In a few days our semi-annual exploration of the Japanese bonsai world tour will begin. We will, of course, visit the Tokoname kilns to see and perhaps purchase a few containers.

Each time I travel to Japan I photograph bonsai which deserve new containers. Considering the size, shape and colors, but more importantly their quality. Most Westerners do not consider the quality of containers because they are working on high levels of bonsai, especially considering when the trees are displayed. I have been known to purchase 12 containers for one bonsai for displaying in different seasons and styles of displays, only to return home to find a better container in my secrete bonsai container collection. I’m searching for four containers and my friend Dave Steele is looking for six new containers. Below are a couple of the pages, with important dimensions, we have prepared to make container shopping easier.

Note the sizes of the trees in relation to the containers. The dimensions have been converted to centimeters, to make measuring easier in. The dimensions provided are the most important factors I carefully consider when selecting new containers, PLUS the size of the container the tree is in.

Wish me luck finding new homes for a few of my favorite bonsai. But, if I don’t find them in November, I’ll another opportunity in January and again in February when returning to Japan for the Gafu Bonsai Exhibition, the Meifu Bonsai Exhibition and of course, the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition in February.

The autumn 2024 colors have come and gone (almost as there are about 10 Dwarf maple bonsai masterpieces which have not completely changed color.)

We were able to capture some individual bonsai in peak color, and I felt fortunate to enjoy them, as a reward for the great care my crew and family provided daily throughout the growing season.

Unfortunately, the autumn colors peaked while I was in California for the excellent 2024 Pacific Bonsai Expo in late October. Truthfully, I was quite disappointed with the autumn colors this season even the peak period was not as vibrant as in the past.

Below is my favorite autumn garden photo from November 2018. Perhaps we might have to wait another six to seven years to catch the beauty at the right time, when most of the trees change color at the same time. But, for now we are enjoying some autumn beauty.

Additionally, new this year, were super demonstrations, mini-lectures and a panel discussion with two of the top bonsai containers potters from Tokoname, Japan. There was also a bonsai potter from New Zealand selling his art. Each program was well attended or packed full of eager bonsai enthusiasts. Jonas Dupich “presented” a discussion on judging bonsai, but unfortunately a non-scheduled fire emergency alarm required everyone to promptly and safely leave the building. This entire event took less than 30 minutes to resolve and visitors appreciated a short visit outside in fresh air and sunny skies. 

The sales area was huge with over 60 different vendors from across the United States, Japan and New Zealand, making this the largest bonsai vending area… to date. Vendors brought their finest trained bonsai, pre-bonsai, containers, tools, wire, scrolls, books and magazines. Much of the plant material for sale were quite large in size.

A heartfelt message of appreciation from the entire bonsai community goes to Jonas, Eric and Andrew along with their army of volunteers for producing the Pacific Bonsai Expo 2024 which represents some of the finest bonsai in the United States. Producing a national event like this required two years of planning, long hours of preparations and considerable funds. I look forward to the next Pacific Bonsai Expo in 2026. Now is the time to prepare your entries.

This was a juried exhibition and approximately 300 photos were submitted. Judges included Bjorn Bjhorholm, Eric Schrader, Michael Hagedorn and David DeGroot. They carefully reviewed every entry and only selected the finest bonsai which will produce a well-balanced exhibition considering species, sizes, color and different styles. 

Each of the 74 bonsai compositions were designed, trained and grown by the owner or with the assistance of professional bonsai artist.

Every bonsai was allotted a six or eight-foot display area with a lovely solid non-creased grey background. It was up to the exhibitors to fill their assigned areas using the bonsai which was pre-judged. As the trees arrived each was professionally photographed for the Commemorative Album which will be produced in the future. After finally setting up the displays the room was emptied and judged by the exhibitors themselves. Directly after the judging a twilight evening Friday reception was held in the exhibition area to show appreciation to all the sponsors, donors, helpers and most importantly the exhibitors who shared the beauty of their bonsai.

The highly successful second Pacific Bonsai Expo was held on October 26-27, 2024 at the Henry J. Kaiser Center in Oakland, California. Stars of the educational event were the 74 formal bonsai compositions displayed by exhibitors from across the country from California to New York. The venue this year was considerably larger than the Expo in 2022. This offered more space to appreciate the bonsai without crowding. Over1,600 weekend passes were sold before the event, with a great number of walk in visitors.

Giant Sequoia

Giant Sequoia

This large national-scale exhibition was sponsored by a new non-profit organization formed so the Expo can financially continue into the future. Organizers Eric Schrader, Jonas Dupich, and Andrew Robson along with an army of volunteers did a superb job organining, hosting and preparing the high-quality bonsai displayed at their best. Having sponsored and helped produce over 100 events, I can truly say that the entire Pacific Bonsai Expo was excellent and one of the top two national bonsai exhibitions in the United States.

The Toronto Bonsai Society is celebrating their 60^th Anniversary Exhibition and Sale on October 11-13, 2024, at the Toronto Botanical Garden in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Achieving 60 years is a significant milestone that few other bonsai organizations have established a bonsai community yet.

The members and leadership of the Toronto Bonsai Society have successfully promoted bonsai for six decades, through exhibitions, displays, workshops, online zoom sessions, meetings, sponsoring international conventions and newsletters. 

The 60^th Anniversary Celebration includes some of the premier, iconic and legacy developed and created bonsai in Ontario, Canada. 

The exhibition was well designed, it’s not their first show! All the containers were cleaned as well as the trees and appropriate display tables. You don’t see that at all exhibitions, but they have had practice for 60 years and know how to layout a show, welcome visitors, set up neat backgrounds, table coverings and skirting in a classy way. PLUS, they displayed some of the most beautiful bonsai created in all of Canada. The trees were well spaced out and had different size trees next to each other to provide visual interest.

The Toronto Bonsai Society is well known for their powerful old collected trees, mostly Eastern White Cedars and American Larch. There were many of them, but not overwhelming and on display for the three-day event. A great number of the displayed beautiful trees included those developed by members from common nursery grown trees as well as some grown from seed, cutting, division and air layers.

The true beauty of each bonsai was clearly shown, and a great number have been well trained with love for many decades. The Japanese bonsai community has a word often used to describe bonsai “mochigome” which means aged and grown in containers. Most of these trees had this feeling and was clearly seen with old flakey bark rounded crowns and especially the ground covering with several different species of moss and lichen. And, a great number of ground covers were not recently planted but carefully cultivated for years, some decades in containers. There are some things which cannot be instantly created and most of the trees demonstrated the love and devotion the Toronto Bonsai Society members have given to create, train and maintain their art and it is wonderful for them to share beauty to the public as well as seasoned bonsai growers.

Addition there was a suiseki display as well as stones used throughout the show which had over 112 individual trees. The Montreal Botanical Garden brought many of their old bonsai and Chinese pejingn to enhance the show and displayed mature, developed trees for inspiration.

I personally feel honored to be invited to teach, demonstrate and conduct a constructive  critique from my different point of view, so the members could see things which instantly caught my eye, but were not clearly noticed. This style of constructive critique can only be valuable with a skilled artist having decades of bonsai study. My heart full appreciation was overwhelming to me personally and I hope the Toronto Bonsai Society continues with their success in teaching and promoting the beauty of bonsai in Canada. Congratulations on your 60^th Anniversary!

Last week our bonsai society had a special meeting on spruce bonsai. Harvey Carapella, Marc Arpag and I presented simultaneous  demonstrations, in addition to a formal display of one of our personal spruce bonsai.  

Harvey worked on refining an old Ezo spruce bonsai. Marc showed how to make the initial design selection on a large spruce. While I worked on redesigning and wiring a neglected spruce bonsai from a workshop over 25 years ago.

My spruce was a phoenix graft of a young Black hills spruce attached to a piece of old dead wood. The spruce seedling was finger sized when nailed to the dead wood. It grew! However, the dead wood did not change size, it only added more patina to the dead wood. The workshop tree sat in the back of the garden and was only watered and fertilized for 25 years. It was repotted once. None of the top growth was touched, except for light pinching, now and then.

Before demo

I selected this tree because the thin Black hills spruce trunk grew so heavy. Actually, I want to sell it, but the beauty was not apparent. It did have “inner beauty” in my eyes, AND I knew how to ‘fix’ it. The two hour  club demo provided me an opportunity to refine the bonsai.

Brian Whitcomb helped me use the heavy wire and Dave Steele provided the muscle for moving drastic branches. It took us two hours to create the shape of this tree, while Harvey and Marc were explaining their demos. I also participated in the group discussion.

Then the three of us adventured to the attic where a few containers are kept in a crowded mess. And, I only fell two times and Dave picked me up, dusted me off and I proceeded. After some time we selected seven “possible” new containers. Most were the right size, one was too small and one was too large. This process, selecting, discussing and trying each container and photographing the various combinations took us about one hour and thirty minutes. 

Final shape before potting and selecting container

We finally agreed on the perfect container and yesterday Brian and Dave repotted the tree, then another 30 minutes we spent adjusting the branches and trunk position.

We were lucky I had many containers to select from to narrow it down to only seven. (Not really lucky, as most of the containers are in my personal taste and preferred sizes, shapes and colors.) 

Before demo After demo, adjust

Before demo After demo, adjustments & potting

Take a look at each combination and let us know your personal selection and why. Best to answer on Facebook for easy posting.

We all enjoyed this exercise and the final composition came out just how I had expected. Now a new owner must care and refine this spruce bonsai.

The Toronto Bonsai Society will soon be celebrating their 60^th Anniversary Exhibition and Sale on October 11-13, 2024, at the Toronto Botanical Garden in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Achieving 60 years is a significant milestone that few other bonsai organizations have established a bonsai community yet.

The members and leadership of the Toronto Bonsai Society have successfully promoted bonsai for six decades, through exhibitions, displays, workshops, online zoom sessions, meetings and newsletters. 

The 60^th Anniversary Celebration will feature some of the premier developed bonsai in Ontario, Canada. From the small shohin bonsai which fit in the palm of your hand to developed trees older than your grandparents will be displayed. The incredible variety of native Canadian trees collected, trained and cultivated for bonsai by members will be shown to the public as well as bonsai hobbyists in the region. Additionally, trees just starting their bonsai journey will be shown.

Other educational activities of the 60^th Anniversary Celebration will include demonstrations, workshops, guided tours and a sales area where quality items for the training and enjoyment can be purchased.

Special guests include William N. Valavanis, (International Bonsai Arboretum in Rochester, New York, and Eric Auger and Marianne Duhammel, curators of the famed Bonsai & Penjing Collection at the Montreal Botanical Garden in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Everyone is invited to join me at the 60^th Anniversary Exhibition as we celebrate the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Photos by Joe Noga of a few of the Toronto Bonsai members’ fine masterpiece bonsai.

Check out this YouTube video of their Spring 2024 Exhibition and sale:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7raj2xVky4

We all love bonsai, to many of us it is a way of life, as we care for the trees and shape them into bonsai. Many require decades of timeless hard work which we find pleasurable as we create living art.

For some time now, there have been numerous bonsai masterpieces stolen in Japan, moved to an Asian country then sold to westerners, especially in the United Sates, through the internet. The thieves are disrespecting the years of time, often through multiple generations, Japanese bonsai artists take to create their art. Several bonsai artists are using video cameras to guard their treasurers. Others have closed their gardens to foreigners.

To many, bonsai are more than small trees in pots, having spent years of development. To some thief’s it is an illegal business just make money.

This illegal busines of selling stolen bonsai to foreigners must be stopped. I strongly suggest not purchase famous masterpiece bonsai from out of the United States, especially at low prices. How do you determine if you are offered masterpiece bonsai at a ridiculous low price? Simple, if the bonsai sale deal is too good to be true, it probably is.

Last year in July 2023 my son forwarded a bonsai offered for sale and asked if I recognized the tree. The price was US $500, POSTPAID. I told him to buy as many as he can… just kidding, I did nothing. Of course, I recognized the bonsai as having seen it multiple times in Japan. This multiple award-winning masterpiece Japanese black pine is one of the most famous iconic well-known bonsai in Japan named “Kokuryu.” I have often studied it at many exhibitions and have seen it in Masahiko Kimura’s Garden. Kunio Kobayashi, Shunka-en Bonsai Museum, is responsible for saving the bonsai from death and creating a new design a couple of decades ago.

Japanese black pine “Kokuryu” 1977. Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition prize winner

The last time I saw it was at the 2023 Kokufu Bonsai exhibition (it grew!)

Japanese black pine “Kokuryu” 2023. Displayed at the 2023 97th Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition.

I strongly suggest and urge people think seriously about buying Japanese bonsai offered on the internet at low prices.