TOP 10: GREATEST BONSAI TREES

Though growing Bonsai trees is a hobby practiced by many people around the world, its Asian origin is still obvious. Not surprisingly, the most impressive trees are to be found in collections of famous Japanese masters. We have put together a list of ten stunning trees that are unique in their beauty, balance and realism. These trees will help you appreciate this ancient and fascinating art!
The ten trees are not ordered in any way.

(#1) An 800 year-old Bonsai tree at Shunkaen, by Kunio Kobayashi

A remarkable tree which is well known for its extremely high age; the tree is reported to be over 800 years old, one of the most expensive bonsai trees! Its owner, master Kobayashi, is one of the most well known Bonsai artists in the world and has won the prestigious Prime Minister award in Japan 4 times. His nursery, ShunkaEn, is located in Tokyo and is open to visitors. For more information, read the Shunka-en Bonsai page, or check the Bonsai artist profile of Kunio Kobayashi.

(#2) Goshin "protector of the spirits", by John Naka

Goshin ("protector of the spirit") is a bonsai created by John Y. Naka. It is a forest planting of eleven Foemina Junipers, the earliest of which Naka began training into bonsai in 1948. Naka donated it to the National Bonsai Foundation in 1984, to be displayed at the United States National Arboretum; it has been there ever since. The tree is posted on our Bonsai homepage, but you can also read more about John Naka in his Bonsai artist profile.


(#3) Small Bonsai; a Shohin tree by Morten Albek

A gorgeous Rockspray Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster horisontalis). This is a picture taken in spring; the tree flowers in summer and has small red berries in wintertime. The tree is only 9,5 cm (4 inches) high and is planted on a miniature rock. The pot is made by John Pitt, a famous potter. The tree is about 20 years old on the picture and has been in training for about a decade.


(#4) Pinus Silvestris, by Stefano Frisoni

This tree is remarkably realistic, a character highly valued for Bonsai trees. As you can see, the foliage pads are very dense, as if it were clouds in the sky. Read the article on how this tree was cultivated and trained here!


(#5) Chinese styled trees; a Penjing landscape by Yee-sun Wu

This wonderful Chinese landscape belongs to the Man Lung collection in Hong Kong. The trees are Chinese Bird Plums (Sageretia Theezans) and together make up a very realistic scenery. In the collection Ficus Bonsai are also popular. In this landscape, the trees, rock and miniature figurines are placed on a shallow rectangular pot (made of marble), which in turn is displayed on an antique table.




(#6) Flowering Bonsai, by Wolfgang Putz

This tree is an Azalea species of only 14 cm (5 inches) high. The picture is taken in late spring / early summer, the moment when Azalea trees bloom (shortly, but very vividly!). The tree is planted in a Japanese pot. We also have a Flowering Bonsai Top 10 article. Also, you can learn more about Wolfgang Putz in his Bonsai artist profile.

(#7) Brazilian rain tree, by Budi Sulistyo

This tree is grown from a small cutting and the result above is a picture taken 12 years later. A native of Central- and South America the Brazilian Rain tree is considered one of the tropical world's most beautiful and also one of the most popular bonsai subjects. Read the article on how this tree was cultivated and trained here!


(#8) Mame Bonsai display, by Morten Albek

A Bonsai display (or in this case, a Mame display) normally consist of a central tree, a scroll and an accent plant. Together these objects create a powerful image, often a celebration of the current season. Check more Shohin bonsai tree images.



(#9) Famous Bonsai; a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), by Walter Pall

One of the most famous Bonsai trees that belongs to the collection of an European Bonsai artist (Walter Pall), this tree is incredibly fine and realistic. The maple is big (almost a meter high, which is the maximum to be called a Bonsai tree) and over a hundred years old. A masterpiece without doubt, styled by an inspiring artist! The tree is posted in our Bonsai gallery.


(#10) Bonsai master Kimura

Last but not least, Bonsai sensei Masahiko Kimura. His varied collection of Bonsai trees is world famous. Started at age 15, Kimura was an apprentice to master Hamano in Omiya Bonsai village. For more of his fascinating and sometimes unconventional work, click here! Or read hisBonsai artist profile; Masahiko Kimura.

Pine Work

I spent some time this weekend doing some trimming and wiring on one of my pines (the little one). I think this one is onto its final branch selection now - and at last I have found the right front for it - which I cunningly neglected to photograph. I have left some of the lower branches very foliage-heavy as I want some extra vigour there because they are too skinny at the moment.


Sadly I have run out of wire and I have had to order some more to finish the job. I am now doing a full wire of all the branches from the trunk to the foliage. Its been an interesting experience with this one as I'm trying to put some extra movement into the straight inner branches while keeping it real and not resorting to cheap spiral tricks to tighten it up.







Here it is back in 2009 when I acquired it. It's come a long way in 4 years.






I now have some really nice deltas of foliage forming. Some more to come - but these are looking quite nice already. Each new generation of branching will now be shorter - and hopefully I have matched them correctly to the needle size.







I took off all the spare branches once I was decided on the final ones - and removed any undesirable internal branching. I have also removed a lot of the needles on the undersides of the branches as they often turn to buds and make a nuisance of themselves.

A lot more work to do on this one - but an enjoyable way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Pine musings

With summer arriving for a few days in southern England I have been paying close attention to my watering and fertilising - watering sometimes 3 times on the very hot days. I have been looking at the trees a lot but not doing much to them. The two large pines are interesting to watch as they are next to each other on the benches and on the same watering and food regime and yet the larger one is about 6 weeks behind in its growth cycle.





Today I noticed that the late winter wiring on some inner branches had already bitten in very severely and needed to be taken off before it was lost under the new growth.





I had also nibbled off all the long candles a while ago and the shorter ones have come out nicely - so they are pleasingly balanced for growth. They are now all evenly cut back to a minimum of maybe 12 pairs of needles and longer where needed. So both of the larger pines are now trimmed up and without wire. I will have a think about when I will apply the wire again. Certainly not soon as they are gaining weight so quickly I would need to redo it every few weeks.












Quite a lot of material was removed from the larger pine and a fine trimming of the smaller one was done. I won't cut again this year as I want the buds to form for next years growth. I may remove some buds. Last year I made the mistake of cutting back some branches in winter and they didn’t grow at all this year.









The larger pine is now cut for the summer and looking quite nice. Needs wire to bring a bit of order. I removed a large branch about halfway up a few weeks ago. I am trying to leave a lot of the branches I remove so that I can leave some deadwood - without creating a deadwood monster - as the wild trees I see often have some dead branches on the way up and that is the effect I want. I want the right side a bit lower to separate the foliage pads a bit better so I may do a guy-wire to get it down.

Also going to need a new pot - something a bit bigger as its starting to look very unbalanced to my eye. Probably a similar Jixing - but a little bigger. The pot for the other one is more complicated. I seem to be doing some sort of a semi-cascade thing.

Summer Lammas growth

Ive been enjoying a few more days away from work - a well timed gap between projects as I am able to water more often during this spell of hot weather we are having. The weather seems to have kicked off an unusual spurt of growth in some species - specifically the Beeches and Oaks.

I have written before about the Lammas growth - but this year it is very pronounced. I’m guessing that the nice weather has helped the trees to achieved their energy targets for the next winter and they have surplus so they spend it on new growth.

These Lammas leaves in the second flush seem to have come out very quickly and aren’t as nicely formed as the spring leaves. The Beech leaves are a strange colour and the Oak leaves can be slightly deformed having fewer lobes and unusual veins in the leaves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lammas_growth


My small first generation Beech which I potted for fun is coming along really nicely. It is by far the most vigorous of the current generation of Beeches I have. Almost every branch tip is giving growth. I’m nibbling away at the apex buds to keep its apical dominance at bay. These seems to be leading to the lower branches getting some growth as well.





On larger pot grown beeches I’ve nibbled back everything on the crowns to keep them in check. They will grow very thick branches up top if allowed - which leads to an ugly knob forming and no taper. The plan is to allow unrestricted growth on the side branches - especially the lower ones - to allow a good taper for form. Wild Beeches don’t have a great deal of taper but it will look nice - and nice even side branches are easy on the eyes.






In theory I am interrupting the apical mechanism by nibbling off these apex shoots which generate the Auxins hormone which is inhibiting the lower buds from growing - which should give me good sideways growth.







The Oaks are also doing the Lamas thing. I’ve allowed one of the Oaks to grow unchecked and its growing at a massive rate - this one is due for some strategic pruning soon. For taper I am also trying to keep the top end of the oaks in check and get the side branches working.

This Oak wanted nothing to do with hormones and simultaneously elongated everything.






These are my first generation of field / large container grown trees. They contain many mistakes and I see them purely as a learning exercise. Useful for acquiring technique - something large and cheap to try stuff out on. I don't expect and good bonsai material out of these - although the little beach is looking nice.


I planted what I would call second generation trees at the beginning of this year. I’ve allowed them to establish roots and will do some early wiring to the trunks to get something interesting happening there - none of that hyper contorted leaping dragon nonsense - just a bit of interest.




As usual the cat has been overseeing matters.

Oak Rescue

Here is my first oak at the beginning of the year - 6 or so years after I found it coming up in my vegetable patch. It was starting to look quite pleasing to my eye. A little skinny still but a few more years will fix that. It's the first oak because there are 3 more that have come after it that are gaining weight in the field and big pots and will be a lot better at this age.

The evening after this picture was taken we had an unpredicted but very heavy frost. I now realise that the skinny pot had also made the roots very vulnerable to the frost. The foliage was quite badly damaged - but not as much as a maple which had all its leaves killed.

I took the tree back under glass until the frosts were gone. It then went into a sheltered location outside. It had lost its vigour - no new growth happened - but there were still many good leaves. At this stage I was already applying foliar fertilisers and Rhizotonic.





My cat is peculiar little beast. She came running into my study yelling loudly for me to come and look. She then ran straight out and showed my the poor tree lying on the paving. Quite how it was wrenched out of its pot and thrown several feet I don't know.


I could see that there were very few live roots left - burned away by the frost I think. I got a little hope from a few new white roots visible on the edge of the root ball.





Somehow I just couldn't keep the tree upright. it got walked into and collided with for no good reason several times - no matter how far out of the way it was. This was making me very angry and I decided that action was needed if it was going to be saved - and that I wanted to save it. I ordered a new pot for it.


The tree needed to be in an environment that was going to encourage it to grow roots and recover.





The drainage layer is hydroponic clay pebbles - with the usual mesh over the holes. Then I placed a layer of coconut fibre. As an experiment I also bought some mycorrhiza specific to oaks which I sprinkled on the layer where the roots were going to sit. This would put it in direct contact with the roots.




I have been using a lot of coconut fibre (coir) for vegetables and some other growing projects - my chilli plants this year have been the most productive ever in this growing medium and the results are very good for other species. Other growers also report that it is similar to sphagnum moss in its ability to stimulate roots.


In my limited experience so far the organic growing media tends to attract fungus gnats in great numbers. I am in the process of trying out several cures.





The constant mist technique is used commercially for rooting cuttings. I tried to follow this methodology and mist the foliage as often as possible - aiming to keep it constantly moist. I also used some foliar feed and applied Canna Rhizotonic to the foliar feed.


I would advise you not to use fish emulsion as foliar fertiliser as during the summer it will attracted a great number of flies.


I also used Canna nutrients specific to the type of coco soil I was using and some additional Canna Rhizotonic to additionally stimulate the roots and relieve stress.





It took a long time but I have got new growth again. I hope this has put enough energy in so that it survives the winter.

I shall be more careful next year.

Deciduous bonsai displayed during this season reveal the beauty of the tree with everything showing, so viewers can study and appreciate the beauty of buds, bark, form. There is no hiding of any flaws or wire scars, which is often not the case with evergreen bonsai. This shows how well the trees have been trained and have aged during the years.

The Research Center even rented a baby grand piano and had two young brothers playing classical Christmas tunes on the piano and violin. The delightful and cheerful music was much better than loud Japanese music which is common at bonsai exhibitions.