Larch trees can make beautiful bonsai specimens! They have delicate foliage that turns a lovely golden colour in the autumn, which adds to their appeal as bonsai. When styling a larch bonsai, you can emphasize its naturally elegant shape and create a miniature version of its majestic appearance in nature.

The Shimpaku Juniper is native to Japan, the Kurile Island and the Sahalin Peninsula. It prefers rocky, well-drained soils. In its natural range, it is most often found growing near the sea. The foliage is needle-like on young trees and scale-like on older trees. The fruit is a small, hard, bluish berry. One of the best characteristics of Shimpaku is its hard resinous wood; ideal for advanced sculptural techniques such as jin, shari and sabamiki.

Pruning leaves to induce a new flush of finer growth. Bonsai defoliation involves cutting all, or some, the leaves of a tree during the summer. In doing so you force the tree to grow new leaves, leading to a reduction in the size of leaves and an increase in ramification.

The Buxus group embraces many forms around the world. The common English Box, Dutch Box, Korean Box, Japanese Box, the Taiwanese Box (Buxus Harlandii) and the Kingsville Box. They share the same needs and requirement when growing and propagation so the information about the Harlandii will apply to all the Buxus species.

The Serissa is also called snow rose, tree of thousand stars or Japanese boxthorn. It is a subtropical small shrub with tiny white flowers that appear from spring through summer.

The Serissa is evergreen or semi-evergreen with fine oval, shiny green leaves and variegated coloured leaves. Flowers range from single white star shaped flowers, double whites and also pink.