Preparing the garden 0
Bonsai nursery Ōmiya, Saitama Since 1846
A Japanese maple grown from seed in an Edo rice bowl, the year Emperor Kōmei took the throne. It is older than Japan's railways, its constitution and its yen — and every year it becomes four different trees.
The year, in four trees 四季
01 Autumn · 紅葉 kōyō
When the nights fall below eight degrees, the maple stops making green. The sugar trapped in each leaf turns to anthocyanin, and for nine days in November the canopy is the colour of our seal. Then it lets go — all of it, onto the moss.
In the garden We don't rake. The leaves feed the moss until the first frost.
02 Winter · 寒樹 kanju
Bare, it finally shows you the work: every branch placed, every line argued over by five generations of the Kōno family. Winter is when a bonsai is judged — and when it is wired.
In the garden Frost cloth below −5 °C. Water at noon, never at dusk.
03 Spring · 芽吹き mebuki
The buds split in the second week of April and the first leaves come out folded, the green of a lime peel and almost translucent. For a fortnight the tree weighs nothing. Somewhere upwind, the cherries are letting go.
In the garden Water twice a day. No feeding until the new leaves harden.
04 Summer · 深緑 shinryoku
By June the canopy closes and darkens. This is the working season: the tree banks sugar for an autumn it cannot see coming, and we pinch every new shoot back to two leaves so it grows finer, never bigger.
In the garden Shade cloth after eleven. Three waterings on the hottest days.
The nursery 預かり
We don't sell bonsai. We place them — with people who will keep them longer than we will. Every adoption includes two house visits a year, a care calendar written for your light, and a winter room at the nursery whenever your tree needs one.
Viewings by appointment. An adoption takes three visits: we need to meet you, and the tree needs to meet your balcony.
Arrange a viewingThe craft 手入れ
I June
After the first flush hardens, every shoot is cut back to its first pair of leaves. The tree answers with smaller leaves, shorter nodes and finer twigs. Repeat for a hundred and eighty summers and you get a canopy like lace.
II November
Annealed copper, wound at forty-five degrees, tells a branch where to grow. The wire stays for one season — long enough to set the line, never long enough to bite the bark.
III March
Every third spring, as the buds swell, we lift the tree, comb out a third of its roots and seat it in fresh akadama clay. This maple has been repotted sixty times. The pot is its fourth.
Visit 訪問
