tree.  For the extra special trees and award winning trees, there were several reproductions of authentic Japanese tokonama at eye level.  Taking in this spectacle required at least four hours of viewing – and who knows how many hours to build. 

A shohin (small) Juniper

In addition to the bonsai display, the vendor bazaar exceeded all expectations. Six room-long rows of tables greeted ready shoppers.  Full of spectacular bonsai and pre bonsai material, tools, pots, soil, books, magazines, stones; there was anything and everything one might need for bonsai.  Prices seemed lower than at U.S. shows for comparable quality – a bargain rarely found in Japan.  The only drawback was that the U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn’t permit the import of many Japanese specimens and those allowed for import wouldn’t stand for Florida’s heat.  Nonetheless, it wasn’t hard to fill extra luggage with bonsai goodies.  

Ilex serrata at a nursery

If the main hall display wasn’t enough, a local bonsai club set up a separate display 

in the lower-level of the exhibition building.  The trees in this club display were not as large as the main hall but still were very well done.  However, the most impressive aspect of the club display was that every tree sat in a full tokonoma, over 20 of them.  Several of the club members wore traditional Japanese yukata (work robes) setting a very appropriate mood. These efforts set high standards for non-Japanese conventions and shows.

Perhaps the only disappointment was the lack of tropical trees on display.  However this merely reflects the proper emphasis on growing bonsai trees that grow in your area.  It also offers an opportunity for Florida growers to set the standard for what sublime tropical trees should look like.

On the way back to Tokyo from Kyoto, we took a slight detour and visited Tokoname, the pottery center.  Forget the image you might have of Japan as a modern industrial nation.  The Tokoname bonsai village seemed locked in a time warp.  The collective kilns featured small mom and pop-type operations.  The proprietors however were friendly and glad to have paying customers, for while bonsai is more popular in Japan than the US, it is not truly a mainstream hobby.  Once again, after a few purchases, a shop owner loaded us up in his van to visit some other shops and then to take us to the train station.  I’ve never had similar service in the US.

Rob negotiates the price of a unglazed pot with the potter in Tokonome

While it might be trip of a lifetime, Japan is not really that far nor that expensive to visit.  For the Taikanten show, Japan Airlines offers round trip airfare and rooms for less than $1,000. The Japanese national railroad sells a rail pass to visitors that makes train travel very affordable.  English is very common so don’t worry about speaking Japanese, although it doesn’t hurt.  A little preparation, certainly no more than if you would visit any foreign country, will lead to an exciting and rewarding trip.  Dave and I traveled on our own and visited some great bonsai sites and gardens.  If a trip by yourself seems too daunting, several American masters take tours to the bonsai sites. See you in Japan.  Domou arigato gozaimasu.

During my recent trip to England, Tony and Carolynn Tickle offered stupendous hospitality. They entertained me, my wife, Terry, my daughter, Jennifer, and our friends, Karen and Megan. We had a blast hanging out with the Tickles but don’t challenge Tony to Scrabble, at least not when you have jet lag.

Tony “Yew the Man” Tickle has several nice Yew Taxus bonsai. Here is one of Tony’s favorite bonsai, a collected Yew. It was raining a bit the afternoon we spent in his garden.

Another one in a semicascade style and one growing over a rock.

Here’s Tony’s Elm next to a model of a traditional English country stone fence.

Tony shows my wife, Terry (in blue sweater i.e. “jumper”) and Karen some new accent plants.

Living in Tony’s neighborhood is another Gingko Award winning tree. This one belongs to David, who kindly let us barge in while he was eating diner to see his trees. This raft Beech won a Gingko award at the last exhibition in Belgium.

Tony and I stopped to check out the English moors – very beautiful. These moors are on the backside of a hill behind Tony’s house. I used the self timer feature of the camera to take this shot and the group shot above. A handy feature.

Some great bonsai collecting in these rock formations.

Natural Bonsai – A Scots Pine growing in a natural rock pocket. Simple to collect. “Lay ho – heave”

In these cracks in the rocks grow some astounding trees. This Yew’s trunk spiraled like a spring.

Great portrait of Tony.

In addition to great bonsai action Tony was able to arrange a golf game for me at Royal Lytham and St Annes – one of the historic links style golf courses on the British Open Championship rotation. Here Norman and I pose for a shot with the clubhouse in the background.
And here I am winding up for a power drive.

While visiting Tony, Ian Warhurst and Lee Kennedy drove over from Liverpool. I didn’t get photos of the guys but I did manage to snap a few shots of Ian’s fantastic privet, seen below. I really appreciated the guys driving to Ramsbottom from Liverpool. Great international bonsai spirit there. We managed to do an impromptu critique/study group of a couple of trees. Good fun and very educational.

Ian’s privet was really superb. The carving, taper, pads, branch placement and pot create a very beautiful image. I’d really like to get a better photograph of this tree. The soil/moss to tree transition was very well done – natural.

In my recent lap of England trip, I made a visit to Peter Chan of Herons Bonsai. Peter was extremely gracious and hospitable. I personally thanked Peter for his book, “Bonsai the Art of Growing and Keeping Minature Trees,” as it inspired me to start my own bonsai collection. We spent a pleasant afternoon and even had English tea.

This a large Olive flanks the entrance to Herons Bonsai and waits a daring bonsaist. Peter said he really enjoys large trees.

One of many wonderful large maples field grown in Peter’s growing beds.

Some of the trees offered at the large nursery.

Here Peter shows me some of the trunk girth he has established by field growing some maples.

I had the privilege of conducting a bonsai demonstration in England at David and Elaine Padget’s Green Lawns Bonsai nursery. David and Elaine were gracious hosts and myself and my family and friends had a great time. Here are some photos of the event. A group shot of the American gang and the Green Lawns owners. From the right, David and Elaine Padget, Rob, Terry (my wife), Megan, Jennifer (my daughter), Karen and Max (We couldn’t get Max to look at the camera.)

Green Lawns has a beautiful and neatly maintained bonsai nursery. This is part of the garden view outside the sales area.

Green Lawns recently opened up a tea house as part of the bonsai nursery. Elaine talks with a show guest in the comfortable tea room.

On Saturday I was to conduct a demonstration on a Shimpaku juniper. The tree before.

And after one days work. I ended up doing so much talking and explaining that I used up most of the time. However this tree was lacking in secondary ramification and tertiary ramification so I didn’t bother to do fine wiring of the foliage. That will need to grow in. This tree is still in phase 2 of of its styling process. Several more of the upper branches will need too be removed – especially some fatter branches. I did a decent job hiding them behind the front, but for a long term good solution the fat branches up top need to be removed. That would have taken too much off this tree at this point, so in light of protecting the health of the tree I opted to leave more foliage up top than the design requires.
Here is the initial styling and a sketch of the future of the tree. The design was to make a mother daughter tree with good use of negative space.

Here the audience starts to fill in for the demo. Sitting from the right is Mitch, Ian Lowrie, David, the Vicar, and a lad whose name I can’t recall. While the demo was ongoing, there was a regional new talent competition being held at the nursery and a very nice bonsai show. So much to see and do but I had to work

There were many nice trees in the exhibit. Here are only a few of them.

A juniper by Simom Temblett. Simon is a great artist with some really wonderful trees and ceramic work. He recently moved to the Suffolk area so the local club members will benefit from his talent in the area. Here are some of his trees – A tall juniper beautifully detailed, a Yew we started calling the Gothic Yew, and another elegant Yew with a bit of Heather growing in the pot. The last is a larch growing intentionally off balance to create motion in the mind’s eye. Simon’s trees displayed his talent as a strong visual artist. I believe Simon said he made the pots and stands as well.

Here are more photos of the Show. A batch of trees belonging to Ian Lowrie. First a Dawn Redwood, then a Juniper squamata and a small Champ pisitera. For the shohin Champy I’d like to see a finer soil covering or better yet some moss. The coarse particle ruin the scale of otherwise a fine small tree.

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John Pitt had some very nice trees in artful displays. He also had many of his nice pots for sale, a few of which found their way to the USA and a couple of the Sunday workshop students also bought great looking pots for their trees.
We’ll start with a nice raft style Chinese Elm on a slab – probably made by John. Then we’ll show a tasty Yew.

How about a Juniper and a nice Blackthorne display.

Here are some of the pots John had for sale. He also had some great deals on some yamadori.

Will Baddeley is a Green Lawns bonsai teacher. He displayed several great trees. This English Elm was at the recent Gingko show and I remember this tree from then because I really liked it. Will has put it in a bigger pot and it had leaves at this show. (It was leafless at Gingko.)

He also had this interesting Blackthorne and triple trunk Scots Pine on display.

This Hawthorne was another Will Baddeley bonsai. Beautiful leaves on this specimen.

Here are John Pitt (left) and Simon Temblett taking a moment from the hard work of the show.

I helped several people in a workshop on Sunday. Here is Harry, a 14 year old bonsai artist with lots of potential. I think it is safe to say Harry had a fun time, he participated very well in the new talent competition, camped out in a tent at the site and cooked his own food, and then made a nice Japanese White Pine bonsai at the workshop. Unfortunately I didn’t get photos of all workshop participants and no photographs of the trees after the work as my daughter took the camera for a sight seeing exhibition.

David, the local Vicar, also worked on a pine at the workshop. I can’ recall if this was a Scots pine or a Japanese White pine. Its tough getting old. I think it was a Scots. The tree came out very well and included some advanced bending techniques.

I worked with some other people on some nice trees but alas in the heat of battle did not get any photos. Shucks. One tree worthy of mention was Rosemary’s great English Elm. After a some work on the branches and little bit of work on some great deadwood (we subcontracted the lime sulfur tinting to Simom Temblett) she ended up with a Gingko quality tree. She even purchased a John Pitt pot that was perfect for the tree. I’d love to see a photo of that tree in the near future in the new pot.
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While visiting London, I stopped in Hornchurch to see Mick Sherman. Mick has a wonderful collection of trees very nicely displayed in his long back yard. When my wife learned he converted a tennis court in his yard to a bonsai garden she was dismayed but I was delighted.

While visiting Mick, Budi Sulisto, of Indonesia was in town. So we had a triparty global bonsai meeting. Nice Japanese Black Pine between us.

Here are a couple of Mick’s great trees. A Trident Maple over rock, A Japanese Black Pine, and a Mediterranean Olive.

Thanks for the great hospitality Mick.

I traveled to Mexico in November 2007.

While in Mexico I had the extreme privilege of collecting bonsai material with Enrique Castano and Jorge Gomez, of Mexico, along with Erik Wigret of the USA. One couldn’t ask for a more rewarding experience than to go collecting in a foreign country and in such a potensai rich environment.

Here are a few photos of my travels.

First we stopped at Jorge Gomez’ house. He has the bonsai bug as evidenced by his back yard.

This is a close up of one of Jorge’s potensia. Has good potential.

On the way out to the collecting site we had to contend with this road hog. We ended up playing chicken with him and passed.

Here we have Jorge, Enrique and Erik getting ready to dig some prime specimens.

A contorted tree and a great malpighia.

Here Erik and Jorge start to dig a Malpighia. And Jorge shows off a nice chunky tree.

Enrique and I did dig a few trees which I gave to Merida club members as I was not allowed to import any into the USA.

I checked out this termite mound. Termite are good allies in creating interesting natural dead wood.

We stopped for lunch at a small cafe near the beach. I ordered fried fish and that is exactly what I got. Tasted good though

Here is a group shot on the beach north of Merida.

We were collecting in Mayan country. At least we didn’t run into this guy.

I did visit Chinchen Itza, the Mayan ruins near Merida.
Here is the famous ball court. The idea was to put a 4 pound leather ball through this stone hoop by using any part of your body except for the hands. It had to be quite a chore.

This is a crucial part of the stone carving that explains the purpose of the ball court. The losers did not get killed, rather at certain times, the games took more significance and at those games, the winning captain volunteered to be sacrificed. The thought being his blood would arise in 6 streams, 5 would be serpents and one would flow to nourish the land ensuring a good harvest. I highlighted the kneeling captain in the second photo. You can see a kneeling figure wearing the sport uniform. His head is missing and 6 stream emanate from the neck. All of the streams are serpents except for one which continues on to the earth and gives the ground succor. The Mayan worshipped serpents. The round object symbolizes the ball and the face on it is supposed to be god. I didn’t highlight the severed head next to the ball talking to god but it is supposed to be the sacrificed player talking with god. Allegedly it was quite and honor to be sacrificed for the city and the family of the captain was looked after quite well. This process didn’t happen at all the games only a select few. Imagine if this applied to our modern overpaid professional athletes!!!

The other famous item at Chichen Itza is the pyramid. Very impressive, even if tourists are no longer allowed to walk up it. It was quite a thrill to see such antiquity in North America.