Heading out from Kyoto to Osaka, or actually Ikeda City. Spent about 45 minutes in Osaka station trying to find my connecting train. A ten minute walk from the nearest station and i walked in to Kuoka-En Bonsai nursery. Many of you have heard of this nursery thru Björn Björholm and his “Bonsai Art of Japan” videoseries. If you haven´t you should check it out on youtube. Lots of information and beautiful bonsai. https://www.youtube.com/user/bjorvalabonsai

I arrived at lunchtime so i had an hour to myself walking around in the nursery looking at all the trees. I recognized so many of them, but it was fantastic so see them in real Life.

The new leaves of the japanese maples were just coming out and it´s my favourite time of the year. This root over rock maple is remarkable, with excellent ramification.

Another famous tree, a hinoki cypress. The level of care and refinement is awesome. Something to strive for as a bonsai practitioner.

A shimpaku with a nice curvy trunk.
When their lunch was over it was back to work, which included watering and repotting.

Watering the rooftop bonsai

Repotting a large Cascade jasmine. For those of you who have seen their videos on repotting, the procedure is exactly the same. They struggled a bit with this one due to a really dense rootsystem.

Most of the trees at the nursery were large but there were some nice shohin trees also. This japanese maple was really nice, and for sale!

A fully wired maple, wire to the tips.

Everywhere you looked, there were fantastic trees. Every species was represented, but all were of high quality. They have a bonsai school were you can study, you choose for how long and with what. Apparently they´re booked the entire year.

As i was leaving, i thought about coming back to attend he school there. Maybe someday i will.

Part 4 is about Toji temple and a visit to Koju-En shohin nursery in Kyoto