Over the weekend of the 9th and 10th April, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens & Glasshouses was host to the second ‘Best of British Bonsai’ event, staged once again by Kath and Malcolm Hughes. The event comprised an exhibition with trees selected and arranged by Steve Tolley together with demonstrations and a trade fair. Having the Gardens as the venue, as was the case when the event was first held in 2009, proved, as then, to be an excellent choice. The Birmingham Botanical Gardens, designed by J.C. Louden, a landscape garden designer, and opened to the public in 1832, is a 15 acre oasis of delight, located in Edgbaston near Birmingham City centre. The Victorian style buildings in which the exhibition and trade fair were held, together with the open terrace for the demonstrations, provided the bonsai fraternity and general public alike an ideal opportunity to enjoy British bonsai at its’ best.
An additional bonus was the weather – warm sunshine throughout with uncharacteristically high temperatures of 24 degrees C (75 F) – bearing in mind we are talking of Britain in April! With the weather reflecting conditions more closely related to early summer, the demonstrations took place in open-sided marquees set up on the terrace, overlooking a broad expanse of the Gardens. The demonstrators over the two days were led by Salvatore Liporace and Enrico Savini from Italy, together with further talks and demonstrations by Rammon Hamers (the Netherlands) and a British contingent comprising Alex Evelyn, Simon Temblett and Charlotte Walby.
The trade fair was made up of 27 traders offering a diverse range of items for sale; these included both trained bonsai as well as a wonderful selection of yamadori, a number of bonsai potters, bonsai tools and accessories together with antique Japanese scrolls, nesuki and other items related to the hobby.
The exhibition itself was set up by Steve Tolley who had also taken on the role of selecting the trees. This was to prove a difficult task, considering the number of bonsai and shohin compositions submitted for selection during the previous nine months. The result was, however, to provide a superb display of trees and compositions that could not fail to draw the public’s attention. The high standard was testament to the progress made in the level and quality of British bonsai over the years and was to prove quite a challenge to Salvatore Liporace and Enrico Savini in judging those trees that would receive the ‘Best of British Bonsai’ awards, sponsored by Steve Tolley himself.
Of all the trees and shohin compositions exhibited, twenty received ‘Awards of Merit’. Of those, three were to receive the top ‘Best of British Bonsai, 2011‘ awards. These were:
‘Best large bonsai’ and
‘Best Tree in Show’ |
Korean hornbeam
(Carpinus turczaninowii) |
Ian Stewardson |
| ‘Best chuhin’ |
Yew
(Taxus baccata) |
John Pitt |
| ‘Best shohin |
Yellow-star jasmine
(Trachelospurmum asiaticum) |
Mark and Ritta Cooper |
In addition, the European Bonsai Association presented its own ‘Award of Merit’ for the ‘Best Shohin Composition’ to Duncan Hield.
As for the event overall, what began as the first ‘Best of British Bonsai’ two years ago has certainly gained in momentum and in the light of calls made by many of the delegates attending, it is now highly likely that there will now be a third such event in 2013.
