Whenever we have a program like this, Boon asks club members to bring trees in for critique, a bit of cutback, and styling. Club members don’t mind having Koku Fu winners “tweaking” their bonsai for free.

According to the feelings of the membership, this was one of the favorite accents for the pine. It only lost by one vote. The stand was “ruled” to be too tall when you stood right in front of the display.

Below is the (by one vote) winning accent plant with a wooden slab for the main tree. Bunjin bonsai are often shown on thin slabs  in Japan. But they never use the thick pieces of lumber that is too often used here in the US.   (Oops, I think an editorial comment just snuck out.)

(Please note that you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them, though the files are sort of large.)

This May we used Ned’s tree for the display-practice. The first picture was the overall winner in our discussion, but not by much.

There was a feeling that the stand above was too ornate and fancy. But members liked it for its size. The accent, though beautiful, most members ”voted” against.

The stand above members liked the best for its simplicity, but most felt that it was too big for the pot and the tree.  But they liked this accent the best. The camera-flash washed out the blue/grey color of the accent – which nicely complemented the color of the main tree’s pot.

This exercise just proves the bonsai rule: You can have a hundred pots and a hundred stands but not the perfect one. But in the end, you still have to choose one.