The Return Of The King A few months ago I was fortunate enough to work on this large Japanese Black Pine.  The work wasn’t major and...

It’s funny how things seem to be so much older looking back a year and a half.  Perhaps it’s not really the age but the improvements over...

Pushing the Limit 2 with the Scenic Route I thought you’d all enjoy an update about this Black pine that was heavily bent last Winter....

De-candling and Stuff! Now that Summer is in full swing, we’re moving away from the deciduous into the Black/Red Pine work.  During the...

Still Remember Me? Last April, I revisited this tree again, and you guessed it, pulled all the needles off.  Except, this time, we took...

Repotting a Beast The first tree I noticed when I came to Aichien a year ago was this huge monster Black Pine!  As I wondered around the...

Lets Bend! Part 3 Repotting season is coming to an end here at Aichien an how fitting that this Black Pine turned out to be the last tree...

Just Plastic Rope In the last Blog post of Mr. Tanaka’s work, many of you commented on the rope that he used instead of raffia to make a...

Tanaka, Junichiro 田中 淳一郎 I was working in the workshop as usual one day and Mr. Tanaka brings in this Black Pine and sets it on his work...

Formal Black Pine and Kihachikai Show Last week I was tasked to work on this large formal upright (Chokkan) Black Pine. The timing worked...

Pushing the Limit! One day, Mr. Tanaka brought this Japanese Black Pine into the workshop and said, “clean this tree up for the auction...

Lets Bend! Part 2 Do you remember this Black Pine?  Back In July of 2011 I bent the trunk of this tree and wrote a post about it...

Rebar Basic on Black Pine The day Mr. Tanaka left the nursery to bring trees to Kokufu-ten, he tasked me to style this Japanese Black...

Black Pine Revisited Do any of you remember this tree?  If so, great memory!  This was one of the first Black Pines I worked on here at...

Recap In case you didn’t see the original post, here is a recap to get you up to speed on what happend to this tree.  The Black Pine...

Since it is now the Fall, we’ve all been busily wire and styling trees.  The main trees Mr. Tanaka and I have been styling are Black and...

After we got through all the Trident Maples, I was task to work on two Black Pines.  The work is never over it seems.  Haha!  Mr. Tanaka...

The other day I was given the task to do some trunk bending on this tree.  The tree has nice old bark and very healthy.  Perfect for...

One of my blog readers emailed me a question:  “I’d like to learn the difference between regular JBP and Mikawa JBP?” I thought it was a...