Bonsai

I am an avid fan of Bonsai so I took a little course of doing it when I was in Okinawa. I took this pictures of Bonsai plants of the Masters. I remember my teacher told me to take Ikebana class, the art of flower arrangement, instead. In Japan the art of Bonsai is for men, and Ikebana is for women. I told him, Ikebana is more of a personal preference when you arrange flowers and to me that is easy, but the art of Bonsai takes more time and patience because you have to wait for the plant what style it wants you to do. What I mean is the skills needed to prune and tie the plant to your desired shape as the end result of manipulating and wiring the tiny branches to me is more my personality. I know I have patience enough to wait for something like orchids for example, to bloom the second time around. I like the challenge I supposed.

I am currently training a bougainvillea plant as a bonsai. My friend who gave it to me have it for about ten years and it’s in my care for about five years now. It is blossoming right now actually and it looks spectacular. I understand there are only certain trees or plants you can use but I want to try different specimens like the rubber tree and the banyan or ficus that I am training right now.

My favorite styles of bonsai are the windswept and the cascading. They remind me of the coast of California where I see pine trees in their natural windswept look. It would be a good thing if I can reproduce something like that. I would be very proud.