shohin

Here's a small Japanese Black Pine I bought from Mike Hansen in Phlugerville TX about 7 or 8 years ago. It was before all of his health issues. He used to run a Japanese Black Pine school back then - in fact, I think that he pioneered the culture of Japanese Black Pine in Texas. Back in the...

Just got my first Japanese Black Pine, still pretty new to pines in general. I picked this one up on Muranaka's ebay page. I feel like it has great potential. I've always loved shohin pines and I've done a fair amount of reading on here and Bonsai Tonight. The concepts are just beginning to make...

Just wanted to start a thread to track this little guy's progress. This is my first olive. I got it today. I put a little wire on it and slipped it into a pond basket with zero root disturbance. I already like the basic size and structure of the tree, I'd just like to refine it. (I know my...

On this tree I plan to continue studying the finely ramified, triangular canopy, shohin Shimpaku informal upright shtick. I want a twisted trunk and stunning dead wood to be important features, as if this were more of a yamadori-inspired tree. I am intending at least 3–5 years of further...

This thread will track my progression of Shimpaku juniper nursery stock into an informal upright shohin bonsai. I'm targeting a final height of 6–8 inches and I'm planning to grow almost an entirely new canopy. This is a multi-year project. Obtained June 2015 in a 1-gallon nursery pot for...

I found this little guy at a local garden center. I was attracted to it because it had the thickest trunk and I saw an opportunity to chop it for taper. Since the chop, it's put out some strong growth, although not in the most desirable locations along the bends. Maybe spring will bring some new...

I find that setting up a shohin display is really hard. First, you have to have a lot of trees. Second, they need to be in a variety of styles and containers. AND they need to be a variety of species. AND they need to all be looking good at the same time. AND you need lots of stands. I think...

I thought I'd share one of my Shohin ficus. It was defoliated about 6 weeks ago - I plan on using it as part of my display for the fall show. Scott

Back story: I got this tree in 2010 from a bonsai nursery. It had been grown over a tile (poorly) and had almost no taper, but the shape of the trunk and fat roots intrigued me. Having been out of bonsai for several years and wanting something approximating mature, I put it in a bonsai pot...

Hi all Here is my little olive tree. It has all the right branches that i want. I will repot and put some good soil in early spring.

Last time I reported about these trees, I had just collected them. Sorry to say all but one died (thirteen total). This little one is the only survivor.

Just a small Ash I've had for 2 years. I think It will make a nice shohin tree in a couple more years.

I have quite a few wild plums. Here are some recent pics of two of them including a new air layer from this season.

Starting a thread on this maple from @Don Blackmond. I needed something to round out a shohin display, and this was an interesting addition. I bought it in leaf, but here are some shots from before I bought it.

I decided to repot my shohin Fukien Tea as it was no longer showing signs of thriving in its pot. Once, I removed the tree from the pot it was neither root bound or suffering from any root afflictions so I put it down to a poor soil mix it had been in for can't remember how long. After A...

I started out with three very, very similar junipers in one container hanging down in three different directions. They all basically looked like this about 2-3 three years ago. Just all straight with no movement. After deciding how to make them all look different. And facing the fact that the...

Probably my smallest real tree - it's a Field maple/Acer campestre - grown from a collected seedling. Going from a massive 4inch pot to a correctly proportioned 2incher from Walsall Ceramics. 03194695 by Jerry Norbury, on Flickr 03194697 by Jerry Norbury, on Flickr 03194703 by Jerry...

At the Shohin Convention last month I bought a few crabapples to play with - one of them appears to be dead, not dormant! Oops. Anyway, the two that are supposed to have white flowers are leafing out now. They're kind of ridiculous looking - a squat trunk with long straight upward shooting...

America, the great melting pot! A Sumie Ink painted Cricket A Red Chinese Chop-Stick Wrapper And a little light reading of Pages of Don Quixote On a Bonsai Scroll, perfect for that Shohin tree! A new line of fun and whimsical scrolls I have started making called Chinese Take-Away Scrolls!

I just potted up a little olive I bought from a landscape nursery, probably in late 2014, and I thought I'd share its evolution thus far - it's certainly been instructive for me. It was several feet tall, and I cut off all the long stuff so it could stand up in the car. One of the reasons I...

Here's a few pictures I took tonight of my English ivy. I have had this tree for about five and a half years now collected as urban yamadori. One thing I like about this Ivy is the leaves seem to reduce quite well. If anyone has any pictures of some examples of Ivy bonsai feel free to post them...

thinking about attending this: http://www.calshohin.org I had such a great experience at the GSBF 2015 convention, and I know there's a significant overlap in attendees. "The only event of it’s kind in the U.S. Every two years the California Shohin Society organizes a Shohin Seminar in Santa...

This Hachi-Gen was one of about 8 cultivars I worked with. I bought it because it was cutting-grown. It came from Brent Walston's Evergreen Gardenworks. Here is the description from his catalog: Pinus thunbergii 'Hachi Gen' (Cork Bark Black Pine) We obtained this cultivar from Ken Sugimoto...

This trident was dug today. It has been in the ground most of 10 years, and I've been eyeing it for a sumo-shohin. It might be too big for my plan, but we'll see how things go of the next few years. It's going to need a lot of root work to get there. My entry for the big PP contest: :D

A new pickup... Yesterday I introduced some Shari, reduced the jins a bit, and repotted it into some fresh soil and an old Bigei pot. This year, I'll pull in the apex a little, get the primary branches twisted up some more, and let it grow!