Bonsai Show Prep
Show prep starts with the decision to show a tree. From there, the focus is on styling the tree - wiring, fine branch setting, and trimming. The next major hurdle is finding an ...
Making Bonsai Stands Creates Lots of Sawdust
A step-by-step walk through of Eric's design and build of his own bonsai stands, using typical mortise and tenon joints as well as the more intricate and complex joints that hav...
OUR MISSION
Bonsai for You
Our mission is to educate and facilitate enjoyment of bonsai as a hobby sustainably, with a carbon neutral impact to the planet. We are committed to producing modern mini-bonsai that anyone can easily care for and enjoy
Blue Atlas Cedar Saga
While not a traditional bonsai species, Blue Atlas Cedar seem to be good subjects for bonsai. They have short needles naturally; grow quickly under good conditions; and seem to ...
Working with Collected Ponderosa Pines for Bonsai
Among American native pine species, Ponderosa is perhaps the most popular species to collect and train as bonsai. This species grows quickly in the wild but very slowly in bonsa...
Small Black Pine Progress
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Fall is the ideal time to work on Japanese Black Pines. This article examines three small black pines before and after Eric worked on them, focuse...
What Should a Shohin Bonsai Look Like?
Just like any bonsai, shohin are created in different styles, with differing trunk sizes and to differing degrees of ramification. What is the standard of quality and/or most de...
Too Straight For a Juniper Bonsai?
Where did the rule that Juniper bonsai must be twisty and contorted come from? What makes one tree better than another in bonsai? Is it a convention or is it a fact? Bonsai come...
Visual Flow in Bonsai
To create a well-designed bonsai requires finding a balance between two competing factors – human perception and the natural form of a mature tree. While a tree in nature exists...
Bonsai Rocks: Collecting Stones from the River
Eric goes stone collecting to find rocks that will work work specifically for creating root over rock bonsai. Includes sketches of possible designs for a bonsai tree on top of a...
Branch Flattening for Light Optimization and Taper Control in Juniper Stock
Refinement and stock growing are often two entirely separate parts of the bonsai process. When working on young plants I aim to create the best tree possible in the shortest pos...
What Your Bonsai Collection Would Look Like if I Had a Say
What is Eric's ideal composition for a bonsai collection? In this post he explains the optimal mix of sizes, shapes, and species of trees that provide an ideal learning path for...
To Saulieu, France and Back - 2019 Bonsai-San Show
A quick review of the 2019 Bonsai-San show in Saulieu, France. Includes a video walk-through of this global bonsai show, one of the largest and best bonsai shows in Europe.
Mame Kishu Juniper Bonsai
Eric offers advice and five key points to consider when making mame Kishu juniper bonsai. They are so much fun to work with; just some cutback, fine wiring, and additional shari...
Bonsai Kayak
That time Eric Schrader designed and built a kayak specifically for a white pine bonsai clump to show at the Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco's Japantown, and then took ...
The Artisans Cup Judging
In their Sunday afternoon panel discussion Ryan and Chelsea Neil expressed a desire for creating professional standards in bonsai and for consistency and transparency in judging...
Reflections on the Artisans Cup
Eric walks through his experience at the 2015 Artisans Cup, where he showed a grafted California Juniper at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon.
A Conversation with John Boyce
An interview with John Boyce, one of Eric's first teachers and a founding member of the Bonsai Society of San Francisco. John's approach to bonsai incorporates minimalism, Japan...