Bay Island Bonsai

Akio Kondo is Boon’s senior colleague. They both came out of the very famous bonsai garden, Kihachi-En in Japan. Kondo is a busy and succesful bonsai master in Japan. Among his awards is the very prestigious Nippon Bonsai Koku-Fu Award.

This year he will attend our Bay Island Bonsai Exhibit this weekend (15th – 16th  of January) in Pleasanton, California. At that time, he will choose one tree from the exhibit and give it the “Akio Kondo Bonsai Award.”

Along with the award, the winner will also receive a $ 300.00 bonsai pot carried back from Japan.   Which tree will it be?  Come and see.

You can now buy the “Bonsai Exhibit Book 2010” from our last show. Michael did a great job on the book. The photography was great. With just over a hundred pages of quality bonsai, this is a book worth having.

To buy the book, go to: http://bonsaiboon.com/pages/shopping.html

Of all the show books out there, this one has one added value. With every bonsai there is also information about the pot that was used with each bonsai. That makes this book also a pot-study book.

My favorite pot is on page 37. First of all, the bonsai is ancient. It is a variety not often seen: “Mino Yatsubusa” trident maple (these refuse to ramify).  But more importantly, the glaze on the pot matches the flaky bark of the bonsai well. It has my vote for best matching pot and tree.