Interesting Advice from Young Choe

[Gabler]

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to take a kusamono class and workshop taught by Young Choe. She started with a short lecture before we moved into the workshop to get our hands dirty. A small but significant portion of the lecture was a discussion of accent plant choices and how to pair an accent plant with a bonsai tree. She showed numerous slides with pictures of trees from past national shows, as well as MABS, and she offered some commentary on the plant choices.

One of her favorite pairings was a planting of horsetails and pitcher plants collected from a bog at the same time as the tree on display. I want to say it was a tamarack, but I could be mistaken. (She also complained about tropical plants paired with temperate trees.) She therefore advised that every time you collect a yamadori tree, you should always collect some interesting plants from nearby to make an accent planting for the tree.

It's a bit of an Egg of Columbus maneuver. In hindsight, it seems obvious that plants from the same location would pair well with a tree, but I never would have had the foresight to collect herbaceous plants at the same time as a tree. For that reason, I thought it was advice worth sharing.

 

[Tieball]

An interesting procedure. I like her thought process and it makes sense really….practical sense.

 

[Gabler]

On a tangentially-related note, Longwood was temporarily storing this tree in the workshop where we were working. For scale, the stand is the size of a forklift pallet, probably in order to move the tree by forklift.

 

[Tieball]

On a tangentially-related note, Longwood was temporarily storing this tree in the workshop where we were working. For scale, the stand is the size of a forklift pallet, probably in order to move the tree by forklift.

View attachment 511768

That’s huge. And nice looking.

 

[queenofsheba52]

That is a great idea, to gather some plants when digging yamadori! Why did I not think of that??

Looks like a lot of happy people in that class.

 

[Shogun610]

Yes very good method for pairing understory or accent plantings. I have collected in wild but also extremely lucky I live close to a native plant nursery , proud to say every single accent planting I have is all natives.

 

[Gabler]

Yes very good method for pairing understory or accent plantings. I have collected in wild but also extremely lucky I live close to a native plant nursery , proud to say every single accent planting I have is all natives.

I'm not too far from you. What's the native plant nursery?

 

[Shogun610]

I'm not too far from you. What's the native plant nursery?

That’s a dm question.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

That’s a dm question.

Actually it is perfectly okay to mention commercial firms in posts. I do it all the time. No hard and fast rules about it if one does not go overboard. A number of commercial growers are members here, such as

Wigert’s Bonsai – Specializing in the Art of Bonsai

and

Evergreen Gardenworks

and

Backcountry Bonsai

www.backcountrybonsai.com

so it is considered good to promote commercial members who contribute positively to forum.

So go ahead and promote commercial businesses who might be helpful resources to the bonsai hobby.

 

[queenofsheba52]

i think kingsvillegrower is a Bnut also. Wonderful JMs!

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Young Choe's point about using species native or associated with the tree in the wild is "nice" in theory, and is not too hard to do if you are working with larger sizes of bonsai. Ms Young Choe is at the National Bonsai Museum, and has excellent larger scale bonsai to work to pair kusamono with.

However, scale is a factor that trumps native associations. If you are creating shohin trees, you often can not create sufficiently miniature versions of typical understory plants. You then have to substitute. Mosses stand in for grasses, etc.

Also, many of us grow species not native to our locality. A monstera would be an appropriate understory plant for a Ficus, yet look ridiculous in a bonsai display.

So while in principle there is nothing wrong with Young Choe's suggestion, for many of us it is just not practical at all to follow. Both for scale or proportions reasons and or for availability reasons if we are growing non native species.

Keeping your accent plantings in proportion with your tree on display is of prime importance. The accent helps set the place, as in suggesting forest, or field or mountain top, lake shore, stream bank, or meadow. The accent assists in setting time of year. Flowers are spring and summer, fruit is summer and autumn. Leaf color indicates season. Lack of leaves or brown leaves indicates winter.

So the accent has many functions and depending on the story one wants to tell with their display, the accent can be a carefully curated native companion, or a carefully chosen exotic that makes the statement one wants to make with their display.

And then there is my favorite type of Kusamono; Sanyasou where the kusamono itself is the sole focal point of the display. Not all plantings can carry the task of being the focal point, but many of Young Choe plantings are dramatic enough that they can be the foal point of a display.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

For Midwesterners looking for native and for exotic species for kusamono, I have only bought from them a couple times "pre-covid" but was quite happy with them for both experiences.

Arrowhead Alpines

Rare plants for Obsessive Gardeners Arrowhead Alpines Shop Now

arrowheadalpines.com

 

[B-Trees]

So while in principle there is nothing wrong with Young Choe's suggestion, for many of us it is just not practical at all to follow. Both for scale or proportions reasons and or for availability reasons if we are growing non native species.

Keeping your accent plantings in proportion with your tree on display is of prime importance. The accent helps set the place, as in suggesting forest, or field or mountain top, lake shore, stream bank, or meadow. The accent assists in setting time of year. Flowers are spring and summer, fruit is summer and autumn. Leaf color indicates season. Lack of leaves or brown leaves indicates winter.

So the accent has many functions and depending on the story one wants to tell with their display, the accent can be a carefully curated native companion, or a carefully chosen exotic that makes the statement one wants to make with their display.

This is so important to keep in mind. I'll add too that kusamono/ shitakusa takes research. You need to look into the botany of individual plants and determine if they'll accept not just container culture, but the smallest container culture possible. There's only so many plants that can do that. Lamiaceae or saxifragiceae are generally accepting, for example, while asteraceae is hit and miss.

Near me, there's chaparral which doesn't have a ton of plants that can handle bonsai/ kusa conditions. They're hugely sensitive to summer water, the grasses are too tall. So, my coast live oaks are much more likely to have riparian companion plants, even though CLO's are common in chaparral.

Young Choe's advice can also extend to suiseki and the rocks used in root-over-rock compositions. And, similar to the botany aspect, some rocks can harbor mold, some have levels of aluminum or a pH that over time will impact plant health. You have to research and get familiar with the details of specific places in order to achieve the highest levels of this form.

 

[Vincent Tanner]

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to take a kusamono class and workshop taught by Young Choe. She started with a short lecture before we moved into the workshop to get our hands dirty. A small but significant portion of the lecture was a discussion of accent plant choices and how to pair an accent plant with a bonsai tree. She showed numerous slides with pictures of trees from past national shows, as well as MABS, and she offered some commentary on the plant choices.

One of her favorite pairings was a planting of horsetails and pitcher plants collected from a bog at the same time as the tree on display. I want to say it was a tamarack, but I could be mistaken. (She also complained about tropical plants paired with temperate trees.) She therefore advised that every time you collect a yamadori tree, you should always collect some interesting plants from nearby to make an accent planting for the tree.

It's a bit of an Egg of Columbus maneuver. In hindsight, it seems obvious that plants from the same location would pair well with a tree, but I never would have had the foresight to collect herbaceous plants at the same time as a tree. For that reason, I thought it was advice worth sharing.

View attachment 511759

That’s awesome! I hope you had a blast!

I did a workshop with Ms Young Choe earlier this year, and it was fantastic. There was only four of us in the workshop so I was fortunate enough to get lots of instruction and guidance. And afterwards we all went out to dinner together! Ms Choe was just wonderful.

 

[Vincent Tanner]

PS— post some pic of the kusamono you made!

 

[Gabler]

 

[Gabler]

Young Choe's point about using species native or associated with the tree in the wild is "nice" in theory, and is not too hard to do if you are working with larger sizes of bonsai. Ms Young Choe is at the National Bonsai Museum, and has excellent larger scale bonsai to work to pair kusamono with.

However, scale is a factor that trumps native associations. If you are creating shohin trees, you often can not create sufficiently miniature versions of typical understory plants. You then have to substitute. Mosses stand in for grasses, etc.

Also, many of us grow species not native to our locality. A monstera would be an appropriate understory plant for a Ficus, yet look ridiculous in a bonsai display.

So while in principle there is nothing wrong with Young Choe's suggestion, for many of us it is just not practical at all to follow. Both for scale or proportions reasons and or for availability reasons if we are growing non native species.

Keeping your accent plantings in proportion with your tree on display is of prime importance. The accent helps set the place, as in suggesting forest, or field or mountain top, lake shore, stream bank, or meadow. The accent assists in setting time of year. Flowers are spring and summer, fruit is summer and autumn. Leaf color indicates season. Lack of leaves or brown leaves indicates winter.

So the accent has many functions and depending on the story one wants to tell with their display, the accent can be a carefully curated native companion, or a carefully chosen exotic that makes the statement one wants to make with their display.

And then there is my favorite type of Kusamono; Sanyasou where the kusamono itself is the sole focal point of the display. Not all plantings can carry the task of being the focal point, but many of Young Choe plantings are dramatic enough that they can be the foal point of a display.

This is so important to keep in mind. I'll add too that kusamono/ shitakusa takes research. You need to look into the botany of individual plants and determine if they'll accept not just container culture, but the smallest container culture possible. There's only so many plants that can do that. Lamiaceae or saxifragiceae are generally accepting, for example, while asteraceae is hit and miss.

Near me, there's chaparral which doesn't have a ton of plants that can handle bonsai/ kusa conditions. They're hugely sensitive to summer water, the grasses are too tall. So, my coast live oaks are much more likely to have riparian companion plants, even though CLO's are common in chaparral.

Young Choe's advice can also extend to suiseki and the rocks used in root-over-rock compositions. And, similar to the botany aspect, some rocks can harbor mold, some have levels of aluminum or a pH that over time will impact plant health. You have to research and get familiar with the details of specific places in order to achieve the highest levels of this form.

For what it's worth, that advice was taken out of the context of a broader presentation. Also, for the workshop, we used plants that Longwood Gardens happened to have available in a back greenhouse. The tallest/center plant in the foregoing pictured kusamono is a 'Chidori' chrysanthemum.