At the KAWA Bonsai, Joy of Bonsai I noticed the accent plants that were displayed along with the bonsai. Many times they are over looked, but they add so much to a great display. The are normally only a few inches tall. Here are a few examples.
Over the past weekend I entered my miniature tokonama at the Joy of Bonsai, sponsored by the KAWA Bonsai club. If you haven’t been to it or even heard of it, you are missing out. This small club puts on a world class bonsai convention, display, and demonstration every year, and it just keeps getting better.
Miniature Tokonama
I am really happy with the way it turned out, and I think my composition was simple and balanced. However there was good competition.
Tokonama Contest Entries
When you see close ups of these little tokonama it is hard to judge how small they are. I hope this photo gives a good idea of just how miniature everything is.
Tokonama Competition 3rd place
Although I didn’t win the competition, I did still manage to take home 3rd place. Not bad I guess. I just need to start working on small trees so that next time I will hopefully do better. All in all I really enjoyed the experience
If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you probably realize I don’t do small trees. So I found myself with a bit of a problem as the Tokonama competition draws near. This means that I better do a small tree, and I better do it fast. I found that small pre-bonsai material is CHEAP. I picked up a small Procumbens Nana today at Home Depot (of all places) foronly $4.oo. It was so dense I couldn’t see the trunk, but I knew I only needed a small tree. So no matter what trunk I had in there it would be fine.
what a mess
Just look how dense that foliage is. It took me a few minutes just to figure out where to start.
I was surprized to see such a large trunk when I started to remove the branches. I had really wanted something a little smaller, and I was hoping to do a cascade. There were many options in there, but I needed to find something that looks like an established tree.
This is how it turned out. Not the cascade I was hoping for, but I’m pretty happy with it. The picture was taken right after I watered it, so it has a shine to it. I’m going to hold off on the pictures of the tree in the Tokonama until after the competition. However the funny thing about it is that this tree, even though it is very small, looks big in the Tokonama. Fun stuff. I may get used to doing little trees after all. Who knows?
Nope, it’s not a baby, just a Bald Cypress that I have added to my collection. Actually I purchased this collected tree last year from Mary Madison. However it was in too large of a container and it needed another year to recover and develop roots. Even though Bald Cypress do well as Bonsai, this is one type of tree that requires patience. You can’t rush them or you will certainly lose them.
Bald Cypress rootball
Here is the Cypress as I removed it from the nursery container. The ball is huge and needed to be reduced quite a bit.
Bald Cypress Roots
Big trees need big pots
Initial planting - Bald Cypress
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