This gets a bit long, if you are in a hurry you can skip the preamble….
Preamble.
For decades now I have been telling folk they need to learn to read their trees. A great deal of the problems folk experience with cultivating bonsai are related to erroneous half truths they have read or picked up from well meaning but inexperienced individuals. Many of those ideas may be sound in themselves but knowing when to apply them is the issue. The internet has made this situation pretty much critical but many books and some magazines are just as culpable. Added to the fact many of us today are raised without hands on experience of gardening and keeping plants, it’s not hard to see why so many of us struggle with bonsai, particularly in the early days.
Our obsession with celebrities and social media where anyone can publish pretty much anything and the fact that, by and large, nobody fact checks what they read online and we have a potential but serious pitfall for the unwary, ignorant and terminally lazy. There are a lot of minimally experienced folk out there beavering away at ‘influencing’ us. Get enough followers and it seems most folk will just accept what’s being said as if it were gospel truth. There are a lot of self proclaimed messiahs out there but the fact that something or someone is popular does not make it, or them, right.
I am old school, i even went to an old school, I learned my trade the old school way and have learned bonsai that way too. I subscribe to the notion that we learn by doing, by practical experience and hands on practice. By far the best way to start anything new is to get alongside a more experienced fellow. That used to be called an apprenticeship and it imparts life long learning. I have always spent my time with folk who are where I wanted to be. I figured out a long time ago that spending my time with folk who were where I was would leave me right there. It may have been comfortable but it was never going to help me out. I got to spend time with some of the best bonsai artists working, often it was intimidating, particularly in the early days but it was worth the discomfort to progress my experience.
Over the years I have had my content plagiarised and blatantly copied. My videos have been ripped off and some folk didn’t even bother to change the soundtrack they just put their name on them and claimed it was their work. That’s simply incredible since there really is only one person around that looks like me and I know him well. I have had these lazy scumbags take credit for my trees, use my pictures to promote stuff they are selling. They have associated my name with their products and trees in order to try and get a better price or give them credibility. I even had one shit-bag who was advertising my trees for sale on Ebay. People will do literally ANYTHING in order to gain fame these days but of course they do it at arms length, keyboard warriors. Nobody has ever done these things within my reach, there is violence in my past and there could be in my future given the right circumstances. Beware the quiet ones, we are watching!
Having got that off my chest lets get back to the subject at hand. I have written recently about turning off, shutting up and listening. What we need to listen to is not what the great Marco Invenizzi once called the NET BONSAI WANKER but the quietest voice of all, our trees. As humans we think the best and most efficient way to communicate is words, that’s simply not true. Anyone who follows politics will know words can easily say one thing and mean another. Words have literally infinite capacity for being misunderstood and abused. Dogs communicate much more efficiently than we do and there is never a misunderstanding between our hairy friends. Similarly trees can communicate perfectly with us if only we could shut up, look and listen.
Trees respond to their environment and if it is us who control that environment we ABSOLUTELY must understand what’s going on if we want to be successful. I have literally lost count of the number of times I have heard folk say to me about their tree “It was fine for years and then it just died”. In that case, ninety percent of the time, somebody has been ignoring the signs and has actually been killing their tree slowly over a very long time.
If there is a golden rule for success in bonsai it’s the old gardening adage, “Right plant, right place “. Really simple, except, the bonsai community works very hard at overcomplicating everything. My advice? For every variety in your garden, look up the species, find out about it’s natural range and the conditions in which it grows. Knowing that will tell you what you need to do to make it a happy camper. Personally I would entirely ignore bonsai related information sources, stick with the horticultural and plant experts and commercial growers.
Sadly I can’t teach this intuitive aspect of bonsai remotely. I remember several happy occasions walking around my garden with consummate expert David Prescott. I was simply flabbergasted at what he could tell about a plant simply by walking past it. Sadly it has taken me fifteen years to catch up but at least I got there in the end. Life is all about the details, there are NO big things just details, ignore these at your peril.
The Tale of Two Maples.
I say all that, in my long winded way, as a preface to todays lesson. The best I can do to try and pass on how this works is to present an example so, here goes. Here are two pictures. The trees are identical species, Japanese produced Acer palmatum’Deshojo’. These were photographed on the same day in late September, both have been on the nursery here in Norfolk (U.K) for at least a couple of years. So, what do these images tell us? What can we extrapolate from what we can see?
First up the smaller tree in the bonsai pot. For the time of year there is no way this should be largely without leaf, it’s not unknown in our micro-climate to have leaves on maples at the end of November. Notice the leaves are fairly large and the petioles are long. We can also see the tree has made at least an inch or two of new extension growth all over. This tells me the tree is not intrinsically weak or unhealthy therefore we can deduce (sounding like Sherlock here) the issues with this tree are largely, but not entirely, environmental.
What you can’t see is that the tree is not extensively well rooted simply because a lot of the soil is very loose. This tells me that before I got this tree it had spent a good amount of time in a larger pot before someone re-potted it with extensive root removal into a bonsai pot that is too small and a soil mix that is too coarse and then, adding insult to injury, the tree has been heavily pruned in all the wrong ways.
Over winter trees store a huge amount of energy in their trunks for springtime. After the poorly completed work detailed above this tree has burst into spring growth only to discover it’s roots have disappeared and it can’t support the amount of foliage and new growth. It’s much like folk who spend too much borrowed money before something changes and they find themselves with their bare asses out in the breeze. Drastic action has to be taken before we lose our ass altogether.
Look at the new growth on the tree, look how thin it is with long internodes. Our tree thought it had plenty of cash in the bank but very quickly discovered it had been robbed. After the initial spring flush the tree bravely struggled on all summer but could not manage a second flush. Therefore the leaves are, by the end of September, six months old. It’s been a rough summer here with very high temperatures and vicious drying winds. The weather has taken it’s toll and at this time the tree is not strong enough to fight back and has shut down early.
For sure a better gardener than me (with 3000 plants at this time) would have given this a little more TLC and helped it out a bit. I like to think I grow tough trees, no place for slackers on my benches! I have kept it in the sun, but the pot in the shade to keep it from cooking the roots in direct sun. Keeping it warm and sunny meant the pot dried out regularly which meant I could water twice a day. Passing water through the root system supplies oxygen and ensures fast root development. Absolutely no pruning, every leaf was needed to supply energy to help restore the trees equilibrium. A very limited amount of fertiliser was used.
Soon I will move this back to a terracotta nursery pot without disturbing the roots. This is a classic example of how a bonsai pot is only suitable for bonsai trees, which this is not. Moving this immature tree into a bonsai pot too early and in all the wrong ways has set it back about five years. That’s how long I estimate it will take to restore this tree and re-balance it’s equilibrium. It will also take that long to rebuild it’s ramification which no doubt it once had. At that time a skilled individual will be able to return it to a bonsai pot without rocking it’s world in all the wrong ways.
This long suffering maple is a text book example of ignorance, incompetence and impatience. The calamitous three I’s of the bonsai apocalypse. The fastest way to get to where we want in the development of a bonsai tree is to take our time. Sadly a great deal of the work done on bonsai today pretty much guarantees they will never become the bonsai we hope.
So what about the second example, a larger tree in a terracotta nursery pot? This arrived in a worse state than the little tree, about five or six years ago. It was, again, in a tiny pot but this time had been ignored for years, not re-potted and barely even watered and was, I judged at the time, just a few months from complete collapse and death. Obviously that’s not the case today and rebuilding of the tree is well underway. So, what does the picture tell us?
Most obviously the leaves are a beautiful green colour and are nearly perfect, well formed and of even size. At a glance the tree has a well groomed appearance without shaggy growth. However there are a few scorched examples here and there. That lower branch has obviously been grown out for a reason and look how evenly thick it is with evenly spaced internodes. It’s hard to see in the pictures but there are some light brown lines running along the trunk. Also the soil looks good, A largely even colour, no green algae or weeds and the pot is much the same, algae on the outside of terracotta indicates a constantly wet soil. I am having to water at least once and sometimes twice a day. So what can we tell from those observations?
Deshojo maple flushes bright red leaves in spring. By mid-summer they tend to take on a rather odd green/purple colour. In the UK and my nursery in particular leaf tips will be scorched by drying summer winds. The leaves on this tree are fully mature, the red spring colour has long gone but why the green colour? That’s the effect of a shaded position, maple leaves that are exposed to direct sun often take on some colour, in the case of deshojo this tends toward dark green and purple.
Notice those badly scorched leaves on the downward pointing branch? That tells us all we need to know. Those are old spring growth that were left after defoliation in summer. Why else would they be scorched when the top is perfect, sun comes from above right? Bright green even sized leaves, all identical and very late in the year show this tree was defoliated in summer, the lower leaves were left at the time because the branch to which they were attached was weak and, at the time, they were in good condition even though senescence has set in now..
So what background do I know? This got left in our poly-tunnel having been put in there over winter to protect it’s now vibrant root system from excess wet. By the time I got around to moving things about in spring it was already in leaf and so I could not put it outside as the risk of frost had not passed. Therefore I had to leave it where it was. It grew incredibly, that long branch made over three feet and carried more leaf than the rest of the tree put together. However by mid-summer we were experiencing temperatures up to fifty five Celsius in the greenhouse. Even damping down three times a day was not going to keep this looking good. At the end of July the leaves were almost entirely fried, brown and crispy, except for that lower branch that was a little shaded. So, rather than lose the rest of the growing season I removed all of the leaves and shortened the current seasons growth and performed some structural pruning.
Two weeks later the tree flushed with new red leaves and made extension everywhere, just like a second spring. Because temperatures were falling and day length had begun to shorten I left the tree in the tunnel. Once the new flush of growth made three to five leaves I shortened it back to one pair. Defoliating is about improving ramification which in turn will produce smaller leaves but, beyond that it can, as in this case, allow us to extend the growing season. This was sold just last week but left where it was it would still be photosynthesizing into November. That gives us a long season (for the U.K) and ensures a vibrant, strong, healthy and FAST developing tree next summer.
This tree has been going backwards for years. Of late it’s lot in life has begun to improve. It’s strength has returned and it’s facing a bright future in the right hands. The old grey bark has begun to show light brown vertical cracks. This shows us the trunk and primary branch structure has begun to swell as the tree lays down thick new sap wood. Each year this allows increasing amounts of sap to flow which increases the growth rate and hastens the trees development as bonsai, so long as we do our bit in that equation properly.
The rebuilding of this old tree has JUST begun after five years of basically doing nothing other than allowing the tree to build a new root system and, step by step, gain vigour. That has now reached an insanely high level and finally this tree can be restored and we have something to work with. Much like whack-a-mole, every time I cut this tree it just bounces right back at me. That means I can be constantly intervening and the trees response ensures every step makes an improvement. Basically what has happened is we have taken an old somewhat mature but dying bonsai tree and turned it into raw material again. Had I caught the tree earlier that might not have been entirely necessary but in this extreme case the best approach was to begin the cycle all over again.
Absolutely every time we touch our trees it HAS to be for the tree’s benefit. If your intervention is because you want the tree to look good, say for a show or to impress a visitor you put your own needs before that of your tree. That is the top of a steep slippery slope, trust me I have been down it. Before you go getting busy be sure what you intend to do will be to the benefit of your trees in the long run and not just a quick lick of paint and a cover up job. If you are not sure what to do, do nothing, watch, wait, mull it over and think deeply about how you got to this point with your tree and where your TREE needs to go. Everything you need to know is written right there in front of you, just look!
It’s been a long time since I passed a significant watershed in my bonsai journey. I have now been studying and practising bonsai for more of my life than not. That might not be significant for some who started young but I was not a spotty kid.
Years ago somebody came and asked me how long I had been doing bonsai, about fifteen years was my reply. He then asked if he could expect to be as good as me (that’s a matter of opinion of course) once he reached that particular milestone. My reply was almost certainly not. I don’t think my answer was the anticipated one. As my last boss always said “It’s not the hours you put in but what you put in your hours”.
I was very lucky that when I started bonsai there was no internet. All I had was a few library books, two eyes, two hands and a big nose. With the exception of a few basics like wiring, everything I have learned about bonsai was learned from the trees I have owned. Anyone who knows me will be aware I consider myself to be a gardener first and foremost and I am proud to continue on this noble profession that has largely been forgotten in modern Britain in favour of ‘gardening’ which is something all-together different nowadays.
All of my earliest memories revolve around gardening, in part thanks to my grandparents who always worked hard at growing next years dinner. My mum’s parents had a large guest house in Great Yarmouth in the late fifties and sixties and they had a market garden in which they grew the produce for the family and guests, a far cry from today. My nan grew the food she cooked and served to her guests. My other grandfather grew his own vegetables for most of his ninety six years.
During the summer I would often stay with my mothers mother and we were always outside pulling weeds, planting, pruning and watering. She would take up handfuls of soil and hold it to her nose, smelling it’s earthly aroma and the look of joy that crossed her face has inspired me for life. She would pluck a leaf, crush it and again hold it to her nose. Flowers, fruit, foliage in fact everything in the garden has a tale to tell. In a garden the least important sense we have is sight. Sadly in this day of screens that fact has been entirely lost. Even today I get more from my bonsai at night in the dark than I ever do during the day.
My own parents always encouraged me to ‘try harder’ and ‘do better next time’. A noble idea but as an insecure and uncertain boy I always considered what I did was not good enough, I felt a continual failure. In life that has driven me hard. The reason I told the guy he would probably not reach my level of understanding after a given time was the fact I knew he simply would not put in the hours, he did not have the perfectionist gene. He also lacked the enquiring mindset and the courage to do what it would take. Besides if he possessed those characteristics he would not need to ask me for help.
For twenty years I worked eight hours a day in my job and i did nine hours a day bonsai work, seven days a week, EVERY single day. I have not been on holiday for twenty seven years and I did not own a television until I was over forty five years old. I have not missed more than thirty days work since I was thirteen years old. I love what I do and I will NOT let anything get in my way and, in my opinion, that is THE only way to learn something.
Looking at my bonsai I am infinitely critical, nothing I have ever done measured up to the standard I set myself. I have always said the day I do my best work, and know it, will be the day I walk away because there will be no more challenge. When it’s dark my bonsai are beautiful because there is no evidence of my inept fumbling. In the dark they are just small trees that share the majesty of their wild origins.
Trees give us life, they were here before us and they will be here after us when they will absorb our nutrients in order to cover over the fact we were ever here. The more evil and self serving a society becomes the more trees suffer and are destroyed, how many people cut down a tree because it ‘blocked their light’. In the old testament, invading armies would ‘lay waste’ to a land by destroying all it’s trees. A land without trees is tragic, hopeless and desolate. Whilst everyone seems to agree cutting down the rain forest is bad most seem quite happy to lay waste to their own gardens. Bonsai at least opens up our hearts to develop a love of trees even though a lot of folk do seem to kill a lot of them. In the long run there really is no hope for us is there?
Saying that reminds me of Mr Doubleday. He was the person that I first met in the bonsai world that inspired me to take up my life’s work. A third generation nurseryman who produced roses from his little nursery on Walnut Hill. He lived in a caravan without electricity, wore tweed and hobnail boots and had hands like ancient gnarled branches. His father had seen bonsai in the far east during the war and decades lated Mr D was still practicing the art. I remember he shared with me the utter joy and magic he experienced walking amongst his trees at night with his old paraffin storm lantern. A flickering flame is a much better light to view bonsai than the latest 4k UHD screen, the smell is better too. I have hundreds of paper photographs of my early attempts at bonsai taken by the flickering light of a candle or lamp. These were often taken in the quiet wee small hours of a freezing cold night in winter. All very emotive stuff that fuelled my imagination and passion.
Thirty years have passed since and it’s just not so easy to stay up until it gets light, splash some water on my face and go do a days work. The flip side is I am a little more skilled than I was and so I can do things faster with better outcomes than I did once upon a time. However I am still the student and not the master. It reminds me of the parable that Jesus told about the man that took a high seat at a feast and was asked, much to his embarrassment, to move to a lower place by the host in favour of a more important man. Yet another man that took a low seat was asked to take a higher seat more suited to his position. My mentor always said that the term ‘Bonsai Master’ is an acknowledgement bestowed upon us by others who respect and understand our work and not a moniker we apply to ourselves. Ultimately the only stars of the bonsai world are the trees themselves I see no room for celebrities in what we do.
Another story I heard was about a wealthy man proudly showing his friends around his impressive koi pond and boasting about the quality and value of his beautiful fish. The fish looked out and a new arrival said “Who is that up there”. The other fish replied “Oh that’s just the guy who cleans out the toilets”.
When I sat down here I intended writing an article about defoliation and maples but that has got away from me now and I will have to save that for another day. I have been reminded of the power of silence in bonsai. Sadly the world has become a cacophony of noise and we are losing our very souls in the clamour. Time to slow it down, shut up, turn off and go back to our origins. When was the last time you went out to smell the soil that made you and your bonsai trees?
Thanks to everyone who sponsored me. Our local group has raised around £18,000 and worldwide the Distinguished Gentlemans Ride is closing in on $6 million raised.
THANK YOU!
Okay Peeps. It’s that time of year again when I make an appeal for your money. Not for me of course, I earn every penny I have, but I need your money for a very good cause.
Once again this Sunday I will be joining The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. I feel this event is important in raising awareness of issues that affect all of us men. The point is to raise money to help men that really need it so PLEASE go to my fund raising page and sponsor me dressing up like a twat and enduring a 200 mile trip on a bike designed in the 1930s, this year the Harley flathead will be my distinguished ride. Come on peeps put your hands in your pocket for this great cause.
Last years ride.
Bonsai is largely populated by men, with a few notable exceptions, and I am proud to be numbered among those proud fellows. But, having been through the mill a few times in my life I am acutely aware we should never be too proud to ask for help if we need it no matter how hard that might be. I have had great help and support from the bonsai community over the years and I know what a great bunch of characters we all are. Now is the time to pay some of our good fortune back and help somebody in need. PLEASE follow this LINK and donate whatever you can afford. You can copy and paste this into your browser too https://www.gentlemansride.com/rider/GrahamPotter148253
Here in Dear Old Blighty we are in the midst of change on a scale not seen since WW2. In general we people hate change, it represents uncertainty and is a harbinger of things unknown. I have reached an age now that I have learned, without doubt, that only one thing in life is certain and that certainty is CHANGE. There really in no point in resisting change. History is littered with the remains of those who stood resolutely in the path of progress.
Having reached the venerable age I have, another thing I know is that not all change is good. As a species we are not talented at doing what is good for us. We have vengeance, destruction and death in our hearts and all it takes is the right set of circumstances for us to unleash our hatred and mayhem on the world. Granted, most of us would not unleash a cataclysm upon the world like the Nazi hordes. However when your neighbour has been running a chainsaw or angle grinder for days on end who wouldn’t want to go punch him in the ear? All I can say is thank God for good parents who instilled in most of us a sense of right and wrong.
So change is inevitable and many times it comes uninvited and takes us in directions we never planned. That’s exactly how I got here. I never intended to do what I do today. Thirty years ago I found myself too broke to continue with my pursuit of custom cars and fast motorbikes. By an unrelated series of events I ended up staring at a bonsai tree and over time I fell under the spell of it’s magic. The mix of horticulture and mechanics with a little imagination thrown in really did appeal to me.
Being potless I was limited in what I could achieve. That as it turns out was a good thing. I have always lived my life by the directive “Use what you’ve got to get what you want” I didn’t have any good trees back then but I had a lot of skip rats and stumps. After I had done enough of them they opened up the world to me and ultimately got me those valuable assets that had alluded me for so long.
Fast forward thirty years and things have changed. The fly in the ointment is that I now have no time to do the very thing that bought me here in the first place. We are about to employ our fifth member of staff and running a business like that, here in Blighty, is no mean feat. Every single year we have been in business our turnover (and corresponding workload) has increased, even through the recession of 2008/9. Today we do more in two weeks than Bonsai Mart did in a year. Today, if I am doing bonsai, it’s for the business and for our lovely customers. I have a world class scots pine sitting on my bench, it’s been there for twelve years now and apart from keeping it healthy I have never worked it. That makes me very sad.
This all became apparent to me late last week. I was watering, as I do a lot, and noticed a large pot full of weeds in the front yard. There was a bunch of deadwood and some juniper foliage sticking out of it. Upon closer inspection i remembered it was a very special yamadori sabina I bought at the end of last year. I felt bad and it seemed like a good idea to at least pull it out, remove the weeds and preserve the deadwood before winter.
Once out and on the trolley I remembered just how good this juniper was and I felt like a bit of a shit-head for having treated it so. Once in the workshop and free of weeds I was thrilled to see just how good this really was. I cleaned it up a bit and having brushed up the deadwood, gave it a good soak with Lime Sulphur.
This beautiful tree has a long way to go, it’s very early days. Thankfully my appreciation of good yamadori does not depend upon it being styled as bonsai. These days I get as much enjoyment out of having my garden littered with these venerable old trees as I do show quality bonsai. The long and the short of what I do is that I LOVE trees (unlike my neighbour with the chainsaw and the swollen earhole). I may never even get this tree styled but that in no way detracts from my appreciation of it. I’m going back out to the weed patch again to see what else I can uncover….
G.
Easily lost in a patch of weeds.
A diamond in the rough.
The mysterious ‘weeds and polystyrene’ technique.
Sabina deadwood needs regular attention to preserve it’s integrity.
I am a simple fellow. Born into simpler times, the 1960’s, I have spent my life among simple working class folk who live simple lives. None of my compadre’s ever went to university and most of us couldn’t spell ‘semantics’ never mind explain it’s meaning. A clodhopper may be a derisive term for us uneducated country dwelling simple folk but we are, by and large, happy and content in our own little world and are rarely troubled by the machinations of the wider world. The internet and the media do their best to burst our contented peaceful bubble but, simple as we may be, we do know where the off button is. The fact that the electricity goes off after 10pm out here in the country helps too.
I can’t really remember what it was that drew me into the world of bonsai. I was keeping trees in pots long before I even knew what a bonsai tree was. Back when I was a toddler I was always trying to grow trees from seed, with little success. Most people trying to grow from seed are still enjoying the same experience by all accounts. At every opportunity I was putting conkers into pots of mud, planting date seeds, peach stones, apple pips, pine cone seeds etc’. The only real success I had was growing carrot tops and cress but I guess ‘the seed was sown’ so to speak. As an aside I have grown a couple of bonsai from seed, it’s taken for ever and the trees are crap so unless you are young and have very high levels of skill and insight I would suggest not bothering.
It came as something of a revelation to me that the best route to creating bonsai is to start with something large and make it smaller. I have infinite respect for those who go the seed or cutting route but in most respects it’s not for me. The issue is even if you can recognise that gnarly old stump in the back of your garden has bonsai potential, actually realising that potential has a knack of evading most people in the hobby. Assuming we can get the old clunker dug out and keep it alive the road to becoming a bonsai tree is a long one fraught with pitfalls, blind alleys and often literally a dead end. The whole issue has become much more difficult since the internet invaded our lives and bought an endless torrent of absurd hogwash through which we have to wade looking for nuggets of truth. I have to deal with the results of all this on a daily basis. The ignorance out there is simply beyond comprehension.
I am not anti-internet, far from it, it’s how I make my living and spend my spare time sitting writing this ol’ twaddle. However it frustrates me that ‘information overload’ is killing our hobby. As we take our first baby steps we have absolutely no way to discern the difference between what is right, what’s wrong and what is truly bonkers. The internet has created the possibility that any one of us can become a legend in our own lunch time. Becoming a celebrity has it’s attractions for many people, after all we all want to be loved.
Being a big fish in a small pond has always had it’s subscribers, once upon a time every bonsai club had one. I have written before about all this and how, back in the day, the only folk that really got a voice possessed some skill as a book publisher could recognise the difference between an artisan and a gob-shite. Today anyone who can use a keyboard has a voice and there are a lot of folk out there hungry for good advice. Sadly nowadays nobody needs to demonstrate their skill in order to publish their opinions and for the inexperienced this is creating a real and exasperating problem.
Part of the issue i have with ‘celebrity‘ is that we become conditioned to thinking that we can’t do this or that thing because we are not ‘gifted‘ or especially endowed with whatever it is we think we need. This brings me to the term ‘artist’. Today it’s very fashionable to be an artist, it implies we are special or privy to some esoteric philosophical wonderment that has evaded the mere mortal. The Oxford dictionary gives the following definition of the term.
A person who creates paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby.
1.1 A person who practises or performs any of the creative arts, such as a sculptor, film-maker, actor, or dancer.
1.2 A person skilled at a particular task or occupation.
Obviously in this context we are concerning ourselves with point number 1.2. The art of bonsai is in the continual practice and application of simple techniques over many decades.
It appears to me that many folk have become concerned with being, or not as the case may be, an artist. The assumption being that if we are not artistic we cannot produce bonsai. Seeing as consummate artists in any field are few and far between this, perhaps gives us an excuse. For sure there are significantly skilled artists in bonsai, some folk appear to have infinite imagination which allows them to create above and beyond what most of us see. A sprinkling of fairy dust can truly bring magic to the endeavour. However I have long been of the opinion that art sits on top of a foundation of hard work. Whilst we may not be able to reach the elevated heights of the most talented bonsai artists I believe all of us can produce very impressive work with dedicated practice and the achievement of sufficient miserable failure.
The first step to mastering the art of bonsai is to become a gardener. You can be the most creative person on earth but if your bonsai tree is dead the world will consider you to be a dickhead. I have always considered myself a gardener first and foremost. Sadly todays lifestyle has removed a huge number of people from contact with horticulture. Lucky for me ALL of my early memories revolve around gardening. My grandparents took a guest house in Gt Yarmouth back in the 1950’s and they had a market garden on the outskirts of town where they raised produce for their kitchen. My parents were always keen gardeners and I had my own veg’ plot before I could even spell the word vegetables.
When I got into bonsai thirty years ago the horticulture of the whole affair was just second nature to me. Not to say I didn’t have failures because I did but most of those were me being led astray by what I was reading. I also had to discover the boundaries and limitations plants impose upon us. After all these years I believe we need to worry a lot less about being an artist and focus on being gardeners, that will produce some impressive results all on it’s own. I have seen a lot of ill fated artistic endeavours and attempts at creativity. However good horticulture is ALWAYS impressive and is never derided or open to the criticism of ignorant opinion.
Sabina juniper 2015.
It might be stating the obvious but bonsai need to grow. It matters little wether we have old mature Japanese bonsai or the aforementioned gnarly old stump. Growth is essential in all stages of bonsai. Our raw material will NEVER become bonsai without growth no matter how skilled we are with wiring and carving. Case in point is this sabina juniper. I bought this in 2015 and could immediately see it was going to be a good one. I guess that’s the artist in me, being able to recognise the inherent potential in a tree comes partly from decades of practice and partly from a fertile imagination. The trouble I often have is in convincing other people of the value of a particular plant. Sometimes all that is required is to quell the clamour of modern life, clear our minds and listen intently in order to see the magic. Distraction may be our worst enemy.
Keeping photographs of our trees is always valuable and their development is normally much more significant than we realise. That’s entirely the case here. I did in fact sell (or swap) the tree and it went to live with a good friend of ours for a couple of years. In that time the tree was potted and pruned correctly and towards the end of last year it came back to me in part exchange. By that time the tree had grown a lot in all the right places and seeing as nobody expressed an interest in taking the tree away I felt compelled to do a rough wire job. Fast forward to yesterday evening and have moved the tree from it’s oversize bonsai pot into something more appropriate for this stage in it’s development.
Nothing significantly creative has happened with this tree. All that was required was to allow the tree to present it’s inherent natural beauty to the world. The only magic here is that of nature. No carving tools and just a few feet of wire and some regular pruning. There is, as always with bonsai, a long way to go but regular disciplined and informed horticulture and simple bonsai technique is all that is required. So, is this bonsai art? Or, is the art of bonsai good horticulture?
I know very well that most folk have a great deal of difficulty in bonsai when it comes to sorting out the way forward for their raw material. A few people are seemingly blessed with a sixth sense when it comes to such issues. I have no answer for this but I do know that it’s often an excuse for inactivity. I have lost count of how many times I have heard something along the lines of, ‘Oh I could never do that, i’m no artist’. My retort would normally be a forthright “When was the last time you tried?” Way back in the beginning of my bonsai career I literally binned no end of piss poorly designed and badly executed examples of my fumbling bonsai attempts. I’m just too stubborn to give up and after about thirty years I started to get the hang of it. A wiser man than I has said you learn more in life from your failures that you do your successes. I am aware of the esteem within which some folk hold my skills, what does that tell you?
Perhaps my greatest asset in the early days was my impressive lack of funds. I had a lot of dreams but I didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. Therefore my bonsai dreams were built upon skip rats, shit I was given and stuff I got from the tip by hanging around the green waste bin. That’s some ugly stuff so I had nothing to loose by letting my imagination and power tools run riot. To this day I still get excited when I see green sticking out of a skip. I am still a sucker for a bargain as I suppose most of us are. However in my experience opportunity usually presents itself wearing overalls.
Being late summer it’s a good time to be messing with the roots of sabina juniper. Therefore I could not put this off any longer, I had to sort this mess out today. I bought this in Spain earlier in the year, only collected a year ago, it was a good price, I suppose nobody wanted to sort it out. Time to roll up those sleeves….
I left this out by the front gate and everyone who came here over the last few months walked right by it. Insane trees tend to have that effect. First thing to note is that there appear to be two junipers in here. I am happy with the growth rate considering it’s early days so time to jump in.
Once out of the pot the first thing to notice is just how much root there is considering the tree has probably not been in this massive pot for even twelve months. Secondly there are fresh new white root ends. This shown me the tree is actively making root and so my timing is good. If a tree is actively making root, after our intervention it’s just going to continue.
Next, from this angle it’s easy to see we have two trunks. Sadly these don’t go well together so this will need to be separated into two pieces. Thankfully juniper root wherever they touch the soil so roots should be no problem. An hour picking through masses of roots revealed a powerful Y shaped trunk with each arm forming a separate trunk. This was easily split along it’s length producing two root masses. Both parts of the tree were roughly potted up into an akadama, pumice, bark mix. These will be put in a shady part of the warm greenhouse for a couple of weeks before going outside in the full sun for a couple of years. Sometimes you have to roll the dice and just part with the cash whilst trusting your instincts. I have a feeling that in this case my gamble may well pay off which will make a change 😉
The only real success I had was growing carrot tops and cress but I guess ‘the seed was sown’ so to speak. As an aside I have grown a couple of bonsai from seed, it’s taken for ever and the trees are crap so unless you are young and have very high levels of skill and insight I would suggest not bothering.
Next, from this angle it’s easy to see we have two trunks. Sadly these don’t go well together so this will need to be separated into two pieces. Thankfully juniper root wherever they touch the soil so roots should be no problem. An hour picking through masses of roots revealed a powerful Y shaped trunk with each arm forming a separate trunk. This was easily split along it’s length producing two root masses. Both parts of the tree were roughly potted up into an 
