Tomentosa cherry (Prunus tomentosa: Japanese Yasura-ume). The Japanese love of flowering cherries is evident in this gnarled old shohin size (5") bonsai. This and the other photos shown here were scanned from Classic Bonsai of Japan (Kodansha, now out of print)

I've been working on an interview with Michael Hagedorn, which I hope to have for you in our next post. Meanwhile here are three photos from a post we did back in 2017. They're from the book, Classic Bonsai of Japan (now out of print). 

As an off-topic distraction, I've a added a few words about a couple weeks in the life of local bonsai enthusiast 
Continued below...

Karume azalea (Rhododendron obtusum: Japanese Kurume-tsutsuji) 
 

Continued from above...
It's that time of year when it's almost impossible to keep up. In addition to my day job (Stone Lantern, Bonsai Bark and our Newsletter) there has been lots of digging the last two or three weeks. This entails moving stock (mostly larches) from our growing areas and into growing pots. For most plants these are Tie pots, though for bigger ones we use large nursery pots (next year we plan to build boxes for some of the real monsters)

Now that most of the digging is done here, tomorrow we'll make a trip up north to a friend's hot bed of native larch (Larix laricina). They're in a cold pocket, a couple weeks behind us here, so the time is right. We'll dig a couple dozen there and plant them in the ground here where they'll grow on for a few years before we move them into pots. And so the cycle repeats itself

Then of course there's fertilizing and so much more to accomplish this time of year, but we'll leave that for another time. 

Japanese apricot (Latin-Prunus mume: Japanese-Ume). From Classic Bonsai of Japan (Nippon Bonsai Association). My apologies for cutting off the bottom of the pot; my scanner couldn’t quite fit the whole photo

 Tie pots are available at Stone Lantern