This larch has experienced many good and some bad years for sure. Just keep going!
I wish you all well for the coming year but I fear we may have been weller in past years than we will be in the coming one. All I know is those years keep passing with alarming speed so make the most of every minute.
To cheer you on the way here’s an little doobrey i put together last week.
As we round out another year i’m sitting here in the gloaming of a late December afternoon staring at an empty text box and a flashing cursor. At this precise moment I have nothing to say though, i doubt that will last long. A little Rambling Flummery & Tidings of Comfort and Joy are therefore in order.
My last post in October was, for me, quite a positive one which many folk seem to appreciate. Following the year I have had it’s best I keep it that way, focus on the positives because the negative side of the scale is getting a little heavy of late.
I could easily ‘loose my shit’ over what’s going on in the world but I have come to the realisation that does me no good at all. I can easily rant and rave until I pass out, Kev’ and I regularly do just that over an afternoon phone call. It’s that old idiom, we’re just ‘blowing off steam’ which Google defines as…
“blowing off steam” is a common idiom meaning to release strong emotions like anger or frustration, often through physical activity or energetic expression, preventing them from building up to an explosion, much like steam from a boiler.
I have had a few of those moments this last year, times when I felt like doing a Mr Creosote. Running a small business is no longer the wonderful enjoyable and rewarding task it once was. It seems we are being assaulted on every front. Tasks that were once very simple have become tortuous, fiendishly complicated and invariably expensive. There have been moments this year when I have literally banged my head on the desk and cried in frustration.
From the day I was born my old dad instilled in me the importance of being honest, polite and above all else conscientious. For me, doing the best I can is more important than any profit, gain or acknowledgement. Doing the best I can at whatever I turn my hand to is more important to me than breathing. I am not remotely interested in being the best, having the best or the most. I have never given a thought to being the most popular or involved. The world of clicks, likes and subscribers fills me with abject horror. I was born into a world where folk kept themselves to themselves and as my lovely long gone Nan always said ‘mind your own business‘. She would be horrified to see me putting this drivel out there for some of the world to read. I don’t like it one bit either but here we are.
Way back when I started to uncover the world of bonsai and realise what was involved I made the conscious decision to do the best work I could. I have not had the opportunities some folk might have but all I really want to do is MY best and only I know when that’s happened. When it has I will probably vanish without warning. However, that’s unlikely to happen any time soon looking at some of the shite I turned out this year.
One of the very important things I learned about bonsai right at the outset was the importance of good, appropriate and skilled work. Good work consistently applied over a lifetime is what makes great bonsai. Walking around a top European exhibition back in the late 1990s with the great David Prescott I learned the difference between those big flashy impressive and popular bonsai that always steal the show and those oft’ over looked quiet little wonders produced by dedicated virtually unknown masters of our art. Even if we only have the most simple and basic materials to work with the patient, precise and skilled application of good technique over extended periods of time will always produce a tree of superior quality. Artistic merit is another thing altogether but that’s for another day.
Even though I have been guilty of putting it out there myself this modern need to dramatically transform the most unlikely scruffy and impossible material into an exhibition bonsai in an afternoon is little more than ‘Pub bonsai’. A bit of a lark, a bit of showboating and a lot of ego are the primary requirements and the result is largely entertainment. It’s better than it used to be thankfully and it is a buzz but as I have always said, the end of a demo’ is just the beginning.
My old mate Blacky always said “bullshit baffles brains”. I doubt that was original with him but wherever it originated, it’s still largely true. Folk look, but many do not see. ‘Pearls before swine’ was the summation of a demonstration I heard recently. We try so hard to give away our knowledge but so often I would say it just goes in one ear and out the other. Understanding how to apply the correct technique, combine different techniques and time that all correctly whilst adjusting for factors like weather and doing it with a flexible ten year plan consistently is all that’s required to turn the most mundane plant into a a notable bonsai tree. Falling asleep in the front row will NOT get you there, trust me!
Those of us with too many decades of bonsai under our belt have the privilege of being able to see more clearly. I am SOOOO glad social media was not available to me back when I was a feckless know all, cocky little shit. I have a massive box full of paper photographs of so much of my early work. I was so impressed with myself back then when everything was new. The good part about that is YOU will never get to see any of it. I feel for folk in that position today, knowing a bit (but not a lot) and having to put it all out there. I’m looking at it and quietly cringing. The internet has opened this all up for all to see and there are thankfully some incredibly talented individuals but for every one of those there seem to be about a million numpties posting roadkill and that’s all I have to say ’bout that.
Here at Kaizen Bonsai every year pretty much begins the same way. We take a couple weeks break for Christmas and new year because it’s the only time we ever get to not work. When we return in January there are literally hundreds of orders to get moving and by the time that’s done what we call soil season is upon us.
I’m not going to go into just how hard soil season is but we move literally tons’ of goods every single day until the end of April. There’s not a minute to take a breath. Thankfully each year it gets bigger but a lot harder. Reading it back that sounds bad but my point is we REALLY, REALLY appreciate and need your support. I desperately want to do the best job I can but that’s getting harder and harder thanks to outside interference but i’ll literally die before I stop working. Your orders make an old man and his ol’ lady very happy. You are keeping us both fit and active and I know for a fact Richard and Sarah appreciate the roof ya’ll put over their heads.
This year, right in the middle of the chaos of springtime I was, metaphorically speaking, hit by a truck. Entirely out of the blue and without a hint of warning I was faced with one of the hardest choices a modern man might face. My beautiful little dog of eight years suddenly and without warning lost his sight and a week later we had to have him put down. We got thoroughly rogered by thieving vets and so by the end of the week I had a massive hole in my pocket running to several thousand sheets and a dead dog in a cardboard box. Simply savage, brutal and an experience that has left me both heart broken and scarred. I normally shrug this stuff off, I seem to have suffered quite a few losses and setbacks of weight over the years but this one broke a part off me and threw it in the road. Even the arrival of little Baxter has not helped heal the wound. Guess i’ll just have to suck it up buttercup.
My summer went well all things being equal. The weather was good and the bikes were rolling, or at least some where. Often the weather was just too hot to be out riding but on those days I was busy watering anyway. Vintage Harley Davidson motorcycles (with the exception of a ’45’) are, at their very best, fragile and prone to sentimentality, delicate flowers. As a result one is now not working and needs tearing apart for the third time in five years and a couple others have been turned out into the cold world of commerce. However the net result was I got to buy a couple of stonking new rides but this is a bonsai blog so i’ll not get started on bikes.
At the end of August late one balmy afternoon and entirely unexpected we had rapidly darkening skies not unlike an eclipse before an absolute hooley blew through. Ten minutes later it was warm and sunny again whilst we stood there in three inches of water with icy hail floating in it wondering what the hell just happened.
Well, what happened was this little shit storm opened up the roof of my fabled poly-tunnel like one of those cheap shirts the Hulk always wore. An eighteen foot split right at the ridge. It was bound to happen but for a few years now I have been nursing an aging sheet attempting to squeeze every last day from it. I absolutely knew this was coming, i was dreading it but here I was staring at the sky where once there was a roof. Now this is important to me because the poly-tunnel is also my workshop. Having a workshop is much more important to me than having a telly, a phone or even a meal. In fact if I could live in a van and turn my house into a workshop i would, in a heartbeat but Catherine won’t have it and so I’m relegated to my tunnel.
As it happens I’m a bit lucky because I have four workshops. The garage is where bike work takes place, it’s got a lathe, compressors and chests of tools all suited to engineering work. I have a shed where dirty shitty work gets done. In there are welders, blast cleaning paraphernalia, fabrication equipment, pillar drills, chests of tools, paint spraying kit and a dozen little two stroke motors attached to all sorts of gardening kit (I have a big garden with lots of big hedges and trees). There’s another workshop for business where Richard and I (but mostly Richard) sort out all the stuff you order and finally there’s a bit of my poly-tunnel which gets used for everything from bonsai work to restoring/storing motorcycles, carpentry, painting and almost anything can happen in there. Most of the time it’s dry, well lit and spacious.
Way back in 2008 when I moved here I needed a workshop in a hurry, I had nothing else at the time. After just a few weeks my tunnel was in place. A massive task that required weeks of preparation and endless graft from my, then much fitter, hard working Dad and any other folk that happened to be nearby. Whilst the tunnel was constructed to last everything else was a bit rushed and temporary. My benches were cobbled together mostly out of piled up blocks topped with either old oak railway sleepers or decking.
As is the way with many small nursery businesses working long hard hours for small returns we just wore everything out and cluttered up the whole place, so fast forward seventeen years and i’m staring at the gaping harbinger of a massive task. I found a little crew who were going to come and refurbish the tunnel but there’s about a million tons of crap piled in their way. All my benches have sunk and there’s not a level pot in the place. It had been very embarrassing for a while and the only way to put it right was to completely rethink the whole place and start again.
Now I no longer need a producing nursery I decided to make a very practical and useful spot that would be nice to spend time in and also be very practical for how I work. I was also keen not be facing this dilemma again the next time I needed a new sheet so everything has been built around that consideration. Rather than spend five weeks breaking my back humping filthy heavy crap out the way, next time preparation for new cover day will take no more than a long afternoon. Also everything has been built properly even down to all stainless steel fasteners so stuff comes apart should I need it too.
If you do not have the pleasure of tunnel ownership it helps to understand the environment inside. A poly-tunnel is little more than a cold frame with bad ventilation. In summer the temperature can easily hit 60 Celcius (140f) and at other times it can freeze for days on end. The winter leaves a still and very damp atmosphere that will not fully dry out for about half the year. The temperature can easily swing 40 degrees in an hour. Materials that get used inside a poly-tunnel has a hard life. For instance a good few years ago I installed jigsaw style rubber flooring in the workshop. It’s now eight inches smaller than when I laid it.
Wood and metal do well in a tunnel environment but anything plastic will quickly fall apart. Wood must not be allowed to remain wet for long periods, warm summer temperatures can turn a tanalised deck board into sponge in eighteen months. So regarding choice of materials, experience has left me much wiser. By the time I was cleared away and the new sheet fitted I had so many piles of transient materials I looked like a bankrupt builders yard.
The project is still ongoing but I have posted some images below for anyone sad enough to be interested. I will be finished by spring which, seeing as I have done full days on this since September including weekends just goes to show I was either right to be concerned about what lay before me when that hole opened up or i’m just a fucking tired hands who needs to get his finger out.
My main run of benches sits right in front of my tunnel and it ALL had to be shifted. That included about half a ton of blocks and two dozen oak railway sleepers. Turns out these are impossible to get rid of these days so I used some of them to make a floor. The new benches are sitting on concrete foundations over 3′ into the ground, perfectly level and super easy to maintain and importantly…. move. I now understand why so many Japanese working nurseries use simple planks and plastic crates for benching. It might not be commensurate with some folks sense of bonsai aesthetics but it’s very practical. My tunnel sits on a hill and there’s just under a meter drop end to end. This time around I tried to incorporate that feature as best I could.
The reason for doing all this is because it’s high time I started seeing folk again. Since all that Covid malarkey I have been very happy to hide away on my own. To be honest that’s not been the best idea and so from next spring I will be getting busy with workshops again. I will be making more videos and hopefully be welcoming anyone who would like to visit what I can now, finally after too many years call my very OWN bonsai garden. In fact garden sounds a bit grand, it’s not Omiya but I have a big spacious garden with a shit load of old bonsai in it so i’m going with that. If at any time in the year you would like to visit just for the hell of it just get in touch. PLEASE DON’T JUST TURN UP!
Workshops are going to be a small personal affair. Whilst I am happy to do one to one sessions these will be a bit expensive. I will be hosting small groups of three or maybe four by mutual agreement. These will run from 10am to 6pm and be a mix of Friday and Saturday dates. If you would like to receive details and dates do get in touch. Drop me a line – [email protected]
One high point was the arrival of grand-baby number three. Little Elias was born in August, the first boy in my corner of the family since I came along way back when. Well done to Sarah who’s turned into a fantastic mum to her tribe. I’m told this is the last one. I’m fascinated to see how they are all going to cope as everyone gets bigger inside their tiny house. I’m mean that way 😉
So now you have the skinny on all that and so, in other news I have now finished listing our new shipment of Bonsai pots. There is another shipment arriving in January with by far the best high quality handmade pots I have ever been able to offer and I have new stock of a few old favourites still to come in. Have a good scroll through all those categories, we have a few absolute gems this year. I have also managed to get together a good range of very nice Extra Large Bonsai Pots Many of these are limited numbers so don’t hang about.
We have a lot of new and very large bonsai pots available now. This one is large enough to hold most of a big fat bloke!
For next year we are now fully stocked with our whole range of soil products, fertiliser, wire and tools. In fact we have never held so much stock and thanks to a lot of grovelling and twisting arms most prices have remained stable. In fact most pots that we are restocking have actually seen a small drop in price thanks to some favourable exchange rates. Business continues to be intensely challenging entirely thanks to our atrocious ‘government’ attacking us in a way that, frankly, I never thought I would see. I’m not going into it all but if you run a little company or a strong side hustle you will know.
Be sure that as long as I draw breath Kaizen Bonsai will be here, fully stocked with everything you are likely to need direct from UK stock at fair prices which enable us to sustain our huge range of nearly 2000 items. If there’s something you need but don’t see just ask. If there are changes you think we should make drop us a line. Alternatively if it’s pissing and moaning that’s your thing be strong and suck it up buttercup!
Apologies for the lack of blog posts and other content this year. I have had a very tough few months since I lost my little Harley and with everything else going on I got into a very low place. A few visits to friends and some trips out to clubs and a couple of shows this year has lifted my demeanour no end. As always your continued support is absolutely invaluable, we feel so privileged to be supported by the bonsai community and for over 20 years now. God bless every one of you and we pray you have a happy Christmas followed by a safe, healthy and possibly even a prosperous new year.
Have a great Christmas everyone!
THANK YOU
Graham, Catherine, Richard, Sarah and the kids.
My beautiful boy Harley. Mad as a hatter but the dog of a lifetime.
This is what it all looked like after three weeks of emptying and cleaning up.
This is just plain embarrassing.
Still a work in progress but well worth the graft.
My new old tool box. Not exactly practical for travelling though I could put a carry handle on it.
No more shit plastic trays and crappy filing cabinets.
Neat, cheap, absolutely permanent and moveable in minutes. Best of all they’re ‘kin level finally.
New pot storage made from old benches and featuring a little tag from someone who knows me too well.
The one and only time this will look organised.
Typical, only goes up to 50, nowhere near enough. Vintage enamel on steel. The old plastic ones fell to pieces.
I don’t have anywhere near enough neat and tidy in my life. Once finished this should qualify.
Pleased with this. Easy to maintain and moveable in minutes.
Trees enjoying their new prominence. Video on the larch soon.
Sweet and neat. I’m happy!
Last of the autumn colour on December 16th.
Remember the Privet Cutting movie? This was the cutting in it’s autumn colour. Slab from the twin trunk larch movie.
Nasty modern lamp has to go.
Random fact. Wether you are cleaning your kitchen or your bike chain this product is absolutely brilliant, buy some!
I’ll be brief today, the sun’s out, it’s warm and I do not want to be inside slapping this keyboard. It’s been an insane week here at KB world headquarters but as of this Friday morning it’s mostly worked out okay.
The Harley Davidson Softail Slim CVO, she’s a bit loud. Oak tree for good measure.
It all started so well, Sunday saw me off bright and early in beautiful warm sunshine, destroying the early morning peace of the county as me and my Softail headed to the flatlands of Cambridgeshire to do a deal on a vintage Harley. That went very well.
Back in the beginning of September we had a bit of an issue as the Plastic Hoop-house of Bonsai Dreams (my poly tunnel) opened up like the pocket of a cheap suit. We had a 20′ opening in the roof which, if you’ve any experience of such things, you’ll know is almost impossible to patch, even temporarily. I’ve been dreading the day but it finally arrived.
I assembled our tunnel way back in 2008. I bought the very best materials available, took my time and did a proper job and as a result the cover (known as the sheet) has lasted all these 17 years. Now covering a tunnel’s not hard but after all those years it was so completely packed inside and built up around the outside to the point it has taken Richard and I over a month to empty it out and remove all the surrounding benches, screens, fencing and undergrowth. There’s about 2 tons of concrete blocks and almost that in railway sleepers and of course everything has sunk into the ground a bit too. The undergrowth, ivy, bindweed, brambles were nearly 2 days work alone.
Then, as is the way with greenhouses, i had amassed hundreds and hundreds of used plastic plant pots and the like. There was a 1000L water tank and crap I had forgotten entirely. Almost all of that was given away thanks to facebook. Then I had to remove nearly a ton of bonsai pots that had been squirrelled away under the benches, found some utter shite alongside a few gems. The spiders were a force to be reconned with. Then the benches all had to come out and their blocks, even the famous green filing cabinets are on the move.
So after a month of being a sweaty dusty old man we were finally ready for the guys from First Tunnels to come and refurb’ the whole thing. They were booked for Monday but called to put me off until Wednesday. They arrived Wednesday lunch time and left Thursday late morning. If you need anything to do with poly-tunnels get a hold of these amazing guys. It’s NOT often i’m impressed but credit where it’s due. Incredible work, service and priced just right. It was a bit weird looking down the garden and not seeing my hoop house for a couple of hours there.
So now that sheet’s replaced (lets hope this one goes 20 years) the real work can begin, everything’s getting renewed, replaced or upgraded, i’m hoping to be done by Christmas. We’ll see.
The old and busted hoop-house, I wore it smooth out.
Long overdue for replacement.
Concrete blocks piled up everywhere.
Gone! Very strange to see it not there.
Nice shiny new sheet in place. The rebuild begins.
With all that going on we have also been wrestling with Baxter the puppy (pissing machine). He’s a Patterdale and an instinctive ratter. That means he gets into every tiny crevice, sticks his nose into every hole, digs, chases, chews and generally makes an f’ing nuisance of himself and once he’s done that he sleeps. He’s loved the tunnel work and has been constantly covered in cobwebs and worse. Still, at least he’s not been in the pond again this week.
Baxter. Honestly he can be a little bastard.
Catherine has been buried in VAT paperwork and I have been continuing to bang (literally) my head against a wall over a customs issue that’s been loosing me sleep for six weeks now. I have also been moving goods from all over and next seasons pots (at least some of them) are now on the water. I have been busy listing lots of new Japanese goods this week too after a troublesome time, again with customs reg’s and inefficient tossers in Broken Britain. We’ve also been busy getting your orders, for which we are extremely grateful, out the door in a timely fashion. This running a business malarkey’s not for everyone I know and increasingly I wonder if it’s for me either.
Bonsai pots are finally on the water.
So, overall a successful week, at least the tunnel’s now secure and dry and the refurb has begun. And then, to top it all off I have a blog post and a new short video to share too. Not bad for an oldun i recon. Of course I could not do any of this without YOUR support. THANK YOU!
As it happens I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting on three imports. We’ve goods coming from Japan, China and Eu and so I have had opportunity to complete yet ANOTHER bonsai video.
Just before you go off to see that let me get this off my plate….
Trigger warning! Don’t read the following if you are a Trigger, you may be offended. My apologies to any RM or PF employees.
For one reason or another these imports are all being delayed, nothing ever seems to happen on schedule any more. For instance…. Just getting a parcel delivered by……so called PARCELFORCE (always sounds like the name of some shit superhero to me) is a task.
Just last week I had to take a half day out and do a fifty mile round trip to pick up a parcel they were incapable of delivering. Just to make matters worse I also got a flat tyre which cost me a ton to replace. I couldn’t park within a half mile either. When I eventually got to the counter the guy glibly threw my way “You could have done this online you know, would have saved a trip.”🤬
Just to fill in the blanks Catherine (she’s expert at this stuff) had, to that point, spent more than 12 business hours trying to resolve their incompetence. Businesses charge clerical work at £30-40 an hour so that sucks. I then lost a whole morning and aforesaid tyre alongside another score for diesel. I won’t tell you what I said to the meathead behind the counter. To be fair I think I woke him from a nap.
Now I remember (as I understand it) when so called “Parcelforce” didn’t exist, we used to call it Royal Mail* before some bright spark decided to split the parcels operation from letter post (1986). No doubt there were some handsome rewards for the creation of this new wonder of the modern age. However, following a spectacular ‘oversight’ someone failed to consider falling mail volumes and how the world was changing. That and some other factors led to Royal Mail letters division basically going broke because their remit is almost impossible to fulfil profitably without the parcels business, especially as bulk trunking services were also contracted out to third parties leaving the poor old RM with the so called ‘last mile‘. What we might colloquially call the shitty end of the stick.
Again as I understand it the gov’ has a legal obligation to ensure a daily postal service to every home. However they don’t want to pay for it but the money we pay barely covers operating costs (which of course are too way to high). The business had it’s hands tied by that same gov’ because people like the idea of cheap stamps leaving the RM incapable of controlling either it’s charges or to some degree it’s costs. And so the two are now merging again, as it turns out, with typical British incompetence.
Parcels are profitable, letters are not so here’s an idea…..why don’t Royal Mail do both…………………………………… as they used to. Like my mum used to say ‘Put it back where you found it!‘ The whole story stinks to high heaven IMHO.
The reason my parcels (there are 30 of them in total) vanished is because both companies are using different systems which do not communicate, nor do the people and there is no person to person contact in the system and nobody to call or mail. Catherine spent FOUR hours on hold calling these f***wits only to be told you can “do this online” WHICH YOU FUCKING WELL CAN’T!
Add to that customs randomly taking items out of the system for weeks at a time and failing to make contact. The whole system then seems to rely upon a little card dropping through our door. There was one for each box, only about 7 turned up, the rest were either never sent or lost. If the parcels were not claimed they are dumped (i’ve over a grand in each parcel). So far i am £980 out of pocket (we’re not finished yet) directly and then I have to add all of my own costs. Thankfully Catherine is brilliant, she knows how to get this shit done even if the folk doing it don’t.
The above account is accurate for my part, my knowledge of the actual events historical and otherwise is limited. Pissy comments will be ignored. I am quite simply beyond giving a Scheiße any more. Thank you for hearing me out lovely readers.
Now, i’m off to lay in a quite dark place. Enjoy the movie 😄
Graham.
*1516: Sir Brian Tuke is appointed the first Master of the Posts by Henry VIII, establishing the initial postal system for royal use. 1784: The name “Royal Mail” is officially given to the service during a period of increased use of mail coaches across the country.
7 months to the day since my last blog post. I know how many of you lovely folk appreciate these posts and so all i can do is apologise for my absence. If I’m honest I have had the year from hell for a multitude of reasons and entirely lost my way to the point I was contemplating dumping everything for pennies on the pound and fucking off. Im not going into detail at this time but WTF. I know i’m not alone here either.
So, i’m in a fragile state and in order to try and get back on an even keel i have made a few changes. I had largely become nocturnal, getting up at 2am and only sleeping 3-4 hours at a time took it’s toll. Now I have gone back to what I did for decades, i go outside to work on my trees from about 9pm until 1am. I’m still permanently knackered but at least some of the trees are coming along nicely which is making me feel a lot better and i’m feeling inspired again.
That means (so long as I can be bothered) there’s a lot more bonsai work to share with ya’ll. I actually filmed several projects early in the year but entirely lost interest and they are still on the camera entirely undisturbed. I utterly detest having to sit in front of this fucking screen for so many tedious hours every day and night, it absolutely wrecks my mental state and by the end of most days I become an intolerable savage, just ask Catherine next time you speak to her!
Perhaps it’s the little artist in me. Catherine says I am never happier than when I have my teeth into a project. I love to create things but the moment the projects done I loose interest. I have never met a happy artist in any discipline. Having the ability to imagine what COULD be simply serves to make everything that IS look like a piss poor second rate option.
I take that view of my own work, like all my school reports ever stated ” Graham can do this standing on his head but just can’t be bothered. Must try harder.” Right from the first day I sat up in my cot I have had a significant problem being told what to do so when a teacher told me I must try harder I just did the opposite. My mum always called me “Little Tommy Opposite” because I was such a cantankerous little toe rag.
Smart folk will figure this out right away. I currently have a 10 week old puppy in the house and he simply refuses to do as he’s told. If we need him to sit in his bed he just won’t, he’ll duck and dive and hide, he’ll run all over the house in obstinate defiance. However chuck him outside in the cold and he’ll rush back in and hide in his bed.
Years ago my mate Stuart bought a yew to a workshop and suggested that even I would struggle to make much out of it. Turns out it was some of the best work I had done up to that point and now, 30 years later I own the tree and it’s still pretty good. Tell me I can’t do something and watch it happen, unless it’s something that really matters. Had my teachers told me I was hopeless waste of skin incapable of learning I think I could have gone on to be a fighter pilot. Turns out i AM just a cantankerous old scrote, a dinosaur and even at the age of 60 I can’t quite figure out which way is up. Just another ordinary working class Englishman then!
I say that to say this……
Two new videos posted this week. Seeing as so many folk really like these it makes me happy to share my work even though it cost me three days screen time this week and my heads frazzled. I’m open to offers of help editing videos but before ya’ll rush to offer your time an assistance do bear in mind i’m what they call complicated.
With Christmas madness about to descend upon us all I guess it’s that time of year when tossers like me who conceitedly write blogs have to take stock of the year all but passed. 2024 was a year of milestones and some bonsai videos too. Growing up my family weren’t ones for making a fuss, birthdays, Christmas etc’ would come and go with relatively little fanfare. So forgive me for not being overly effusive but it seems appropriate to at least mention a few significant milestones that both I and we here at KB passed over the last year.
I have never been one for celebrations but seeing as I passed the grand old age of 60 in September I thought it would be nice for once to stage a celebration with my besties. However by the time the day arrived I had scaled back my plans to virtually nothing and so mostly the family got together for the evening and that was pretty much that. My first birthday celebration since I was a kid!
Another big mile stone that went by without a thought was the 20th anniversary of my full time employment by Kaizen Bonsai. YES it’s now more than 20 years since we bought Colin Lewis’s Bonsai Mart and dear God has that been an experience. Looking on the bright side we are still here, just about. Hanging on by the skin of what few teeth I have left thanks to the British, so called, ‘government‘ rogering us with a toilet brush every time we try to do something. Back when we started it was so much easier but nowadays the price of everything makes my eyes water and the margins are just too small. I’m committed now so we have to carry on but if you were to ask me, as is traditional at these moments of reflection, if I would do it all again my reply would be “Absolutely not!”.
What would I have done 20 years ago assuming I knew then what I know now? Think Budd (Michael Madsen) from the film Kill Bill. My ideal life would be just that, less the ignominious end of course. I now know all I need is a shitty trailer home in the desert, a pickup truck and a Harley shovelhead, possibly a little dog with attitude and a shitty job. My sister went to the US back in her teens and never came back, it broke my mothers heart and I just couldn’t follow her but there’s rarely a day I don’t wish I had.
2024 was also the year I lost my mother-in-law, the mother of my first lady who I lost to the big-C thirty years ago. Whilst we were never close, she was a unique sort of person, her passing reunited me with Tina’s brother who I had not seen for decades. Shane’s reappearance has been a fantastic and enriching experience for the whole family, it’s like those intervening years never happened. This whole business and a funeral bought back some very powerful memories for me and what we had to endure back then and that’s all I have to say about that.
I have been exceptionally blessed this year to have acquired several large bonsai collections. Once upon a time these would have come and gone within weeks. However now that the movement of trees is more difficult than moving cocaine or illegals around I keep everything I get. For decades now every time a tree started to look good it was sold. As a result I have been denied the joy of seeing my bonsai develop and mature. Thankfully now that’s not the case and I’m able to make plans and develop my lovely bonsai without being concerned they might disappear at any moment. As it turns out I do have some skill and the trees are making sterling progress.
I was particularly excited to obtain the collection of Harry Nicholl. A stalwart of the Scottish bonsai scene for many decades. We met at a shitty motorway services on the A1 in the depth of winter and loaded his beautiful trees into my van. Whilst I only spent a half hour with Harry (in his eighties) I took to him instantly, what a lovely man. Imagine my horror when three months later I learned he had passed quite suddenly. I had been so looking forward to telephone conversations about the stories and techniques behind those trees. I don’t take to most people, folk scare the shit out of me and because I lack almost any social skills i’m best on my own. To meet a gentleman like Harry and instantly take to him, for me, never happens and I’m so sad he’s gone but I love his trees that I will cherish for the rest of my days.
Talking of being social…. This year I was equally pleased and apprehensive to be involved in Peter Chan’s Bonsai Journeys event in September. Were it not for Kevin Willson’s intervention I would NEVER have done something like that. In the end I had a great weekend, met some interesting folk and came away with a little more understanding of how you lovely folk appreciate what I do. It’s a bit odd to be held in high esteem by so many people and something i’m just not really aware of seeing as I don’t go out much these days so, thank you all so much and please, don’t be afraid to send me compliments at any time. Also please do pick up the phone once in a while, apparently it’s good to talk.
Other notable events in the last year include a second grand-baby Eveline (no 3 is in the oven). My 29th anniversary married to Catherine without whom I would be utterly useless. My parents 65 odd anniversary and its been 25 years since I first started working with Kevin Willson. Then just for good measure I lost a bunch of weight which has been utterly miserable and continues. Sadly something had to be done, too many good men have been lost in my life these last few years which makes you think. ALSO I was having trouble riding my sportier bikes so the gut just had to go. I’m much more interested in crafting the perfect high speed cornering manoeuvre than I am eating or drinking. Trouble is I’m still wearing all the same clothes so I look like a sack of shit tied up scruffy most of the time.
2024 presented bonsai growers with a shitstorm of weather, at least it did on the east coast. Hand on heart we did not have a warm day here until the latter part of June. I spent less time watering between April and July than I did over last winter. In 35 years I have never known such a piss poor summer. My maples were so late many only finally let their leaves go in the last three weeks. Some trees loved it though, i have never seen so much growth on larch, juniper, spruce and mugo pines. Those mountain trees really don’t like heat so they were right at home in the wind-cut chilled expanse of my Norfolk garden. Bike riding was also seriously curtailed and i’m still not over that.
BOF the shovel. All I need for my mental health therapy. Fucking broke down and was off the road for most of the summer. Now all fixed 🙂
September 2024 also saw the launch of our new web site. This whole e-commerce business is a PITA. There are so many rules and regulations these days and of course staying up with all the latest trends, giving customers so many options, payment channels, functionality and security across so many platforms/devices just never seems to end. This latest iteration is by far our best, it took nigh on two years to achieve and costs a shit load of money both to create and run. For all this I have to thank Sarah who you don’t know, she’s the absolute foundation of KB and without her we would be gone.
Like a good few of our customers I look longingly back at those days 20 years ago when I spent July and August compiling our paper catalogue. November was always a throwback to my printing days when we spent the month addressing and stuffing envelopes with crisp fresh glossy print and the whole house smelt of ink and paper. Unlike our first web sites, those paper catalogues still bring in orders. It must be close to fifteen years since I last mailed out a catalogue but some folk are STILL ordering from them.
20 years! Where did that go?
Sadly my annual Christmas holiday break will be interrupted this year thanks to the arrival of several ton’s of bonsai pots this week. These will all need to go onto the website pronto as so many canny folk are getting their spring supplies in early. For the first time I am aware of in the UK we have supplies of BIG high quality glazed pots up to 27″ in a multitude of styles, shapes and colours. We also have hundreds of exceptional exhibition quality shohin pots never seen before. This will appear alongside our extensive range of quality Japanese glazed and unglazed pots now all fully restocked. If I had to guess we probably have 7-800 pot options available and about 15-18 tons of stock.
Lots of big glazed pots available from stock. They’re NOT all just blue or green but that’s what I had to hand.
We have also had shipments of all varieties of bonsai tools, carving tools and 2 tons of Japanese fertilisers like Biogold etc’. There’s over 50 tons of soil products and two tons of wire so whatever you are likely to need chances are we have it in stock right here. It’s safe to say I have never held so much stock of everything but that’s just how this business has to operate these days. Gone are the days when we could pop over to a wholesaler and buy a few odds-n-ends.
And finally I thought I would bend to the endless cries of my adoring supporters. It’s new video time folk (bottom of the page) and this time I have made a throwback to those heady days over 15 years ago when, largely for the first time Youtube got to show proper bonsai in the making. Yes! We have made another Crappy Taxus video. I really didn’t want to spend a week (on and off) in mid-winter doing a tree like this. These days the call of an open fire, the Chesterfield, a very large JD (or 2,3,4) and slippers is strong during these long dark days. However it turned out okay and i’m very pleased I did get off my ass. I managed 9 videos this year which is the best for a long time. If there’s something you think I need to cover in a future edition I would like to hear from you though I can’t promise anything.
For next year Kevin’s been stitching me up again so now I have to make another public appearance at the newly planned Bonsai Fest in Newark or some such next March I believe. I’m looking forward to that, and not, in equal measure but for now I have to go and move this mountain of pots.
Sam, Kevin, Myself & Mr Fest’ Booty.
So, all told, election results not withstanding, 2024 has been one for the books. Not everything went to plan but I didn’t fall off a bike, loose any good bonsai, go broke or die so I recon that makes it a good one even if the summers tan has long gone. I’m happy, the family’s good and business is sound, BOF the shovel is now working 100% and ready for next summer and my benches are full and as we say around here “At least we don’t have bombs falling on the roof” for now at least.
I sincerely hope you have had a good year on balance. The world’s a crazy place right now but even so we have a lot to be thankful for and those little trees work hard at keeping many of us on the right side of sane. From all of us here at Kaizen Bonsai we wish you a very merry and hospitable Christmas and lets all just chill the fuck out and get along.
