My name is Kenji Nakamura, and I have been practicing bonsai for more than twenty years. But to understand why I created this site, you need to know where the journey began — not in a formal studio, but in my grandfather’s backyard in the San Fernando Valley.
I grew up in a Japanese-American family in California, and from an early age I watched my grandfather, Hiroshi, tend to his small collection of pines and junipers. He never made it feel like instruction. He simply worked, and I stood beside him, asking questions he sometimes answered with words and sometimes answered with silence. Looking back, that silence was the first bonsai lesson I ever received.
Three Years in Osaka
In my late twenties, I made a decision that changed everything. I had been practicing bonsai seriously for several years — reading every book I could find, attending shows, joining local clubs — but I felt I was working from the outside of something I didn’t fully understand. So I arranged to study under a traditional Japanese bonsai master in Osaka for three years.
Those years were transformative in ways I still find difficult to articulate. The technical training was rigorous: wiring, pruning, repotting, soil composition, species-specific care. My teacher had exacting standards, and he expected me to develop not just skill but judgment — the ability to look at a tree and understand what it wanted to become.
But the deeper shift was philosophical. I came to understand bonsai not merely as a horticultural discipline but as a practice of presence. The wabi-sabi aesthetic — the beauty of imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness — isn’t a style you apply to a tree. It’s a way of seeing that the practice slowly teaches you, if you’re patient enough to receive it.
What I Do Now
I returned to the United States and settled in Sacramento, California, where I now maintain a garden of more than sixty trees. My collection includes Japanese maples, junipers, pines, tridents, and a handful of species I’ve been working with for over fifteen years. Each one is a long conversation.
I am a member of the American Bonsai Society and regularly exhibit trees at regional and national bonsai shows. I also teach bonsai and wabi-sabi philosophy at a local botanical garden, where I work with students ranging from complete beginners to experienced practitioners looking to deepen their understanding. In addition to bonsai, I practice ikebana — traditional Japanese flower arrangement — which shares many of the same values of restraint, intention, and the honest expression of natural form.
What You’ll Find on This Site
Wabi Bonsai exists because I believe the art of bonsai deserves to be taught with its roots intact — both the practical and the philosophical. Too often, people learn the techniques without the context that gives them meaning. This site is my attempt to offer both.
You’ll find detailed guides on bonsai species — their growth habits, styling requirements, seasonal care, and temperament. There are articles on tools, soil composition, and repotting schedules. There are discussions of styling techniques, from basic shaping to advanced deadwood work. And threaded throughout, there are reflections on wabi-sabi, on patience, on what it means to spend years in relationship with a living thing that measures time differently than we do.
My goal is not to make bonsai feel simple — it isn’t. My goal is to make it feel approachable and meaningful, so that you can find your own way into the practice and discover what it has to teach you.
A Final Word
The trees in my garden have taught me more about patience and imperfection than I could have learned any other way. I hope this site helps you begin — or continue — that same education.
Questions about your tree? [email protected]