Nursery Day

Today we were on the bus headed to three bonsai nurseries in the Omiya Bonsai Village.

Mansei-en Nursery "Garden of Greenery"

This nursery goes back five generations to Master Saburo Kato, often referred to as the grandfather of bonsai. This bonsai was a standout for me.

Here it is from the right side. Ridonkulous, right?!

They had a large suiseki area that attracted a lot of business from our tour group. This one below is the largest chrysanthemum stone we'd seen yet, sadly it was a client stone and not for sale. The white star shaped marking is what makes it a chrysanthemum stone. They are also referred to as flower stones or kikkaseki. 



This one above is from the Abegawa river back in Kyoto, known for it's black stones. David ended up buying this one. I may have encouraged him a little. The box was included, which now that David knows that some come with boxes, it's almost hard for him to buy one without, LOL.

The funny thing about this nursery was the bathroom. I had heard about it before and seen them in previous bathrooms, but this was the first one that had a dedicated panel for it.


You press it and it makes a flushing sound to give you some sound camouflage so you can take care of business in privacy. Awesome, right?!

Fuyo-en Nursery "Garden of Seasonal Trees" or "forest-style garden"

Master Hiroshi Takeyama is the owner of this nursery, he was the president of the Japanese Bonsai Association for many years. His is also considered the best deciduous garden in Japan.


This was a tokonama in the workshop, which is an area for displaying art and other decorative objects.

Twisted Pomegranate sitting in the greenhouse

A closer look at the trunk

This is Ira and Bjorn, towering over Master Takeyama.


A quick stop for lunch, bento boxes today.

Toju-en Nursery "clump-style"

This is a third generation nursery and also the nursery where Masahiko Kimura apprenticed for 11 years from the age of 15. The YouTube channel, Bonsai Q is run by one of the employees here. If you're interested, here is a link to one of his videos How to start bonsai

I had never heard of the channel before but one of the members of our tour was so excited to meet him and get a photo with him. Bjorn said the videos are done in a sort of Japanese gameshow style format. Perhaps that attracts the younger set to bonsai, which is sorely needed in Japan.

So many trees and so many pots. It's overwhelming!

This is a view of the workshop. I was imagining a 15 year old Kimura slaving away for 11 years of his life one one of these chairs.

Shunka-en Nursery

This is the nursery and museum of Kunio Kobayashi, three time winner of Japan's prestigious President's Award. This nursery visit was an entirely different experience altogether. They first gathered us in the showcase area for a group photo complete with a flag for each of the countries represented by our group. Every tree in this area is a showstopper.



Then one of his apprentices took us on a guided tour of the museum. As we entered the museum, we stopped to take our shoes off, the mother of all chrysanthemum stones was just sitting there. David was freaking out!

Everywhere you looked, there were beautiful spaces to rest your eyes on.


This was more of a garden versus a nursery.


Suiseki just lined up along the wall.


Afterwards, they brought us all in for tea and cookies. Master Kobayashi gave each one of us a signed book and then those of us who purchased any of his other books sat with him for his autograph and a photo. He was SO happy to have us there and enjoyed his celebrity status.


Afterwards we had a little more time to walk around the garden. This was the view from up top.


Here are more photos of the showstopper trees.



Everywhere you turned there was something you wanted to take a picture of.



Even his walls were pretty.


My favorite part was when we left, Master Kobayashi made all his apprentices come out to wave us goodbye. It was so sweet.


It was a great nursery day. We had a little downtime before dinner and enjoyed a lovely view of the full moon. 


Then David took us on another culinary adventure.


Tomorrow Kimura's garden and Part 2 of the Kokufu.

A dopo!

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