MACH5
Imperial Masterpiece
Recently I traveled to Madrid, Spain for business. During that time, I took the opportunity to visit three bonsai gardens. I will post a three part series. The first is dedicated to David Benavente.
Considered one of the best bonsai artists in Europe, David has a spacious and beautiful garden in the town of Galapagar north of Madrid. I have been there a couple of years back, but this time there were many additions and improvements made to the garden. Japanese style fencing was placed as effective backdrops for some of the bonsai. The garden is beautifully designed highly influenced by Japanese easthetics. All very tastefully done, unlike others I have seen where the Japanese theme is way over the top and "cartoony". There were many new rock compositions. A good variety of species is to be found here but most of the collection is made up of conifers which is David's preference. Many of the trees specially deciduous species were directly imported from Japan. In David's absence, Daniel, who is an apprentice there, spent a good deal of time showing me the garden. He even took me quickly through the gated grow-out area behing the main garden usually closed to visitors. Some of the best yamadori in the garden was comprised of yews (taxus baccata) and Scots pine (pinus sylvestris) which were almost all collected in Spain.
NOTE: Photo quality not the best since they were all taken with an IPhone camera.
Considered one of the best bonsai artists in Europe, David has a spacious and beautiful garden in the town of Galapagar north of Madrid. I have been there a couple of years back, but this time there were many additions and improvements made to the garden. Japanese style fencing was placed as effective backdrops for some of the bonsai. The garden is beautifully designed highly influenced by Japanese easthetics. All very tastefully done, unlike others I have seen where the Japanese theme is way over the top and "cartoony". There were many new rock compositions. A good variety of species is to be found here but most of the collection is made up of conifers which is David's preference. Many of the trees specially deciduous species were directly imported from Japan. In David's absence, Daniel, who is an apprentice there, spent a good deal of time showing me the garden. He even took me quickly through the gated grow-out area behing the main garden usually closed to visitors. Some of the best yamadori in the garden was comprised of yews (taxus baccata) and Scots pine (pinus sylvestris) which were almost all collected in Spain.
NOTE: Photo quality not the best since they were all taken with an IPhone camera.
