Southern Cal. Nursery Tour

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This will be a tour of 6 Specimen Bonsai Nurseries. The nurseries toured all offered canned trees, and some specialized in Bonsai trimmed and pruned for decades, prices to match.

First stop:

House of Bonsai
5214 Palo Verde Ave.,
Lakewood, CA, 90713
TEL: 562-804-6888


This nursery carried a full line of pots. They had more on a different shelving rack, and they were larger pots. The nursery also had a nice classroom area, complete with trees in different phases of construction. I like the windswept tree on the right.

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In the top picture, those are trident maples. I found these hiding in an area not too often seen by the public. Leave it to me to go snooping! There is a maple on each side of the desk, and they have about 7" trunks at the base. They go for about $1K. (Actually, that's not that bad for a tree of this size.) The trees in the second picture are Korean Hornbeams. They have real nice trunks too. Trees this size go for $145.

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This area was the bonsai showroom, for lack of a better discription. They had row after row of well manicured bonsai.

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In the next photo you will see a foemina juniper grove. (Needle Juniper) They had some nice foemina junipers, and I will be returning soon to replace the mother tree that died three years ago in my grove.

The bottom picture shows the growing fields. They seem to have about 40 acres of stock, and it seems you can see trees forever. Most of the trees in the ground here are junipers. They do have other species in the ground now due to the new import restrictions from the USDA.

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Moving north on the highway, we come to:

Chikugo-En
18110 S. Western Ave
Gardena, CA 90248
Tel: 310-323-4011

Proprietor: Mas Ishii

The nursery is packed into a city lot, or two, and makes use of every square inch of real estate. The pictures here don't do the place justice. The plants are too close together, and you just see a mass of green.

The bottom picture shows junipers that Mas Ishii grafted at the time of the last Golden State Bonsai Federation Convention in November.

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Some specimen bonsai. In the middle pic, Thats Mas' cascade juniper that was featured in Bonsai Today magazine. He keeps the tree right in the middle of the nursery.

The path is so tight here I would be afraid someone might break a branch or something!

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More shelves of trees.

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A few blocks up the road we have:

Marumiya Bonsai Nursery
16819 S. Normandie Ave.
Gardena CA. 90247
TEL: 213-327-8826

This was a great nursery. Henry would not let me photograph the bonsai due to a recent break-in after the GSBF convention in November. He lost some very old trees. Henry did let me shoot the yard trees though.

I bought some material here and the prices are good and the stock varied.

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Up in West LA near Santa Monica we come to one of the older nurseryies in So. Ca.

Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery
1905 Sawtelle Ave.
West LA, CA 90025
TEL: 818-473-5444

Proprietor: George Yamaguchi


They have been in buisiness here since the fifties. Hey, thats my Honda out front!

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Real men don't wear coats with "happi" in the title.