Let’s meet,

My name is Eric Ruyter en I am involved in bonsai since 1990. The beauty of bonsai fascinates me and it motivates me to practice my hobby with accuracy and the up most pleasure. Like so many others I started my hobby with a Serrisa, bought at a gardenshop. I managed to keep it alive and cared for it with heart and soul. By advice from my neighbour at that time, I got contact with Pierre de Koning. He works with bonsai studio Hoka-En in Vleuten (a village nearby Utrecht). I cannot describe in words what I then experienced. It was like I ended up in a sweet store.

Pierre made it possible that followed courses with Hotsumi Terakawa. From him I learned styling, restyling and taking care of my bonsai collection. I still profit much from the knowledge I got from Hotsumi. A special aspect of following the lessons was meeting people from all places of the world. Everyone had a different motivation to follow the lessons. One of them was working together in a pleasant atmosphere on the mutual hobby. It was then that the idea raised to start a club for the people that took courses with Hotsumi. In 2000 the club Sho Ryu Kai was founded and up to today the club is very active.

In 1999 I was invited to join in the first Shohin exhibition organised by Farrand Bloch en René Rooswinkel of the Bonsai shop (which nowadays no longer exists). I liked it so much that I decided a year later to do it again. The showing-element of the hobby was great, so I also joined in in a show in Noord Holland later that year.

During that show I met Danny Use, owner of bonsai centre Ginkgo in Laarne, Belgium. It clicked very well and he invited me to compete with my displayed bonsai-trees in the two-year Gingko Bonsai Award. The honour to be invited by a icon in the bonsai world felt better than winning a price. After that followed exhibitions with the Noelanders Trophy and, not to forget, the spring-show by bonsaiclub Sho Ryu Kai that is a great success every year, also thanks to the cooperation with the firm Lodder in Harmelen.

Of course it is nice to win prices, but competing is just as nice. You meet new friends and that results in a group of people that, charmed by bonsai, observe and appraise bonsai together.

In summary, the essence of bonsai for me is creativity, beauty, mystical sphere and the people to share it with. That is why bonsai fascinates me and gives me the drive and motivation to enjoy as much as possible everything the hobby brings with it.

Now, 18 years later, with this website I can show you a fine and good composed collection. When you navigate through this website, you not only can experience the beauty of bonsai but you can also learn about the maintenance of bonsai that is a very important part of the hobby. To prepare a bonsai for an exhibition is especially great. But the most important part of bonsai is to enjoy the serenity en mystic sphere that these miniature trees radiate.

Eric Ruyter