Bonsai Boon is a well know teacher of bonsai techniques and cultivation as well as the founder of Bay Island Bonsai in Alameda who’s annual January show sets a high standard. At our July meeting the subject was shohin bonsai defined by Boon as bonsai 20cm high or just under 8 inches. Any bonsai under 2 inches is called mame meaning little bean.

To illustrate his talk Boon brought an assortment of shohin bonsai of many different types of trees and various types of stands used to display shohin trees. Boon began by telling us that the formal display of shohin follows specific guidelines. Shohin trees are almost always shown in groups. The trees are usually placed inside a box stand which has platforms on different levels and is open in the front and back. The stand represents a mountain range in a figurative way with the different platforms representing different elevations. The top platform is reserved for the trees that grow highest in the mountains, almost always a pine or juniper. However black pine which is a low coastal tree is given the highest position on the display. If showing both pine and juniper the pine gets the top position. Also the style of the top tree should be informal upright, formal upright or slant. Deciduous trees are ranked as well with Japanese maples given higher position than tridents or elms.

When selecting trees to display together on a box stand it is important to keep all the trees to a similar size. Just as in regular displays the heights of the trees should not be exactly the same. If they are add an additional small stand to raise one tree up a bit. Also the movement of
the lower trees should be toward the center of the display.
Vary pots to create interest. Shohin can be kept in brightly colored or fancy pots to catch the eye but use no more than one dazzler in a single display. Outside the box should be placed an accent on a stand. The movement of the tree on top of the box should be toward this accent.
This can be a semi cascade or cascade tree which points back at the box display or a simple accent plant always on a stand. The proportion and balance of the accent to the box display is important.

While it is always expected that the display will be made up of different types of trees an exception is an all satsuki azalea display. The exercise of choosing trees to display together was interesting and one that we could all practice more but questions from club members turned to cultivation and care and Boon had much information to share.

Over all Boon recommended that we learn from observing tree?s habits in nature rather than referencing old out dated books. Specifically he discussed various methods for decandling black pine and how he systematically takes a black pine, for instance, in organic potting soil and does not decandle the first year. Then he repots the tree in inorganic soil to control feeding. This Boon says is a key part of the decandling process. Decandling reduces needle size, food has an effect on this as well. Organic soils continually feed the tree during the period after decandling which increases needle size and defeats the purpose. Boon places feeding pellets on his inorganic soil when he wants to feed the pines. Always in the spring but also from September through November. The fall feeding follows the fast after decandling when the pellets are removed for two months while the new buds form and smaller needles emerge.

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