Bill Valavanis took this photo at the 45th Gafu Ten Shohin Bonsai Exhibition. Bill is a very busy man who provides an endless photographic stream of some of the world's best bonsai. Many are from Japan, including the ones shown here. Because it's impossible for him to do everything, some photos are without captions, including this one. So we'll leave it at that

Today's photos are from the recent 45th Gafu Ten Shohin Bonsai Exhibition in Kyoto, Japan. According to Bill Valavanis, who took all the photos shown here, Gafu Ten is the highest level small bonsai expo

Because Bill posted well over a hundred photos at Gafu Ten, I've decided to narrow things way down and focus on some that combine great trees with colorful pots. We might show some others later

A yellow to end all yellows. The tree looks like a flowering quince

 
Bill identified this one as a Crepe myrtle 

It takes a strong tree to hold its own in such a brilliant pot

Though there's no caption with this one, the fruit looks suspiciously like kumquat 

Though there are several shown here, bright yellow bonsai pots are not all that common.
The tree is a Rough bark privet

Must be a quince. Red like yellow, is not that common when it comes to bonsai pots

Serissa!!
The two exclamation points are straight from Bill 
Must be because Serissa aren't all that common in Japan 
You see them sometimes sold as indoor bonsai in here in the States,
but they're not that easy to grown and are prone to mites and other problems 

A pot with a story! Here's what Bill wrote about it...
"The 15th bonsai container competition included entries from France, Germany, Australia as well as the United States by Stacy Allen Muse and Roy Minarai. All the containers were beautiful and some were quite unique in shape as well as glazes. One of my favorite containers in the competition was a red container featuring a floral applique by Roy Minarai from South Carolina. I was at the set-up and judging and carefully looked at all the containers. Roy’s beautiful container had the top left of one flower petal broken off! I immediately phoned and facetimed Roy to show him the flaw. He was quite disappointed and I offered to darken the light-colored area with a black magic marker to disguise the break. Roy watched me from South Carolina as I painted the broken area. A couple of hours later as I was leaving the exhibition for the day I stopped to see his container. Someone found the broken flower petal and glued it back onto the container!"

To enjoy more of Bill Valavanis' endless stream of great bonsai photos, you can visit his blog here

Time to start making your plans. Here's your link to Bill's website where you'll find what you need to know. We'll see you there!

This strikingly beautiful tree in its full fall color is a 'Shishigashira' Japanese maple (Acer palmatum var. 'Shishigashira') that resides at the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum in Saitama Japan. Its estimated age is 120 years. And if you're wondering about the title of this post, Shishigashira is Japanese for 'lion's head' (scroll down to the bottom for more on this tree, including where 'lion's head' comes from)

We can't go too long without circling back to the bonsai of the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum, home to some of the best bonsai in the world. We borrowed most of today's photos from Bonsai Master on Facebook, a place that frequently puts up quality photos from Omiya and other Japanese sources.

These three photos are from Omiya's website

Literati style Japanese white pine (Pinus parviflora - Goyomatsu in Japanese).  Estimated age is 230 years

Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora - Akamatsu in Japanese). Estimated age 300 years. With bark this heavy and with it being such a venerable tree, a little reverse taper is no big deal

 Japanese white pine (Pinus parviflora). Estimated age 150 years. No reverse taper here

Winter silhouette of a broom style Japanese Zelkova (Zelkova serrata - Keyaki in Japanese). Estimated age 120 years. Broom style is common with Zelkova . In fact, I don't know when I last saw one that wasn't broom style

Omiya's Shishigashira again, but cropped for a closer look at the trunk, nebari and main branches

Here's a brief description of the Shishigashira Japanese maple that we borrowed from Mendocino Maple Nursery

"Shishigashira is a very desirable Acer palmatum for small gardens, container culture and bonsai. Shishigashira is a slow growing upright palmatum that has thick bunched-up, curled green leaves that give it a unique appearance. The leafstalks are short and stiff. Shishigashira name means lions head, referring to the shape of the leaf bunches. Fall colors can be stunning golds and oranges turning eventually to crimson. May reach 18 feet tall. Sun/ part shade" 

This powerful cascading Pemphis acidula belongs to Budi Sulistyo. You might notice the hand conveniently placed for scale

We've been fans of Budi Sulistyo since we first featured him all the way back in 2009, our first year with Bonsai Bark. Budi lives and practices bonsai in Jakarta, Indonesia, an important center for tropical bonsai innovation

Budi's Green island ficus

Unidentified bare boned bonsai from Bonsai and suiseki exhibition in ICE, BSD, Tangerang. Photo posted by Budi

Another unidentified tree from Bonsai and suiseki exhibition in ICE, BSD, Tangerang

Here's Budi's caption for this unique stone... "Suiseki exhibition in Masterpeace On fire Tangerang"

Budi's caption... "My new stone 'the moon'"

 Unidentified rock planting by Budi

  Budi's bunjjin
From a post we did way back in 2010. No variety is given

Budi with unidentified tree. The caption on Budi's timelines reads..."In ABFF Convention with Philippines Bantige" Bantique is one of the 7,641 Philippine islands

If you'd like to see more photos of Budi's and other people's bonsai and viewing stones, you can visit him on Facebook

This is the tree that inspired the U.S. National Bonsai Museum's logo. It's listed as a Sargent's juniper (Juniperus chinensis var sargentii), though in the bonsai world many might call this variety Shimpaku. It was donated to the Museum by Kenichi Oguchi in 1976 and has been in training since 1905

When I met Andy Bello at the 6th U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition in September 2018, he had just been selected as the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum's first Curator's Apprentice. Andy was young, friendly and enthusiastic about his new position. A perfect subject for a post here on Bonsai Bark

Then memory being what it is (or isn't) the idea slipped away. Now after more than a year, a post by Andy on the U.S. National Bonsai Foundations blog has jogged that old memory. Andy's post is titled First Curator's blog: My First Six Months as a Curator's Apprentice and it's our inspiration for this post 
Continued below...

 A job with a view. Andy Bello pruning a Korean black pine  
at Elandan Gardens in Bremerton, Washington.
This was before he assumed his apprentice position
at the U.S. National Bonsai Museum

Continued from above...
The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum's First Curator's Apprenticeship for 2019 is funded by generous grants to the National Bonsai Foundation from Toyota North America and The Hill Foundation

 Andy Bello with Michael Hagedorn 
on World Bonsai Day 2019
at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.
Michael is highly respected bonsai artist, teacher
and author of two Bonsai books:
Post Dated, the Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk
and his upcoming Bonsai Heresy, which is expected in April

 
This powerful Trident maple also resides at the U.S. National Bonsai Museum. (you can visit the Museum online here). Or even better you can visit it up close and personal (the difference between photos and these phenomenal bonsai in real time is astounding)  

For more on Andy's story, here's your link to the National Bonsai Foundation's blog

 Speaking of Michael Hagedorn (see above) 
Here's his Post Dated
Still the best bonsai read

Gnarly Branches, Ancient Trees
And...speaking of  Elandan Gardens (see above & below)
this brilliant book features Dan Robinson's bonsai  
which reside along with Dan at Elandan

 A small piece of Elandan Gardens

This splendid European  larch (Larix decidua) is one of several notable bonsai posted by Marco Merschel. Though there's no information with the photos about who Marco is, or even where he lives, it's clear the trees are his

Just one bonsai today, but it's a good one. And even though the tree is spectacular enough to deserve a post all its own, we've got some value added photos and info for you. Especially if you lean towards dendrology or contemporary paintingThe base of the trunk with its distinctive sabamiki and some freshly carved wood

Same tree in the spring with its fresh foliage. Larch is one of only a handful of deciduous conifers in the world (exactly how many there are, depends on who you talk to and how they classify)  

This full fall color display of European larches is from Wikipedia. The color is more orange (at least in this photo) than the bright yellows you see with our American larch (Larix laricina, aka Tamarack)

Here's a quote borrowed from Wikipedia...
"Larix decidua, the European larch, is a species of larch native to the mountains of central Europe, in the Alps and Carpathian Mountains as well as the Pyrenees, with disjunct lowland populations in northern Poland and southern Lithuania. Its life span has been confirmed to be close to 1000 years (with claims of up to 2000 years) but is more often around 200 years"...I'm not sure about this. 200 years average life span with individual trees living to 1,000 to 2,000 years doesn't make a lot of sense 

Another larch shot from Wikipedia 

If you squint I think you can make out some trees. This is one of a number of paintings that Marco posted

For more of Marco Merschel's bonsai and paintings
you can visit him on Facebook

While you're here, stop and take a look around...
There's a menu above... 

Close up of a famous old Japanese black pine named Zuio. This photo was taken at the 2015 Meifu Bonsai Exhibition one of Japan’s longest running bonsai shows. We found it on Danny Coffey's bonsai blog

All the photos shown here  are borrowed from Danny Coffey's Tree the People blog. Danny apprenticed in Japan and studied under Jack Sustic at the U.S. National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. He now lives and practices bonsai in Asheville North Carolina. We've shown some of these photos previously and some are new to us

Here's one we haven't shown before. It's an unusual tree in an equally unusual bonsai pot. The flowers look like they might be forsythia, but that's just my guess.  Another guess might be, is this a phoenix graft (tanuki)?

Cropped and blown up a little for a closer look at the deadwood and sabamiki

Here's one we originally featured back in 2016. The caption is Danny's... "This exposed root Japanese black pine is a blend of Japanese sensibility and American craftsmanship.... Obviously it's a Japanese species, and it's hard to argue that several of the styling cues are based on Japanese bonsai. However, this tree is 100% made in America. The tree itself, started from seed and grown as bonsai material in California. The pot, hand made by American potter Dale Cochy, circa 2004. All brought together, styled and finished by me, an American bonsai artists trained in Japan. An exciting collision of several worlds and a respectful nod to all things bonsai from US and Japan."

 Another one that's new to us. It looks like it might be a field grown Shimpaku

Danny Coffey with 47 Rhonin is another one we featured back in 2016. Here's his caption: "Recently the Pacific Bonsai Museum brought me out to Washington to do some bonsai work. This sub alpine fir forest was a really fun project. The bonsai was donated to the museum by Bob Kataoka. He originally built the composition in 1960 and named it 47 Ronin. Since then, it has died back to the 14 remaining trees seen in this photo. Still, I think 47 Ronin is a really cool name."

 I cropped old Zuio for a closer look at the magnificent trunk

If you'd like to see more of what Danny Coffey is up to, here's your link to hisTree the People blog 

 This Ezo spruce (Picea jezoenis) belongs to Walter Pall. It's one of the two 'after' shots Walter provided. The hand built tray by Dietmar Popp accentuates its untouched natural look

Today's tree was originally collected in Hokkaido, Japan sometime before 1950 and is now well over 100 years old. We've chosen ten photos from a step-by-step series of twenty nine photos by Walter Pall (scroll down for the link)
Continued below...

 Before

Continued from above...
Walter Pall is an enormously prolific bonsai artist with an unflagging commitment to sharing his work with the world. He presents his instructive step-by-step presentations so skillfully that it almost seems like you’re standing there looking over his shoulder. Or in this case, over Thomas’ shoulder (Walter’s wrote that "Thomas helped to get this on its way")
Continued below...

A close up of the large sabamiki (hollow in the trunk) taken before the work

 Thomas working deadwood at the edge of the sabamiki with what looks like a Bosch diegrinder

 Working the deadwood in the back with a Dremel type tool

Time to spring for a new wire brush?

Treating the deadwood with lime sulfur

 Wiring it down into it's new tray

Finished for now. Walter usually presents both black (at the top) and light grey backgrounds. Which do you prefer? 

 As mentioned above, Walter put up 29 photos in all showing the work and results on this tree. We are presenting only a small fraction here and encourage you to visit Walter on facebook to view the whole process

New Year Special - Most Items Marked Down

We can't stay away from Taiwan for long. Some of the very best tropical bonsai reside there, and in the mountains where temperatures are lower, you can find large bonsai nurseries full of field grown junipers (most look like Shimpaku). We've featured some of these in the past and will not doubt feature more in the future
Continued below...

Continued from above...
Our a more commercial note, we've decided to extend our year end Special into 2020. Everything* is marked down. Some items are marked way down (50% or more off). If you're on our blog (which you are) you're on our website (see the menu above). 
*We have 8 items that cannot be marked down due to contractual agreements. This means almost 99 percent of our approximately 600 items are marked down

 You can visit Sky Hsieh on Facebook for more great bonsai photos 

 Roy Nagatoshi grafted the Shimpaku foliage onto this masterpiece 700 year old yamadori California juniper that Dan Robinson collected and continues to grow and develop (provided Dan still owns it). You can find a lot more about this and dozens of other ancient masterpieces in Gnarly Branches, Ancient Trees, Will Hiltz wonderful book about Dan (the Picasso of bonsai) and his ongoing love affair with bonsai and nature.

This post* started out to be about the bonsai and grafting skills of Roy Nagatoshi but somewhere along the way I rediscovered the truly remarkable photo above and couldn’t resist leading with it. Though the tree belongs to Dan Robinson, Roy and his expert hand and eye played their part

Roy Nagatoshi's California juniper at the Nam Pu Kai Bonsai Club show. Photo by Keith Martin

A massive old Pomegranate from Roy Nagatoshi's nursery. This photo and one immediately below were borrowed from Capital Bonsai. The three fingers in the closeup below provide a pretty good idea of just how big this tree is

Roy enjoying himself

*Most of this post originally appeared here on Bark in 2017  

New Year Special - Everything* Marked Down

This Japanese hornbeam (Carpinus laxiflora) is from Bonsai Art Magazine (issue 129). I’ll let you provide your own superlatives. No artist’s name is provided for either of the trees shown here, but I’d bet they’re Japanese. I cropped this one for a closer look. The original is below

Our last post was on ramification (aka branching). Now we've got a couple more examples to further illustrate just what a difference good ramification can make

Taking cues from the Japanese once again...  The thing that most separates Japanese bonsai from much of the bonsai in the West is refinement. With deciduous trees this is most obvious when you look at ramification. Particularly the fine almost filagreed branching you see on the tree above
Continued below...

This superlative Crabapple (Malus toringo) is also from Bonsai Art issue 129. If you squint just a bit, you can see a profusion of little apples 

Continued from above...
Deciduous trees develop rapidly but they also lose their shape rapidly. In other words, with the application of some precise pruning and pinching, you can create excellent fine branching on deciduous trees in just a few years. But it’s an ongoing process that requires continued trimming and pinching to maintain. A labor of love, precision and patience

 The original uncropped photo

The other original uncropped photo

 The cover of Bonsai Art issue 129 

Year end Special - Everything* Marked Down
If you're on our Bonsai Bark blog, you're on our Stone Lantern website
(the menu is just above)
While you're here you might want to look at our Bonsai Essentials
They're All* Marked Down, Some 50% or More

 *The are 8 items out of approximately 600 total, that are not marked down