Sorry for the delay! Hopefully I can finish up 3 more posts before the weekend rush! So, let’s pick up where we left off…
Shinpukuji Temple
After our visit to Daijuen, we visited Shinpukuji temple, where the head abbot grows Bonsai of a dizzying array of species. There were several specimen bonsai on display in both an indoor Display area and outdoor garden, in addition to a back garden the Abbot gave us a tour of, which has many specimen bonsai in varying degrees of completeness, nestled quite a ways back into veritable jungle behind the temple.

Awesome Shinpaku.

Elephant foot Chinese Quince.

Semi Cascade Black Pine with cool deadwood.

Twin Trunk Tosho.

A very old multi trunk Japanese Maple.

Another large Chinese quince with great nebari.

Chinese Quince

Massive Hornbeam.

Goyomatsu.

Shinpaku.

Root over rock Kaede.

Big Momiji.

Camellia.

Clump style Kaede.

Camellia.
Shinpukuji Temple: Back Garden
The Back garden the Abbot and Mr. Fujiwara brought us to had an impressive variety of species, all shelved in near impenetrable undergrowth surrounded by towering forest.

Nestled in the jungle…

The above three pictures give you a little glimpse of the surroundings and the marvelous trees, many in development and many waiting for rotation into the display area.

Massive Hornbeam, the trunk completely obscured by healthy growth.

A wonderful Spindle tree(Komayumi, Euonymus sp.)

Massive White Pine.

Root over Rock Kaede.

Massive Princess Persimmon. If you look close, a few fruits are visible.

Crepe Myrtle(no secret that this is one of my favorite species).

Ume!!

A huge Akebia.
Aichien
After our visit to the temple, we headed over to the final leg of the “Daijuen family” of gardens: Aichien. I’m sure you’re all quite familiar with this nursery, from the blogs of Peter Tea and John Milton, and the Facebook postings of Juan Andrade. Aichien has a really wide variety of species, an specializes more in the creation of bonsai than in client maintenance and refinement. There were three western apprentices there, which made for an interesting tour.
In addition to the regular sights of a creation oriented nursery, we were also there to visit Matt Ouwinga’s Root over rock Kaede, prepared by Mr. Fujiwara and shown in this years Kokufu Ten.

Matt’s Kaede

Matt poses with his Kokufu tree while Peter looks on. I envy those sideburns, mate!

A couple if very impressive Red Pines showing interesting movement and deadwood.

Bench Shots!

More Bench Shots!

A few pines…

More Pines!

Large Japanese Maple.

Shimpaku with some fascinating movement.

Another large maple in an interesting pot.

Lush, healthy foliage in intense heat and sun….what am I doing wrong?!

Large citrus of some variety.

Crepe Myrtle.

An unusual Kaede, with a very unusual main branch and nebari.

Some root over rock Kaede.

A very interesting Root over rock Kaede of a variety I’m not 100% sure of. Looks a bit like Naruto, maybe.

A very large and fascinatingly based azalea. Osakazuki maybe?

And we’ll finish up your very brief look at Aichien with a couple of impressive Hokaidachi Keyaki(Broom Zelkovas). Fantastic bases and bark on these old Keyaki!!!
Many thanks to the western apprentices at Aichien for showing us around….I hope to see you guys again real soon, and hopefully for a bit longer 😉
Oh, and one more, I nearly forgot. This black pine was an experiment tree Tanaka San did for an article in Kinbon. A fully Defoliated black pine. Only time will tell if this technique produced the desired results, or entirely different ones…but either way, something NEW will be learned.

Up next: we visit another two of the Shohin and Pottery Meccas in Japan: Koju-En and Yamata-En. Also, there are temples in Japan. We took a forced break from bonsai and visited a couple. thanks Peter!