Shun Ten 2008

This important event took place from April 28 to 30 in Landsberg, Bavaria, near Munich, Germany. The Shun Ten is held every two years and is considered one of the 'Grand Slam' events of Europe. The exhibited trees are by invitation only and they came from all over Europe, manly Central Europe. This time only medium sized trees were allowed, from 25 cm to 55 cm in size.

Here some glimpses:

1) Zelkova
2) Japanese maple
3) mugo
4) mugo and wild cherry in tokonoma
5) Japanse maple in tokonoma
6) Chinese Juiper and Zelkova in tokonoma

more images from the Karlsruhe weekend

Philipp has provided these. Thank you.

Bonsai in Karlsruh, Germany

I spent the weekend in Karlsruhe, Germany, which is west of Stuttgart. We had a two day workshop with a dozen enthusiasts at Bonsai Beck (Günter Beck is on first image). It was quite interesting. I was only able to make photgraphs of the folks there and hope to be able to provide some images of the trees later.

Second South-East-European Bonsai Symposium #8

Here some glimpses into Marija's and Andrija's garden:

by far then best pistacia that I ever saw
lots of olives and phyllirea
a strawberry tree

To see more go to KoB

Second South-East-European Bonsai Symposium #7

Thank you so very much Marija and all the rest of the crew! This will be unforgettable. We may well look backa the stat of bonsai in Croatia many years form now. I see a great future for bonsai in your area. The level of enthusiasm, artistic feeling and will to achieve is enormous.

The next South-East-European Bonsai Sympoium will take place in April 2009 near Zagreb in Croatia. I really look forward to this.

Dalmatian crocus.

Second South-East-European Bonsai Symposium #6

Now this will bring tears to many eyes, I know. We found a few outstading shohin. On the images it looks like this should be easy and you could also do it. Well, you will not find them without local scouts. You will not know where and how to get permission. To get the trees out is about five times harder than in Germany and other places, because of the rocks and the lack of tight root balls. You will have to drive tvelve to twenty hours one way. You will have to cross four borders and show phytosanitary documents and answer nasty questions. You have to get phytosanityry documents locally. Stones are everywhere! And very poisenous vipers are not rare at all! To really scare you off you have to understand that there was a fierce war there fifteen years ago. In many areas there are still mines and shells. I wish you good luck.

These are Carpinus orientalis, Fraxinus ornus and Cornus mas. Some unfortunately don't have too many roots. We will see. BTW, goats are even better than sheep in proparing material.