[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Is sponsored by the John Naka Memorial Exhibit, formerly the Nan Pukai exhibit. This Show's going down August 16th and 17th, 2025 at the George Dosaki Gallery in Los Angeles. It's the only juried show in Southern California and anybody can submit Trees. The goal is to have a small but high quality show with free entry for the public.
You can find out more
[email protected] once again, that's NACA memorial exhibit dot com.
I am absolutely looking forward to this show and I hope to see you there, baby Trees.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Banzai.
Banzai. Banz.
The Black Pondo Podcast.
The Black Pondo Podcast.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Well, cheers.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Yeah, cheers. Thanks for coming.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Thanks. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Try this.
That's good.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah, you just want to make sure you get like a little bit of a gulp.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: You don't want too less too little.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Huh.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Get a good amount. It's on the colder side because it's in my fridge there. Yeah.
But as it warms up, it'll start to.
You'll taste more as it opens up.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: So are you. Are you supposed to drink scotch and whiskey cold or room temp?
[00:01:46] Speaker A: No, normal.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Is there a debate on that?
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah, most of the time you're not really supposed to have it cold.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: But I find that I kind of enjoy it just a little cold. It's not like a refrigerator in the sense that like a refrigerator gets like 40 or something. Yeah. I think this is like 50. 50 degrees or something.
Yeah. And it does warm up pretty quick if you kind of nurse it a little bit.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So are you. You are a fan of having whiskey slightly cold?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. To start.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Kenny actually got it on. Got me on that. And they actually last a little bit longer in the bottle because it's cold instead of. Because the problem is I'll have it out here and it's left to the temperature of the house and it. And I don't turn the AC on if I'm not here, so it could get hot. So at least it's more stable.
And I mean, if it's keep alcohol or something, that's different. Right. This is not the cheapest thing to drink.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: So should probably try to take care of it a little bit.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Ah, well, thank you so much for the scotch and thank you so much for agreeing to podcast with me.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Yeah, you're welcome.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I really, really appreciate it.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: I mean, it's funny, I was thinking about just kind of where you've come from. And we were talking a little bit about both living with our parents.
I think when I first met you, we were both living with our parents.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. I had a workshop at my parents house.
Yeah. And you came to that. Yeah.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: And then just to be clear, we don't live with our parents anymore.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: I think it's good.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: I think it's, it's a very, it's a very Asian thing.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: After.
For me it was after college, but I think it's a great way to save up.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: But it's also important to leave the nest.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah. At some point. Right. Doing your own thing.
Yeah. That concept is always very interesting. Right. Because my parents wanted me to stay there. It's not, it's not like what you would think normally in the sense of, okay, we got this, you know, man child that won't leave the house kind of.
So. And I, and I, I have a great relationship with my parents, so it's not like we dislike each other. So it worked out. And, and that was inevitably the problem. Right. You start getting a little too comfortable, it's a little too easy. You relax and. Okay, it's time to move on. Right.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: And get your life started.
Yes, yes.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: But, yeah, I, I just. You have come a very long way. I mean, I feel like we both have, which is a very good thing.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: But walking around your garden is just so cool. And every time I come here, the trees get better, the workshop gets better, everything gets improves. And I've just seen your trees mature and the quality of the trees get better and better.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: And I think that you are just so highly regarded in the bonsai community and do such incredible work and I know that your time is very, very valuable. So I really appreciate you saying that you would podcast with me today.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. You're welcome. Anything for you.
Appreciate it.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah. You are a busy man.
You work in like, how often are you working in the year, would you say?
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting doing bonsai full time and owning your own business. Right.
You end up working a lot more than your typical 9 to 5.
I generally these days I work just about every day. I would say for the most part. It doesn't mean I'm working with clients every day, though. I do work with a number of clients.
If it's not working with clients, there's stuff that needs to be done in the garden among, you know, general personal stuff that needs to be done. But a lot of times each day there's always something I have to do. Right. I always have to water the trees or make sure they do get water, so I always have to check on them.
So, in a way, I work all the time, and my days off really comes down to small little pockets here and there.
Like a couple of hours where I'm not working or. Okay, today I just got to check on some stuff, but I'll just kind of mull around a little bit. That's kind of the extent so far.
Thinking about it, good or bad, that's just how it is right now.
That's a good thing or a bad thing.
My feeling is that if. If I want the trees to progress and develop trees at a very high level, it does require a lot of my attention.
So that might not be the best work life kind of thing, but.
But I don't really regret it. I. I do enjoy it. So I guess, in a way, it's not work, so at least I have that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Well, I really appreciate coming up here. I think in the last time we sat down and chatted on a podcast, you were telling me that someone told you that you get to work with people on their fun days.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: That is very true. And such a cool thing that you get to give your clients and the people that you work with a fun day.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: And today was very fun for me.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: I. Oh, good.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: And so I appreciate the many fun days that we've had, and I think that's such a cool aspect of being a bonsai professional.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
Yeah. It was another Japanese apprentice that told me that, and I. I thought that was incredibly insightful. When he said that, I was like, oh, yeah, you gotta really kind of appreciate what I. At least what I get to do with people.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Apprentice was that.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: It was Uchi at Daijuan. I think you've met him before. He had.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: He wears sunglasses.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah, he. He wore sunglasses because he had kind of sort of like a light epilepsy issue, and so he had to wear sunglasses, which is tough in Japan because they really frown upon that.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Oh, really? Okay.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Because if you. If you wear sunglasses, you're kind of looked at this like a gangster or a mafia or kind of a cool guy. And when you're an apprentice, you're definitely not even. You're not supposed to convey any message like that. So it's. So Daijiwin would always have to tell people, oh, it's. It's a medical condition. That's why he's wearing sunglasses. Because That's a big no. No.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: But surprisingly, a lot of people in Japan don't wear sunglasses. Yeah.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Even though it's like. Well, you know, it's probably good for your eyes if you wear sunglasses, but they just don't. That's just a cultural thing. But, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think he.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Follow him on Instagram still.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, yeah. He's doing both in Japan.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Didn't he marry a bonsai professional as well?
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. I. I can't remember her name, but she had. Or where she studied. But she had studied with a Japanese bonsai professional.
I'm not sure how they met. I never asked him how they met.
But, yeah, they're married. I think they have children or one. At least one child, last I heard. Yeah. I don't know if he got more.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: A bonsai nursery and everything.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Putting together a bonsai nursery, so that's so cool. Yeah.
Yeah. That's pretty nice, this.
Find a bonsai wife.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Yeah.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, I feel like you are working all the time and you don't take enough days off. I think you should definitely take some vacations every once in a while. But I also know that I feel like clients just want to work with you all the time, and you're basically fighting off clients these days, which is pretty crazy.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Good.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Good thing. But we're talking about there's just not enough bonsai professionals.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because something I. I realized recently is that, I mean, the clients that I have, their. Their collections are getting big, bigger, or better, and they require more of my time. So say. Say I had a number of clients and I worked with them once a month, let's just say.
And now they all need two days a month.
And so that suddenly changes how much time I have. And I came to realization that if I have a number of, say, clients that need a lot of my time, it ends up being that I actually can't have that many clients or at least one bonsai professional. Just can't quite have that many people to work with, which is kind of unfortunate because, I mean, I want to work with a lot of different people because there's so many people who want to learn.
But the realization I'm having is that I can't connect with everybody. And I don't know how to figure that out is the tough part, because there's so many people that can learn it, make this art form bigger, if not people who are interested in becoming a professional themselves. And.
And I can't help them with that. Right. So, yeah, definitely a bonsai professional shortage. I think we can have a lot more in just California alone. And we would all have plenty of work.
It's not like we have to compete with each other.
There's a lot of work to go around.
So I hope. Yeah, I mean, people are listening. I hope if they ever think about becoming a bonsai professional, they should do it. I mean, there's work for you if you're.
If you're good at it, if you're likable. I mean, you're gonna do well.
Yeah.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: It does seem like there's a need for quality bonsai education and professionals, especially in the United States and California.
I feel like closer to where I live, which is on the central coast of California, there's like nobody. And then in Southern California, which just has a massive population.
Yeah, there's really not that many bonsai professionals. I think there.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was. Or. Or they're all just much older now and they're not looking for that much work and there isn't quite. I mean, there are some new people. Like, you know, we were talking about Julian.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Shout out to Julian.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Yeah, you know. Yeah, doing his thing.
But yeah, I mean, how many people is in LA or like 13 million? Yeah, something like that.
Yeah. Julian can't, can't help them all.
So definitely room there for sure. Yeah, yeah. But I do know that there's people that are apprenticing in Japan now. That's in the, say, the Southern California. It's going to be a few years before they get back, but at least there's, there's things happening we can definitely use more, but at least it's moving in that direction. So, so that's, that's good.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: And you're also helping out in that regard in having your own apprentice.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah. My, my current apprentice, his name is Travis and yeah, he lives in. In Auburn and he's been an apprentice for about a year now. I think he's going to stay for another three years or so. But yeah, he's. He's coming around, learning a lot and he wants to be a bonsai professional.
So. Yeah, yeah, kind of.
Yeah, Keep your ears out for him in the future. I'm telling him everything I know, so it should be good.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: What a fantastic opportunity for him. Yes, very cool.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: And congrats again. I don't know if I've said this to you, but was just thinking today as well, congrats to you in terms of all the Pacific Bonsai Expo Awards.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: That your customers have won.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
I appreciate that.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah. It was fun and amazing.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
I feel like your work really is just on the highest level and looks so good at the Pacific Bonsai Expo. And I can just pick out your trees.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Thanks.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Because of the quality of them.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I. I do have to thank my. My clients for that. Right.
They're all my clients. Trees. I didn't put any trees in. But I mean, I'm so grateful for them because, you know, they hire me, they. They let me do what I do now and. And their trees wand.
And I mean, I can't. I can't complain. If it wasn't for them, really, I wouldn't exist. Yeah. So I gotta give my clients a lot of credit. That's. That's really where it should go to. That allows me to exist. So.
And I'm honored that they would have me work on their trees and get them ready for the show and things like that. Not. Not to say that I'm the only one that works on the trees. They do work on it too, to a certain degree. Right.
Especially on the taking care of it. It's not like they're at my house all the time, so they still do need to properly water the tree, make sure nothing weird happens, spray the tree, all the. All the horticultural management stuff that would, you know, it doesn't matter how good I styled the tree. Let's say the tree didn't get watered. I mean, it's gone. Right.
So I still give them a lot of credit because they still had to take care of the tree and get it to this level. So. Absolutely.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, one question I wanted to ask you about the pbe. I don't think I've asked you this before is what do you think about the judging?
And I'm curious, you know, if it were up to you, would you do the members choice type judging?
I know that we have a history of that through both being in the Bib Club.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: But I was curious and I don't know if you've given a lot of thought to it or if it's something that I'm putting you on the spot here.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because.
And I mean. And I'm. Okay, I'll tell you exactly how I feel about it or what I think about it.
And of course, it's just my opinion. Right. So, I mean, when the. When the first PBE came around and it was a Member's Choice. I wasn't 100% sure sold on that because, because everybody's, everybody's skilled level is different. Right. So, so how is it possible that they would pick the best tree? Let's say. Yeah, I mean I just me judging trees in the past and doing this professionally, I found that it can be very challenging. And then to have say somebody that is not a professional or hasn't seen that many trees, you know, how can we assume that they would reasonably pick the, the best trees? Now I, I know Jonas did some test runs and he found that it seems like the best tree still won what members choice.
But that was like my initial kind of reaction to it as, as the, the first show kind of passed. And then we came around the second show. Some of the things I started thinking about was well, I mean overall it's like they did, they picked good trees the first round. So it's, it's not like it was totally all bad or anything like that. So I was like, okay, well that seemed reasonable. And at the end of the day it's Jonas and Eric's show and if that's the judging they want, I mean, what am I to question that? That's it's their show. Right. Nor should I ever be that vocal about.
I don't agree with that. I mean it's not my place. It's foolish to think that it is.
But interesting enough because a number of people have asked me that also.
And this is the part that's probably going to get me in a little bit of trouble. But I'll say it, it's just what I think is that I thought about it and I said if we did get professionals to judge the show instead of the people participating, who would these professionals be?
Are they Japanese trained professionals? Are they actually Japanese professionals?
Are they professionals that were, that came around, you know, within the US and so that in itself is this huge range also. Like, I mean anybody can do bonsai professionally.
You know, somebody can wake up and say, you know what? I'm going to teach bonsai today. And now they're considered a professional or they start a YouTube channel and they talk about some trees and now they're a bonsai professional, right?
You have that same person judging and you have somebody that's say went and did a full apprenticeship in Japan and are they equal?
So I came to a realization that well, sometimes picking so called professional judges doesn't yield what you would think as the best trees winning either because they have all their biases. And the interesting Thing I found that more professionals probably have more bias than your average Joe Bonsai enthusiast in a way because they've just been able to speak their mind about it because they were the authority for so long. So they, I think they have a stronger sense of what they think is right and wrong.
So their biases seem to be stronger actually.
So. And I've seen shows where professionals pick the winning tree. And I didn't always agree not to say that I'm the, the, the one that's right. But there was some questionable stuff. And this is the part that would get me in trouble is that I don't know if picking professionals to pick winning trees is actually any better than picking amateurs. Having amateurs pick the trees to win, at least currently in the U.S. yeah. And I'm not, I'm not pointing any particular person out or any professional out, but that's just my sense right now.
It's, it's tough because there's a lot of professionals out there that are say, not as qualified to pick better trees, you know, and, but you know, that's just how it is. Everybody's at different levels and that's just how I feel about it right now.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Well, it's tough. I mean, you can't please everybody.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: You can't please everybody. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: You do it one way, someone's mad, you do it the other way.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: And I came to accept that. Right. Putting my clients trees in the show, you would hope that your clients would win. We put a lot of effort into the tree, but the better we always, me and my clients, we always went in knowing that, hey, you know, things happen. Right.
Not all judging is going to be perfect.
We might not agree with some trees that win or some trees that don't win, but that's just the name of the game. So you just got to accept it for what it is. Yeah. So.
So that's kind of where we are. I mean, I've been fortunate that my clients did win some prizes and maybe that in a way, excuse or skews how I'm looking at it now. Right. Yeah.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Um, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. The question about which judges would you pick? That's an interesting one. Almost, almost. Think, well, first off, I like a, a decent number of judges.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: That would make sense. Yeah. Having more than like two more with more than helpful, then you get kind of a, a broader perspective and, and maybe that's why having say like the members choice at, at the PBE works out. Right. Is that you have certain, so Many judges that they just kind of evens itself out. Right.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: I do think that's a good thing, for sure.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: I think if you went with professional judges, I would want to see, like, a minimum of five, but ideally even more.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I think that would be good. Yeah.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Maybe you could have the members vote on who the judges should be.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Oh, well, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: You know, and I think it'd be awesome if you had, like, at least seven judges.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Or even more than that.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I. I like that. I. I understand that, you know, having judges. Professional judges could be cost prohibitive for the pbe because everybody wants to get paid. Right.
Especially professional.
So I. I can see why that maybe is maybe a factor. Right. Or. Or at least if. If.
If there's no urgency or sense, like, somehow the judging was not fair, why step it up and make the show that much more costly? I know that they've spent a great deal of money putting on that show, so I totally get it if, say, they're like, oh, seven judges, that's tough. But I do agree with you. Having more definitely would help out in balancing the bias. Yeah, exactly. It would kind of knock out any biases that are a little too great if it came down to, like, three people.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: You know, and it's interesting. Those biases are impressive in a way.
I mean, I've had bonsai professionals say that they hate one particular tree, and I was really surprised because, I mean, you're a bonsai person and you hate a tree. It seems so odd that one would say that, but they said it without a.
Like, it was normal to say that. And that. That made me a little like, you know, I don't know about this person, you know, interesting. But I hear things like that. And you just say, okay, well, that's pretty biased.
Well, that tree is definitely not going to win just because you hate that species of tree, you know, or that. That cultivar of tree.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: And you're like, okay, well, that's. That's tough. What are you going to do about that? I guess.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is tough.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: I guess with the.
With the members choice, what I do really like is that I do think that it forces the people that are showing and exhibiting trees to really learn and improve. And I think from an educational aspect, it seems to make a lot of sense. I do like that aspect.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I am a fan of that, too.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: But I almost feel like we could have both. Maybe we could do members choice awards as well as professional judging.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Or some combination of the two, But I don't know. I was just curious. I have. I don't think I ever asked you that, so.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Okay.
Yeah.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: You know, one thing, the topic that I really wanted to talk about with you today was junipers.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: And I think one of your clients won the. What was it? Large juniper category at the pv.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a large conifer category. Yeah.
And. Yeah, it was a Kishu juniper grafted on a California juniper trunk.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Got it.
Yeah. That tree was. Was absolutely stunning, in my opinion.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: I really loved the work on it, and the level of refinement was outstanding.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: And overall composition was just very, very nice.
And I guess one thing that kind of I was thinking about is the trunk. While it's a good trunk, I don't think it's necessarily, like, the best trunk that I've seen. It's definitely a good trunk.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: It's.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Yamadori collected California juniper.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: But I think that the grafting the tree was a very good move, and if you didn't graft that tree, I just don't think it could have been what it was.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And a number of people have asked me, because we. We showed that tree at a local show in Sacramento recently, and an old client of mine had took me aside and was asking me questions about the tree, especially on how full the canopy was and all the individual pads that it had.
And one of the things that I told her was that, you know, like you said, the trunk is. It is a collected trunk. And there's, I think there's two lifelines and there's deadwood, but there isn't any kind of crazy twists or any kind of crazy old gins that are sticking out of it. You can tell it's collected, but it isn't, like, just fantastic, twisted thing. Right. So one of the reasons why it was styled the way it is, with a much fuller canopy, with a lot of individual pads, is that the trunk by itself was not strong enough to just kind of just be the showstopper by itself. Right. We. We had to add a full canopy with a lot of pads to help supplement it in a way so that the whole package looked really. I mean, at the end of the day, when you look at that tree, it's just a very pleasant tree to look at.
Like, even though, say, it doesn't have the. The best trunk or all the crazy twists that we would want in a juniper, overall, it was just, like, a pleasant tree to look at. Nobody can really look and say, I Just don't like it. And it was just nice to look at. And there's something to be said about that, that it didn't have to be so fancy. But I think the, the foliage definitely helped it in the fullness of it. And again, the individual pads just kind of gave you more to look at. Yeah, right. So. So for example, and I was talking to her and I said, the old client, that if the trunk had a lot more flair to it, a lot of twists and gin sticking out, I probably would have developed the tree in a way where the canopy was actually smaller or it was a little bit more sparse in the sense that there was not just pad, pat, pat, pat everywhere, but there were bits more spaced apart from each other. So that the focus is back on that interesting trunk and the foliage is there just to show you that you know what, this tree is alive, it's not dead.
So the foliage becomes more secondary and the trunk is the, the showstopper. But in this case, since the, the trunk wasn't the showstopper, we needed to add the foliage on top and it was kind of specific for this tree to kind of bring it all together and, and make it a, fortunately a winning tree at the show. Right. Yeah.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: That's so fascinating and I love to hear your thought process there because. Yeah, I, I guess I typically think, okay, the value of a juniper is all in the trunk.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And for the most part that, I mean that really is true, I think for all. For bonsai in itself. Yeah. For all. Most of bonsai is that the main value is the trunk. How interesting it is trunk, because that's the oldest part of the tree and everything else is kind of secondary to that. And the foliage is like the youngest end point right there. You know, it's still important, but it's not quite as important as the trunk because you can change the, that three month old foliage very easily. You can't change that hundred year old trunk or thousand year old trunk if it's a collected tree.
So yeah, I mean, for the most part the trunk is key for sure. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Can we talk a little bit more, go a bit deeper in terms of what a good juniper looks like?
I guess starting with the trunk, like, where do you find value in a juniper trunk?
[00:30:00] Speaker A: What I, what I've been telling people and, and it's interesting if, if you're looking at it from a quality perspective in say, junipers, especially in relation to, let's just say your goal is you want a fantastic juniper and you want to put it in a show like the Pacific Bonsai Expo. And you want to win, right? That's your goal. You want to have a fantastic tree, everybody loves it and it wins a prize. Or at least maybe it's, let's say not the prize, but just it's a fantastic tree. Everybody's amazed. Right? And that's your goal, which is a great goal, to have a specific to junipers itself. Because there's so many junipers out there, the competition is pretty tough. Yeah, right. So because there's so many that's being collected, so many that's just so interesting to look at. You know, you just can't get collect a juniper that has like a straight trunk and think that people are going to like it as much because there's so many other ones out there. So it just gets diluted. Because you know, if, if somebody brought in a, a decent beach, right, we're talking, some beaches are like just a decent beach doesn't have to be that great. The fact that there is almost like no beaches around, you know, people are going to look at this beach and be like, this is fantastic. Because it's so hard to find or develop or grow.
Nobody's growing them from seed. People can't even get the seed right kind of thing. You can't take cuttings from it because that's not a thing for beach. You just. Beaches don't take as cuttings. So, so the competition is high for junipers. So I, I do tell some of my clients now, or even new clients or just people who are interested in bones are interested in junipers. And I, I tell them it is very much a challenge to compete in that category.
And that what we're looking for in junipers for the most part is old lifelines, old dead wood, a lot of movement.
Those are kind of the key things. And when you think that there's some movement in the tree, you gotta like times it by 10 because there are ones like that being collected. And once someone styles that out, really refine it and then show it. Just all the okay twist stuff. Even if you found a twist, which is hard to find, it's like, that's not good enough anymore.
That's always in that okay, that's in the okay category. It's not in this top tier category. And unfortunately it's harder to get into that game because the really good trunks are being collected, are very expensive.
You know, it doesn't mean that they're not worth it, but the price is high. Maybe I shouldn't say it's expensive. It's just they cost more. And so now we're talking about, well, if I don't buy a Rocky Mountain juniper, what an awesome trunk, that's 20 grand.
Now you can't compete.
You bought the 10 grand one. Right. And you did the best that you can.
But someone bought the 20 grand one. Assuming that 20 grand meant it was better and they did the best they could, it's hard to beat that.
So it becomes kind of a. Becomes a financial issue too.
Not always just a skill, because you can, say, have the same professional work on both trees and one inevitably is still better than the others just because the quality of the trunk.
And, and we see that in Japan because they've been doing that for a long time.
So your average juniper is not really.
It's just kind of average. And the ones that have a lot of twists, the harder to find ones are just very expensive. Yeah. Because they're, It's.
There's just so many. Right.
So it's hard. Hard to compete.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, so in my mind, I always think that the, the top three things that I'm looking for in a juniper trunk are twist, curve, and then the interplay of the lifeline and the deadwood together.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Because I, I feel like if you just have like a really cool twist and curve in a juniper, but it's all dead.
It's not as cool as if you have deadwood right next to a live vein or they're all even better.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Veins.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
Not, you know, and, and for the most part that is true, and I agree with that.
Having said that, I have seen some junipers that were fairly straight in Japan that has one like Kokufu, which is their biggest show, and it wasn't a twisted trunk or anything like that.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Are you talking needle juniper?
[00:34:39] Speaker A: No, no, not needle juniper. It was a, A kishu, A toy gawa, mostly. It was probably a toy gawa and it won one kokfu. And so that it kind of tells you that, you know, and I think for the most part what you're saying is correct.
If you, if you set your sights and those are kind of your three goals, you're not going to have a problem. But there are those few trees out there that are not. That doesn't quite fit the convention of what we think is quality.
But I would say the kind of. The last part, you're talking about the interplay of the dead wood and the live. And in this case, it wasn't twisted, but just the way it looked. It was a Tall tree. So maybe it had kind of a towering stature to it. And in this particular case also, the tree was incredibly old as a bullseye.
And so I think that had a factor in, in Wyatt won because it wasn't. Okay, I have a tree. It's twisted and, and, and crazy looking, which is great.
But it wasn't a bonsai. Right. It was like that in nature.
So we get some credit. Okay. We found it, we brought it into, and we turned it into a bonsai form.
But that's what it had. Right. So this tree that won Kukufu, for example, it wasn't just that. It was the fact that it was a bonsai for like a hundred years or something.
And it looked like it in a way, it represented bonsai so much better than any collected tree that was then styled. And so, okay, you're talking it was in the ground.
Five years later, it's in a bonsai show. And that's supposed to be considered great and it wins a prize.
But there's a little bit more to that. You know, that's more technical side of it. But when we're talking about really old bonsai and in the US we're, we're a little bit, we're inexperienced on that because we're still young at it. It's. We, we haven't done it that long that this age of bonsai, the tree being old as a bonsai, starts becoming more and more important. And it's a very nuanced thing because nobody wants to see this thousand year old trunk and five year old branches. Yeah. Like what is this?
Right?
We're talking a thousand year old tree, a 700 year old main branch, a 500 year old secondary branch and so forth all the way to. This is the 20 year old branch. 10 all the way to the. Again, the one year old tip.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: You see, that's green. Okay.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: It's interesting. I talked to Seth Nelson, I had him on the podcast, who studied at the same place as you.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: And he said that I remember this quote very vividly. I think I had it. I, Yeah, I listened to it a few times. He just said that Mr. Tanaka, above all things valued true age.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: In trees. Which I thought was cool. And so you cut, you're. You're saying you basically you have an old trunk and then you need, you get tie. You get credit for time as the tree growing in the wild and the native environment.
And then you also get credit for time of the tree growing in a bonsai container.
And usually they refer to that as mochikomi. Is that what you've heard it as well?
[00:38:09] Speaker A: I can't really comment on that. I don't know a lot of the Japanese terms, so I don't really know.
Oh, I don't know. What is it? What's that all about?
[00:38:20] Speaker B: I think it's just age within a pot, like a tree.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: Like it's been bonsai for a long time.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and it's interesting, right? And, and that was one of the things that I, I thought about just my time in Japan and, and how valuable that was. Was it a big part of. Was being around trees that have been bonsai for a very long time. I mean, there, there isn't. I don't know if there's any. I don't think there's any bonsai in the US that's been a bonsai for a hundred years. Let's say, for example. Probably not. I think bonsai probably started in the 30s, 40s here in the US probably 40s.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: I definitely don't know. Historic.
What about like that white pine at the, the national.
You know, there's a.
And I don't know when it came over.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Oh, but there's a.1. Yeah, yeah. I think that came over in the.
After World War II.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah. It might have been in the 50s or something like that. Yeah, yeah. It kind of looks like a big mushroom. Yeah. And some people say it looks like a mushroom cloud. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that was after World War II. Hence the whole mushroom cloud reference. Right.
But yeah, I don't know of any tree that's been a bonsai now. I mean, they could have been a bonsai for a long time, then it got brought to us. But were there any trees that were created in the US that's been a bonsai for 100 years? Actually, I don't think so.
But regardless, if it's 100 or 80 or 60 years, I mean, I think we have some that are made 50, 60, for sure.
So again, we're inexperienced in that sense of bonsai seeing. Okay, what is a really old bonsai look like? As in. As a bonsai, not just as a tree.
And which one. What is a young bonsai again? You get a tree that's a couple thousand years old in the forest, you collected it, it's a young bonus bonsai. It's never a thousand, two thousand really years old. It's, it's, I mean, it realistic. The trunk is for sure.
But as a bonsai it doesn't have that same, that same sense. And, and the tough thing is that it does require time to pass. I mean, we do things to look, make it look maybe older than it really is, but time definitely has a role in it. And you can't make up that time.
You can't fake that time.
And so that's, and I think that not, not everybody in Japan thinks that way, but I, I think a good number of the Japanese professionals in Japan understand that concept or appreciate it more.
And in a way, when I, when I went to Japan, I saw, I was looking at these trees and Mr. Tanago would be like, yeah, my grandfather started it.
Or this ramification took 80 years.
And I was like, the first thing I thought was like 80 years, oh my God, that's a long time, right? How am I ever going to do this? But in a way it kind of took the pressure off in having to develop a tree to look really good in a way in the sense that, okay, well, let's get real about it is if I start the tree now, I'm not going to be around 80 years.
So, so all I can really do is play a role in the development of this tree.
You don't have to see the end. You, you play your part in it and you know someone else will take over after that.
So now you don't. So in a way I kind of felt like, well, there was a little less pressure. Right? You know, I'm, I do the best that I can knowing that somebody will take it to the next level and so forth. And I can be happy that I did my part in all of that because it's unrealistic to think that I can be and be around for that whole journey.
I mean, some people don't even, they're born and they don't make it to 80. And you're talking about, okay, somehow I'm supposed to get this tree to be ramified with 80 year old branches or what would take 80 years to develop. It's just not realistic. And so, so, so in Japan, they're there. We're moving more in that direction now. People, people are starting to understand that they're playing a part in the overall life of this tree. But a lot of times when people are new, they, they get a sense of, you know, I want to develop this tree and I want to kind of see it through to the end. But once they figure out how much time bonsai takes or high quality bonsai and quality of bonsai is getting higher and higher every day.
So it's, it's becoming on, it's becoming more unrealistic to think that you'll see the end of it before, before you're gone. Right.
So you, so you look at that and you're like, okay, all I can do is be that caretaker for this period of time. And you have to accept that, yeah, there's going to be some trees that were brought up and you get to see the kind of the final showing of it and that's great. But you play your role in moving other trees to the next person and so forth.
But yeah, this, this concept of this old long period of time and develop bonsai definitely. Yeah. It just makes you look at it very differently and there's, there's less of a rush and, and know that yeah, this tree will be good. I might not be able to see it, but it will be good as long as you put a good effort in it.
And that's just how it is, you know.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: Ah, what a cool and interesting concept that we're, you know, just a small portion of the care within a bonsai tree. Where we should be.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I, I think more people should be. I, I think we'd be a little, maybe more at ease and be happy about it.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: And look at the bigger picture. Right. I mean we, we do tend to be very short sighted about things, you know. You know, two years is ready to show. Right.
And I was like, bro, it's like 20 plus. Right.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: And, but that's a hard pill to swallow because I mean what takes that long to develop?
You don't think, most people don't think in that, that scale. Right.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: How long? Going back to the juniper in the PBE that won the award, the one that we've been talking about, the California with Kishu, how long do you think that took from you know, putting the first graphs on that tree?
[00:44:43] Speaker A: I have a photo of it back in 2012.
That tree, the graph had taken in 2012. I'm assuming it was grafted in 2011 or 2010 around there.
I was there when the top portion that was grafted also got cut off and separated into a second tree.
I was given the trunk to repot.
It belonged to my current client now.
Well, it belonged to my, the same client, Dan too. I just work with them now and, and so I distinctly remember repotting it, which is very interesting thinking about it because you know, I didn't think my, you know, it's just a couple whips stuck to a trunk and you're like, okay, we'll see where this goes. Right?
So. So let's say the. The beginning of the development, not including the graph, started in 2012. And I repotted it at that time, and we showed it at the PBE in October 24.
Interestingly enough, a couple of things about it is that the tree, I would say at the pbe, it was probably at the peak.
Everything filled in just the way we wanted. Everything was big enough, the tree was tall enough, wide enough, dense enough, all that stuff. So we did get lucky that it hit it just at the right spot.
A side note is that. Well, generally, the tree kind of looked like that. Maybe it wasn't exactly. Everything was all perfect three years prior, it was already fairly full. And we had shown it before at a smaller show.
So it's not like it somehow just became that just in 24. It's been like that since 21 or so.
And we showed it. Yeah. I distinctly remember when the Baba Club, they started their show again after that first year of COVID and everything was locked down. We were kind of getting back into the show, and we showed that tree, and it was. It was looking really good. It wasn't as full as, say, it wasn't as wide or as fully developed, but it looked good. I think we all would have been happy to have that tree.
Here's the side note. That tree hasn't had wire on it since 2020.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: So there hasn't been a single piece of wire on that tree for the last five years or so. It was something like that.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Dang. Okay. Just.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: And I was the last person that put wire on that tree, and it was to finish the bottom pad.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: But that had to have been in 18 to lay out the kind of the basic outline to get it to finish.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: And so just scissor work.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: It was all. Yeah, it's a lot of directional pruning, which is normal. That's what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed to wire a tree all the time. Every day, every year, every other year. That's not how it works. You wire it in the beginning. And this is for both deciduous trees and conifers. You wire at the beginning.
You do heavy wire because you're doing a lot of manipulation. You're getting kind of the bigger structure set. And then after that, you do tend to use a lot of directional pruning. So that one you're not spending so much time wiring, because that just sucks up so much time, especially if you can prune it and get the Same result.
Sometimes you have to wire. There might be a few here and there. So I'm not saying that you shouldn't wire this for sure this time.
And, and ideally, you want to get the tree to a refined mode where you can mostly do directional pruning. Maybe every now and then, when we're talking maybe every five years, you do a wiring just to kind of clean things up. Maybe some branches have grown up a little too much. You got to bring them down. But good directional pruning won't allow a branch to go up that.
So you can really keep that at bay if you're on point.
You know, assuming that the tree is growing healthy, sometimes, you know, you get little weird blips in health and then you have to let something grow up and get stronger. And of course then you have to bend it down.
But yeah, it was very interesting. The tree grew really well. And of course then, you know, the care on how to grow the tree is very important.
You can't grow a weak tree because weak tree, the branches grow, they get leggy, they flop down, and now you need wire to just hold it up. And then you take the wire off and it flops back down.
So it was kind of cool seeing that firsthand on this particular tree that we're like, huh? We haven't really needed to wire it.
We were able to grow it healthy enough.
And I mean, it took long enough just to prune the thing.
I mean, it takes me like one day to cut the tree back and clean it up. And I do that once a year on that tree.
So at least it's only once a year. But it takes me seven hours. Right. Imagine if I had to wire the tree all the time. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I could do it, but then my clients would be the ones paying for it.
And it's ridiculous to have to wire a finished tree so many times. That's. That's not how it's supposed to be.
[00:49:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, totally got it.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: So.
[00:49:54] Speaker B: Actually, could we take quick restroom break?
[00:49:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's it.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
All right, we're back. All right, so I definitely want to ask you about the pros and cons of grafting trees, however. Okay, before we do that, I had a few follow up questions that I was thinking about. Okay, so first question for you, talking about quality of, of junipers, do you think in the current state that, let's say you have a budget of 20k, can you get a better juniper in Japan or in the US Today?
[00:50:36] Speaker A: If we're Talking about just the trunk and we're talking about. Okay, do, are we talking about like the highest quality trunk and which country can we get the highest quality trunk as opposed to say like a finished tree? Right, that's what you mean, what you say. Okay, yeah, yeah. Because in Japan you can get a tree that's all finished and it'll be way more than 20k and it will look really great.
We don't have that same tree here, but material wise we do.
So if we're talking about trunks, I would say if you had 20k to spend buying a. And you, and you're going to spend time developing the tree and that was part of the, part of the deal, you can probably find a better trunk in the US or potentially in other countries where they collect. Still in Japan, collecting is a little bit limited.
How they treat their collected trees and their dead deadwood is a little different than how we treat them too.
They tend to smooth some things out and not have say as many of those little cavities or these little fins that a lot of our collected trees have. And, and, and to tell the truth, I'm not 100 sure if it's all just that they cleaned it up or is it that their junipers, they don't seem to have that characteristic, which almost looks like dragon scale in a way. And it's just like, well, how does that even form? It's incredible.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: It seems like to me in Japan there's different approaches and say, like for example, there's a few trees that Kimora Nora did where it's kind of like it's meant to look almost to me like more like wood sculpture.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: As opposed to a natural tree growing in, in the wild.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: Whereas here we like the natural tree.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We kind of leave it as is. Right. We'll clean it up a little bit, clean the lifeline, but not mess with the dead wood too much and preserve it for what it is. Yeah, I, I agree with that. I, I think we tend to do that more. Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: So, okay, so you're saying you can get a better trunk in the United States, but could you get a better finished tree in Japan, generally speaking?
[00:52:48] Speaker A: For 20 grand? Yeah, for 20 grand, the, the junipers that you're getting because the, there were so many junipers there and there's so many high level junipers. 20 grand probably won't buy you a very good juniper. That's. Oh.
So, I mean you, you would have to spend like 80100 plus thousand dollars. Yeah. For those incredible big finished junipers. Pad it out. I mean, it's a lot of money. Right? And, and like I was like we were talking about earlier, about now money becomes a factor. You know, you want to talk about not being able to play the game.
Okay, you tell me. I go to Japan, I want a bonsai collection, I want to really get juniper and I have to start at 100 grand. Yeah, right. To even compete, it's like that's.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: It's a different game.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: It's a different game. It's just a different level of the game. Right. It doesn't mean we have to play at that level, but it is a level. Right. And it's up to you if. And if you want to play at that level. And, and some, and for some people it's just cost prohibitive, which you still have a hundred grand to spend on one tree, right? That's one tree. That's not a collection of trees. That's one tree. Right.
And that's assuming you get it for 100 grand and then not for more.
That's why the nice thing, in the US you can have that tree if you're willing to spend a little bit money, a bit of money on a quality trunk and then build the tree out from there. I mean, if it was somebody new, they're going to have a hard time building the tree. So they see professional help to. And hopefully the professional help will give them that kind of tree that they were looking for. Yeah.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: Well, I think it's really exciting and I completely agree with you. I think you can get a better tree in the US Right now in terms of. With our native conifers. And that's really exciting to me. Like, that fires me up. That gets me really excited because we have the ability to, to do that. And if you can't afford it yet in the US maybe you can get a permit and figure out how to collect.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: There is still the possibility of being able to collect it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I didn't even think about that.
So.
So it's not impossible yet.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: It's not impossible.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: But it may be at some point. So if you want to do it, definitely get on it. Right? Yeah, yeah. I feel that with junipers in the juniper category, that is probably. If we were to compete with the quality of bonsai in Japan, that's probably the fastest way for us to get to that level in Japan because we have the material, we just have to work on the branches and foliage portion of it.
It's unlike a black pine.
Right? A black pine in Japan people have collected, started from seed like 100 years ago.
And no matter how, if I started a seed today And I spent 100 years developing it to make the trunk look like 100 years old, well, that tree in Japan is now 200. Like it's, you can't catch that, you can't catch up to it. They'll always be ahead because of that time. But because junipers is not about you personally growing it in the sense that nobody grows the juniper trunk we've collected and it has that age already, it allows us to jump ahead and compete at that level because of the trees just growing naturally on their own. Now we still have to get it to look like old bonsai. Mean that part we still have to work on. But that's a bit easier than say growing a black pine trunk that has a lot of bark on it to compete.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: In your opinion, can a field grown or container grown juniper ever match the quality of yamadori?
[00:56:29] Speaker A: I think in some cases, yes, because I've seen some examples of it.
The, and it's close. I mean generally the examples that I've seen it's.
You can still kind of tell it was field grown or maybe it was just an old juniper that was growing in somebody's yard and it got collected and the things that happened to it made it look kind of more like a collected tree out in the wild because it, you know, it had things lopped off of it, somebody hit with a car, who knows what happened. Right. So I mean it experiences some things like that too. So. So they can grow fairly wild. I mean generally you can kind of tell if it was a collected tree in the wild versus say it was in somebody's yard. But I have seen some examples where they'll look really good. And can they compete? I can say in, in small cases, probably a little bit more on the underdog side that there are a few out there, a few specimen pieces that can compete and can probably win just because the composition is just so much better than versus just a collected tree and the composition say it's not good. Right. Because we can still all collect straight trunks and it's not, it's all boring. Right? Or like you're saying the interplay of the lifeline and the dead wood is very boring.
Well, you don't get that much credit if you collect that. It's. That's just not going to cut it and you get a real twisted. Yeah, I was field grown twisted with interesting Movements and old lifelines. Yeah. That tree's gonna win. Of course. Can the. Can the best collected tree in someone's yard beat the best collected tree out in the wild? Probably not.
It'd be very interesting if you found something that can.
[00:58:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:16] Speaker A: But probably unrealistic. It's. It's probably not gonna. I mean, the, the stuff out in nature is just so, so twisted. I mean, something in somebody's yard, okay. 100 years old, maybe someone planted something in the late 1800s or early 1900s and something out in the forest. Been there for 2,000 years. I mean, that's a lot more winters for sure.
[00:58:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And exposed to such harsher elements.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: Yeah. What was the weather like 2,000 years ago? Right.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:44] Speaker A: It could have been just totally buried.
Who knows what happened.
[00:58:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: At those, those years, I have no idea. But they've seen a lot. So they get more beat up for sure.
[00:58:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:57] Speaker B: It seems like to me that the field grown junipers are best in small sizes.
Like they, They. I don't know. Not. They're not.
They're just fun little trees. And it's like, you know that it's not yamadori, but it's, it's a. It's cool. Man made created tree with lots of twists and movement. It's a different thing. It's got a different feel. It's a different animal compared to true yamadori.
[00:59:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And generally it's hard to find really small yamadori. So generally they're big. Though. I. I would say that one, one time when I was at, I think it was Taon 10, it was the fall show in, in Kyoto and somebody had set up a shohin display where it was all junipers.
Like five. Like the five trees. Is it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
They were all junipers. And it was kind of more of a fun thing.
But the interesting thing about is all the junipers were sections off of a collected tree. So they root grafted, then foliage grafted. So they had these little trees with some crazy deadwood on it that you would never see somebody like feel grow. Okay. So it made them stand out and. And they were actually just pieces of the collected tree. So there was example. And that was the only time I actually saw that I didn't.
I mean, and these were shohin. Shohin. Ish type sizes. Now I've not gone to the shohin. I've not done a lot with the shohin in general in Japan, but I, I didn't see. That was the only time I saw that And I was like, so there, there was a lot of effort put into that to really create that kind of collection.
So it's. So it is possible, but it requires human intervention. Right. You don't find that little tree in the fore. If you find a little one, it's always like a skinny trunk or something. Yeah, but yeah, I mean there are a lot of good field grown junipers, twisted ones that are very high level and are in, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of shohin display.
And I remember Daijiwen that Mr. Toru Suzuki was telling me showing me a kokofu when I was at apprentice there. He was pointing at the. At one shogun display. That is, I think it was his customer or maybe his.
Another professional's customer or something. He was pointing, he was looking that he was telling me 300,000 this showing display. 300,000 this over 10 years ago. Yeah, right. Wow. I was like, wow, that's a lot of money for five trees. Right.
But it was very high level and those junipers can be part of that now because so many are made. There's definitely a lot of them that are like plain Jane.
Yeah, that's okay. I remember I bought one years ago for a couple of hundred bucks. I did all this work And I asked Mr. Tanaka, okay, how much you think is worth now? And he was like, about 200 bucks. And I was like, I thought I did a pretty good job. He was like, no, you did a good job. It's just there's so many of these trees that people just don't pay more than that sometimes because they know what it is.
Okay. Maybe if it's a little different, stands out and that's how you get more money for them. But most of them are about the same and so they always, they get capped off. Right. The tree, no matter how much hard work you put into it, the trunk is the same trunk. There's thousands of that particular. Same movement.
[01:02:24] Speaker B: Supply and demand.
[01:02:25] Speaker A: Supply and demand. Yeah. And it's around 200 bucks.
[01:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Here they're a lot more here.
[01:02:31] Speaker A: They're. Yeah, they're more rare here. No, nobody's growing a lot of them. And they're growing thousands and thousands of them in Japan.
And so. And, and that's why when I bought it, it was like 250 or something.
[01:02:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:43] Speaker A: And I spent all the time repotting it. So and I. And you know, the, the interesting thing is I did eventually sell it. I changed the front, wired it, repotted it, all this stuff. Change the front. I think we did get 400 bucks, I think, at a professional auction. So it wasn't retail. Probably could have got more retail, but it was professional. Okay, So I made 150 bucks.
I had the tree for two years. I repotted it, wired it, and I made 150 bucks. And I didn't have to pay to keep the tree anywhere. Right, right. Mr. Tanaka paid for that. And I didn't have to pay for the water and fertilizer. I just used the. It. That's a hard business.
[01:03:22] Speaker B: If it was legal to import into the U.S. you probably could have got three grand for.
[01:03:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that same true, but like, three grand here. Yeah, because it's so hard to find. Nobody's growing. And the people who did grow them, like Jim, Grandma grew a number of them back in the days, and that's why he got a lot of money for them.
Junipers don't grow thick fast. And you get the. The. Out of the ordinary ones where the trunk was maybe two and a half, three inches wide, and it's real twisty and it's only 12 inches tall, all padded out. I mean, you can get a lot of money because there's no such thing. Yeah, like you said, supply and demand. So.
[01:03:59] Speaker B: Totally.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: In Japan, they're like, do you have any more of these? I'll take five, you know. Yeah, over here. But, oh, my God, it's so great.
[01:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, most definitely.
[01:04:09] Speaker A: That's how it goes.
[01:04:10] Speaker B: One other thing I wanted to pick your brain about and talk with you about is deadwood texture. And I guess specifically on Yamadori, something that I think about a lot.
I feel like, first off, there's some specific features on certain types of our native Yamadori, where we could almost name that characteristic. And it's. It's a reoccurring thing. Like in Japan, they have Ibo gin on needle junipers, which is like a warty, spiky, gin type thing. Sometimes I see a similar thing on Sierra juniper or another characteristic I see with Sierra juniper sometimes is like almost like these little scales, like dragon scales. And I think that's a really desirable characteristic. Hard to find on a tree that you actually collect. And so I think just in general texture of the deadwood and a natural texture is really important and something that should make the juniper more valuable if it's a really good quality.
[01:05:14] Speaker A: I mean, the texture. Yeah, if you have things like that, definitely it has more value. It's more interesting. You can't duplicate it. People have tried and some people are general. There are some people out There that can successfully duplicate some form of it. But like, the true texturing, that looks like kind of the dragon scale stuff. I don't know anybody that can actually replicate that because it looks like it was built from just a lot of winters and a lot of pressure on that wood.
[01:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:42] Speaker A: Because it's always on an area where it's bending.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: Huh?
[01:05:45] Speaker A: Right. So it's like those little fins pop out from the bend over time. Right. So how do you carve that without and make it look like that? Now, the. The only issue is this is like going back to, like in Japan, where they. They make it look maybe more sculptural than natural. Right.
The. The tough thing is that now we have to be very picky about the trees we collect here.
Because you can collect the tree that has an area that looks like dragon scale, but say the rest of the trunk doesn't have it.
And so there's a bit of an inconsistency in your overall styling of the tree that makes you focus on the dragon scale and not on anything else. And it doesn't tend to flow together. And though that scale part is highly desirable, and I'm not saying, well, you should just throw the tree away, but there is a little bit of inconsistency there. Whereas if you went through and the whole trunk was smooth, for example, and consistent, it's more pleasant to look at. So now we're talking about, okay, I want the dragon scale, for example, but you have to find one that has not just the dragon scale that you want, but it has. You have to be able to look at the tree and say, I can style it where this is the main feature, and there's no other parts that make it look like two separate trees.
Dragon scale, maybe some movement there and then the canopy around that.
And. And you're not dealing with an area that's so much younger looking, which is not consistent. Okay, so now. Now the. You can't just say, well, it has dragon sail. That's the one I'm collecting. It still has to work out as. As bonsai, you know, is how. How is the flow of everything? Does it look like they all go together as opposed to an incredibly old section next to incredibly young section.
[01:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:31] Speaker A: Like this deadwood just formed last year. This. But it happened to be attached to something that had died a thousand years ago.
Okay. Yeah, it's natural. It did. It's still natural. Right. But it doesn't show, say, this more even consistent. It got older every day. Older, older, older, older. There seems to be A jump.
And now we're kind of gapped. Yeah. In kind of the story. Right.
[01:07:56] Speaker B: Interesting. You're making me think about the juniper I have in the workshop and.
[01:08:01] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:08:01] Speaker B: You're making me want to root graft it.
So with that tree that I have in the workshop right now, the area that it was collected in, the bottom half was sheltered by rock.
[01:08:15] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah.
[01:08:16] Speaker B: And so the top was getting beat up by the wind that was coming over this ridge on the cliff. But then the bottom section was basically like there was just a bunch of granite. And so that top part's all crazy.
[01:08:28] Speaker A: It's got this scaly smoother, the below smoother.
[01:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:08:31] Speaker A: Now I would say that for. For your particular tree, it's. It's a little bit more reasonable to go with the overall tree, is that even though there's some inconsistency, the area on the bottom is a little bit more of the upright area. And the area that has a lot of that scaling is an area where it's folded on itself.
[01:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: So that sudden fold, at least it will tell you. Okay. It formed that way because it's this dramatic fold and this area that's a little bit more sheltered. Well, it makes sense that it's not as crazy. So at least there's some explanation when you look at it. It's not just, well, here's some crazy stuff and here's the other crazy stuff. But it doesn't have the scaling here and the scaling there kind of thing.
But yeah, I mean, it's. It's tricky there. It's always kind of a case of by case thing where sometimes it is okay and then sometimes it's very not okay.
[01:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess it's always nice that we can root graft.
[01:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[01:09:27] Speaker B: And divide. Just like going back to the PBE tree. That one. That was one tree, and then they divided into. Into two.
[01:09:35] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, yeah. So the. The top half got root grafts put on it. And so the top part was a California. I. I can't remember if they then grafted the top.
I'm trying to think. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the top was grafted with itoy gawa because I sold that tree to a different client.
Yeah. Yeah. I. I mean, I didn't do the grafting part, but I got the tree later. And so my. My client had it and then he sold it to another one of my clients. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So it was grafted the top.
[01:10:12] Speaker B: Nice.
All right. So really wanted to talk to you about the pros and Cons of grafting Yamadori.
[01:10:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:10:22] Speaker B: And I know this is kind of a long one, but I think that you have a very interesting and thoughtful opinion on it and you've had a lot of experience with grafting our native Yamadori.
[01:10:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:10:34] Speaker B: And so I would love to get your feedback on the pros and cons.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: So pros and cons. And I'll be as kind of. I'll lay it all out.
Yeah. First of all, what I've been doing is generally I've been grafting every Yamadori tree I have.
Generally that is the case.
Actually. That is the case. I don't. Well, I have one tree right now that it's on its own foliage, a Western juniper. But I'm thinking of grafting it too.
And we talked about it earlier and same thing. I just didn't do it back when I first got the tree. And I have that Tree for over 10 years now and it was actually in the first PBE and I was proud of how it looked and stuff like that. Nice thing about western foliage is that it is a little tighter, but even it in a way succumbed to. What we're going to talk about Right.
Before I talk about grafting trees, and I am a firm believer in grafting junipers, is that it's only because I'm looking for a very specific look and a specific feel in the tree. I'm not saying that everybody should do it or everybody is a terrible person if they don't. Right. If you like Rocky Mountain foliage, you like California foliage, Sierras Western, then go for it.
Okay. I'm not going to stop you, nor should you be stopped if you like that foliage. I mean, a lot of people like Sierra foliage because it's baloo.
I mean, I don't blame them at all.
Yeah. When I graph the Sierra juniper, I'm always like, ah, man, I wish I could grab something that was blue. Yeah, that'd be really cool. And I'm losing out on that color. Right. So it's, it's not like I just, ah, whatever, you know, and graft it. Right. I like it too. Right. So. But it, but it's more for reasons of just the overall future of the tree, overall feel of it as a. As a bonsai. So.
So a lot of trees, I grafted a lot of collected trees, I'll graft for a lot of reasons. Some of the simple reasons are if I graft the toy gawa juniper or Kishu juniper on a collected tree, the foliage is just smaller in general. Right. It's not any different than somebody looking at a maple tree in Canada and saying, I love that tree. And the, the leaf is the size of a dinner plate.
And somebody says, well, you know, if you turn that into bonsai, isn't the leaves kind of big?
And you say I don't care, I love it. Right?
It's like. Okay, so there's a, there's a proportion issue, right? So a lot of our native junipers, like California, not to say they're all this way, but a lot of it is that their foliage is very big. They're a little bit coarser, they're bigger, they're looser.
And so proportionate wise, if we try to bring them down into bonsai size, the foliage tends to look big.
So that's not particular to junipers. That's with any tree that has a big leaf, for example, and we say, well, I can't make that leaf smaller. And then we end up not using it for bonsai because the proportions aren't ideal or not what we're looking for. So that's reasonable, right? So that's one reason. Well, our graft is that you have this tree, tree, it's small to even larger trees. When you have kishu or you have your toy gawa foliage, the foliage looks smaller, the tree looks bigger and so the tree has more, it's more impactful, right? You see this great tree and there isn't this kind of disproportionate foliage that's just kind of there and it makes a tree look small. It's just like when you have a tiny ponderosa pine that you collect and the needles are six inches long.
Okay, great, you did a good job and you got it three inches long. It's still big for a short small tree. And it always looks disproportionately top heavy.
And there's nothing you can do about that, right? Because getting them to 3 inches or even if you're successfully, and I know some people who got into 2 inches, that's still big, the tree has to be pretty big to hold a 2 inch needle and have it look somewhat proportionate looking.
So if anything it's for the proportion. Then that's kind of more of a superficial reason.
So that's, that's one of the reasons why I'll graph them is that they, they just are more proportionate. The other reason, some of the other reasons or maybe more important reasons or more in depth reasons are that when I develop a bonsai and I'm thinking about say junipers but any, any bonsai, one of the main things I look for for is age.
Is this tree old?
Can I make it look older?
What are the different forms of age, Right? Is it physical age? Is it age of when it was just out in nature? Is it age as a bonsai? I'm looking for the whole all package, right? If it is a collected tree, okay, we see that old age in nature, but I want to see it that it's an old bonsai also. So to have it look like old bonsai, you have to have branch structures that look old.
Not just the branch that came with the tree when you collected it, but the branches that you grow on the tree after that, they have to look old. And so let's say you dig the tree out of the mountains, you take it home, it grows new foliage. There's a sudden jump in how the foliage looks. It went from really old and then suddenly really new. Because you grew so much so quickly in a short period of time with developing branches, the trees healthier than it's ever been because you're watering it every day. Fertilizing it in the mountains is like, okay, maybe get some water, no food. So it grows very short, right? Okay. So those increments are small, but when we get them, they get wider.
So what I'm trying to do is that when you have a collected tree and then you start working the branches, and when the foliage is big and coarse, that means every time you work on the tree and the tree expands because you're building structure on the tree.
Assuming you're building a tree, every time you work on it, it expands slightly. That's the nature of bonsai. It never stays the same shape because we're never cutting back to the same spot. We're always keeping some new and we're building structure.
The issue with foliage that's really big is that it grows so fast, because what growth you do get is so coarse and big that the tree suddenly becomes wider really quickly.
Now you might say, okay, well, we can just cut it back. Well, you have to be careful, right? If you have Rocky Mountain junipers, California Sierras, if you cut them back too hard, they go juvenile and then they can get weak.
So you have to be careful how you cut it back.
Which also means if you get a certain amount of growth, you're limited in how much you can cut back. So you have to keep a certain amount of growth. And let's say you're forced to keep an inch and a half, and now your tree is an Inch and a half bigger on one side, which is an inch and a half bigger on the other side, too. Let's just say that's the numbers we're working about. Or maybe it's an inch. If it's an inch, it's still a good amount, because in five years, that's five inches bigger. And the tree is now really wide. And that's assuming you only get one inch a year.
If you're feeding the tree and you get another inch now it's 2 inch every year. In five years, 10 inches wider on both sides, 20 inches total. That tree is nothing like you planned it, Right?
So one of the issues with using the original foliage is that they tend to be coarse, they tend to be leggier longer because they're heavier. And we're trying to grow the tree slower. The branches tend to grow weaker, and the branch starts to flop, which means you have to put wire to hold the branch up. It can't even hold itself up.
And once it flops, it's very difficult. I don't even know if I've ever seen an example of this, that someone's able to grow a floppy branch back to strength that it can hold itself up. Usually you have to cut it off and grow a new branch or get a back, but to come out and then cut the floppy branch off. Okay, well, that's not productive if you're trying to add branches to your tree and you're eliminating them now.
So because the tree is coarse and you're limited in how you can cut it back, you can try to grow the tree slower, but then it grows floppy branches. Now it forces you to have to grow the tree a little stronger, but then that means the tree grows more and gets wider faster, even though you're doing proper cuts. And what happens is that in a very short period of time, the tree gets leggy.
Okay, so say you spend one year, two years, three or four years, and you got your tree to the shape that you want, and you're happy, and you spent five years.
Any years after that, the tree now looks leggy. Or let's say you're able to get that sixth year, and then the seventh year, it's leggy.
[01:19:24] Speaker B: Define leggy.
[01:19:26] Speaker A: Leggy as in that the tree is wider than you want, right? You. It was smaller than what you really want. You grew it, you developed the structure, you have your show tree, and then next year is 2 inches wide on each side or an inch wider on.
[01:19:39] Speaker B: Each side sign, so past the desired silhouette that you're Looking for.
[01:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And you always have interior branches. You know, if you did have foliage, they fall off over time. You lose a few branches here and there. The branches get too weak, they die. So. And the. The tree does what it naturally wants to do, which is get bigger. And you are able to only hold it for so long. Right. Because any harder hold causes it to go juvenile.
Okay. Or you lose a branch because it got so weak, or it gets floppy because you cut it too hard and it got weak.
Right. And it can't grow back. Okay.
So that means you have a tree, you have the natural foliage, and let's say you design the tree into a shape that you want. It took you five years, six years. Okay. Which we've seen. Okay. And the problem is that you never see the tree again on year seven, eight, or nine, because now it's too leggy. And so what do you have to do? You have to restyle the tree.
You have to either cut the branch back, get something to back bud so you can get your original form again.
But what's the likelihood of getting every branch you have on the tree to back bud?
All it takes is 99% of the branches to give you a back bud. And your main branch doesn't back bud. And now you're stuck.
Right. Because the main branch is leggy and you're able to shorten everything else.
So what do people do? Okay. They cut off the main branch. They use a different main branch. Now, hopefully you have a lot of branches to choose from, but if you don't, now you're trying to chase back a style, or you're trying to get back the style that you originally had when you put it in the show, and you're really happy, and you don't have the branches that can actually give you that.
And now you're chasing that. And I've seen this a million times. Trees that look good for the show after five years of work or so.
And after that, it never quite looked as good as it ever did because not every branch back butted.
While you're waiting for the branch to finally back bud, other branches have grown out.
Okay. Or now they're not back budding in the place that you need. And so it always has to be this redesign. And now you're wiring the tree all the time. So you're dealing with a tree that you. You get what you want, but it's only for a short period of time.
You have to then try to chase it back, which is very difficult, or branches are leggy and now you have to wire to try to compress it. Okay. So now you're wiring it a bunch of times and you might be able to get some kind of shape back. And say you spend another five years getting that shape. So what happens on year six? Again, it's the same thing. Cycle repeats, the cycle repeats, the tree gets a little leggy. Not everything back buds. Okay, did you have to cut another main branch off? Right. Because it wouldn't back bud. Now it's too leggy. Do you have to wire the tree again and really compress it? And then you get those squiggly line designs which falls apart immediately once you take the wire off. Okay.
And so now you're getting into the cycle where it's not that you just have to always be chasing that design that you wanted that you lost because the tree got leggy. And it's not all the extra work you have to do in cutting the tree back wiring it. And if you paid somebody to do it, then you're paying somebody to do it. That all aside, is not the worst part. The worst part is that your tree will always look like it's five years old from where you collected.
Never looks older as a bonsai because you have never kept the branch for longer than five years. And we're talking about like pad structure type branches. Okay. Maybe you grew a main branch out and you're able to use that over and over. I'm not talking about that. But generally all the pads, they look relatively young because you're replacing the branches all the time because they did get leaky. Now, one of the nice things about working with Kishu or toy Gawa is that the foliage is small.
They have to get very weak before the foliage hangs if they get leggy, I mean, if there's still an issue with them getting leggy. So it's not like it's all just great if you have it. Toy Gawa or Kishu, there are ways of getting them leggy too. But if you can grow them healthy, you can cut them much harder without them going juvenile. The growth you get is so much shorter that you can cut and say, only keep half an inch or quarter of an inch, which means your tree is only spanning a quarter of an inch every time you work on it, or even less, versus an inch and a half or two inches, which means you can maintain the shape of your tree. If, say, you finish the styling of your tree, you can maintain that shape for longer periods of time. So Instead of a five year turnaround, now it becomes a 15 year turnaround or a 20 year turnaround. Now, the name of a game on refined trees is that you've developed everything you wanted and you can maintain that silhouette for as long as you can. That means you're growing the tree at just the right pace so that you can enjoy the tree for 20 years and not have to wire it again or do very minimal wiring. And you're doing the normal pruning. And you can show that tree, oh, oh, there's a show tomorrow. I can show this.
It's kind of ready to go all the time. It's not in the. Oh, well, it's kind of in the down cycle year where I have to replace all the branches.
Okay. And for those folks that are listening out there, if you've had a collected tree, you know what I'm talking about, we've all been there wiring them over and over and not quite getting it. We kind of get it and then it's like, oh, but it's leggy. And now we have to replace the branch. Okay.
You got to go in knowing that if you want to use the natural foliage, you're going to fall into that trap. The tree is going to grow out of shape so fast that you only get to enjoy when it looked good, when it had a bunch of wire on it for that period that six months after it got styled and it never got better after that, or it did get a little bit better, and then before you know it's leggy, you have to rebuild it or you have to chop a whole branch off and replace it, which didn't make your tree look older. It makes your tree look younger if you're replacing branches.
So that's the.
That's one of the main reasons why I graft Kishu or Torigawa is that I can maintain the shape of the tree significantly longer.
It's less work in the long run and the tree looks denser and fuller, which Rocky Mountain, California and Sierra generally can't give you that density. If you're looking for that density. If you're looking for that age in the branches, smaller foliage trees going to be able to give you. Because we can control the growth so much easier than big foliage. It's not like I just love Itoigaw or Kishu just because it's a Japanese variety. Okay. It has characteristics that allow me to maintain the tree at the shape that I want for long periods of time, so I don't have to wire the tree every five years or chase the design that I had.
I have it Still. And so the example of the. The juniper that was in the pb, that tree has looked like that for the last five to six years, and it still looks like that today. It's a little bit wider, but it's only a little bit wider.
Nobody's looking and saying, oh, it's leggy. Okay?
And the goal is to have it look like that for at least another five years, ten years, if we're. If we're successful in maintaining that. You know, there's a lot of techniques we can use where you can have the tree even with the native foliage, where. Yeah, there's a couple spots where, you know what? I can reduce this area. I can make it look like what it looked like four years ago when it was an inch smaller. And now you. You gain an extra four years, right, of maintaining that shape because ideally, you have set the structure well, which you can do much easier on a Kishu than on a California juniper or Sierra, where the foliage is just bigger. I mean, what kind of structure can you really set up? You. You're not going to get any kind of. And when I say density in a tree, I mean not just a bunch of foliage. I mean a lot of branches. Like, how many branches can you fit in a. In a specific space on a California.
[01:27:56] Speaker B: Not that many.
[01:27:57] Speaker A: Not that many. Right. Because the foliage is just big. That's all it is. This is the reality of it. Right.
Versus Kishu, where in that same area, you can fit a ton more branches, which means if you have to replace something, you have a lot more options. Options. You don't just have three to pick from, and maybe you have 10 now. Well, that makes your life a lot easier, right? So thinking about it in the. In the long run, thinking of bonsai in. In longer periods is that it may be more costly. You have to have patience to do the grafting and the building, and you. You can't have kind of instant gratification.
But the payoff at the end is so much greater because there is a point where you see the payoff and you say, that's why I work so hard and I'm enjoying this for a long time.
Or you can go the route of using native foliage. The payoff is a couple years later and you spend the rest of your life chasing that original form again, which one's better?
Okay?
Now, new people don't understand that because they don't know the process. Right? But experienced people, you know, there are people out there right now that love Sierra foliage and love California. They know exactly what I'm talking about they, we've all been there.
Okay. And so if you know this is what's going to happen, you better love that material you love, better love that foliage.
Again, I'm not stopping anybody from using that foliage. But you have to know what you're getting into and if that's what you want.
Okay.
Now if you get into doing grafting, kishu or toy gawa, that's not all just like great either.
You still have to maintain the health of the tree. You know, there's sun requirements. Yeah. California junipers you can put in the full sun. You know, even refined ones, you can't just put a kishu in the full sun is 100 degrees and think it's going to be just all happy. So maybe you have to protect it.
Spider mites love kishu and they'll go after a toy gawa. It's not like California's won't get them. I've only seen spider mites on a California juniper one time.
I've never seen on a Sierra. I've seen it on my western on one or two occasions.
I'm sure all junipers get spider mice with one form. But if you have a garden and it's got all the junipers, the kishu is getting hit first. Right? Right. All the other ones are like second choice. Right, Right. So. And maybe that's why I, I don't see a lot of them in the ones in the ungrafted trees is because they always go after the, the kishu. So you have to your spider mite control, you have to be on top of that and watch for it. Understand how to control spider mites because it will get you and it will make your tree leggy and so you can still run into legginess issues if you have a real tight foliage like kishu. Other things is getting kishu to be very tight requires ideal care. So. But that's with any tree really. That's the same. If you have a California, it has to be healthy. If it's not healthy, it gets real, even leggy or faster and the foliage can't hold itself up.
Yeah. Overall I would say that's probably the biggest con. And I guess if you consider the time it takes to do it, the delayed gratification is say a con to some folks. Then okay, yeah, that's a con. But the rewards at the end really is all worth it. So.
And it takes time. Right. So if you think you're gonna do it, it's best to just get on it and And I know a lot of folks out there has a hard time grafting or it's discouraging when you graft and they don't take. I mean, I've grafted a bunch of trees. They don't all take. And it's just as discouraging today as it was 10 years ago when I started doing it when I got back from Japan or so.
But you just got to do it. And what you really. And one of my clients even said what it really comes down to. Yeah, you know, I. This year we're going to graft. They don't all take.
You do it again next year.
Eventually they all take. Right. You just gotta. Okay, I'm gonna do it. 1. Ideally, hopefully it shouldn't be more than two years. Ideally, if everything took the first year, that'd be great. Unlikely. Right? So you throw in the second year to finish it up, and maybe there's a third. Just because there's a tree that's tough for some reason, but it will all get grafted. And then you start moving down that road to developing a tree that I think everybody would be happier about.
[01:32:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:32:19] Speaker A: The interesting thing about this concept and when I talk to people about grafting trees and why I do it, is that in the long run, you get a more quality tree, less stressful.
You're not chasing that tree all the time. You don't have to keep wiring it all the time. You see problems progress in your tree, especially if you can keep it healthy.
[01:32:45] Speaker B: You also get good structure. I feel like I've seen some bonsai professionals.
What they'll do is they'll spaghetti the branches.
[01:32:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Now, I. I would say that. Yeah. I think good structure is with. With any kind of juniper in the sense that if you grafted kishu or toy gawa onto a California juniper, for example, you can still grow the structure in a very poor form, for sure. You grow a branch out and you use the very long branch instead of cutting it, getting a division closer. So you spaghetti that. I've still seen that. And that's more of a just a cutting and understanding how to develop structure kind of thing. But a kishi will allow you to develop structure easier. It gives you choices in that at least you can say, well, I should have cut there, but I didn't because I wanted all of this on a California. Sometimes foliage, you're like, I have to cut here because there is no other place to cut because the branch is leggy. I have to use this.
So you. You can't even make the mistake of not cutting enough, just, you have no choice. This is what you got. Yeah, right.
So I, I've seen that. But it is easier to correct if you do catch it. Also, if, say, one of my clients did that and used a little too much branch and I said, well, you should just cut it back to these divisions here. Usually they're still there to cut so you can recover. So that's another pro in a way.
The interesting thing about it is that most of the people I talk to about this concept, they're really convinced by two things.
The main thing is that they're not chasing that tree anymore.
That tree that they wanted, they work at it, they get the tree that they wanted, they maintain it, and they can keep that, that good looking tree longer.
The second part is when I tell them they don't have to wire the tree so many times. So if you're not wiring the tree, chasing that style all the time, and you're like, you mean I don't have to buy a bunch of copper wire and I don't have to spend all day wiring a tree?
Well, that's a great deal, right? And then take it from me, I sell copper wire and I tell people, you're not supposed to wire that much.
I mean, it would be my benefit to just say, yeah, keep using California and just wire every five years. Yes, please. Or every two years. That's probably more realistic. People have to wire it every two or three years, not just every five.
Okay.
So, you know, I'm not BSing you because I sell the very thing you need to wire a tree all the time.
Wiring is not something you're supposed to do all the time. And that's something people have to kind of get out of because they're so used to wiring branches over and over. I've had one. I remember I had one client where I think it was a lady, her whole tree was wired.
And I said, well, we should take this wire off. You know, main branches, side secondary branches and so forth, all wire. And she, and then she said, okay, should. So should I rewire the main branch? You know, rewire these branches? I was like, why would you rewire the branches? You just took the wire off?
Unless you didn't put them in the place that you want. Is that what you want, to move them again? Right?
And she was like, no. Usually when I work with a professional, I take the wire off and I rewire the whole tree and then they reset it, right?
And I was like, well, you know, if you wired a branch and you get it to the place that you want, you're never really supposed to wire that branch again. You wired the next branches after that. That's what we're doing. Right. And when you get into refinement mode and you're only keeping a quarter inch, there's no wire wiring. That's all directional pruning at that point. Okay, maybe you do directional pruning. Quarter inch here, quarter inch there. You get, now it's half an inch, another quarter inch and maybe over so many years it's now 2 inches long and maybe it's a little off and you wire that five year old branch, not that one year old branch, that's when you wire.
And so yeah, I mean overall proportions. More options in developing the trees, older branch structures. Because you can fit 20 years in, let's say in 8 inches, you can make a branch look like it's 20 years old in an 8 inch space as opposed to three.
Like what are native foliage. That's what makes the tree look older. That's why I do it.
And it's kind of funny, when I was in a convention one time and I talked to a Japanese professional, he was an American, I believe, but he was a professional in Southern California. And we were talking about junipers and he was showing me some pictures because he was a big graph. He grafted a lot all the California's down there with, I think it was Kishu or maybe Toygaw or both. And I looked at his photos and I was like, all grafted. He's like, oh yeah, yeah. And I was like, no, California. He's like, don't waste your time. He told me this a long time ago. And I was like, well, you know, come on, you know, maybe there's some good in there. Now I understand what he was trying to tell me. It's like in his way, he was essentially telling me, just don't waste your time messing with the, the natural foliage. You're going to figure it out at some point. And I, and I've told this to a number of people and I found this to be true too. Everybody's always going to be a little resistant to it at first. Some people jump on board, some people are like, well, I kind of want to see where it goes. I get it, that's fine.
Inevitably, and I've not found it to be not true, inevitably, everybody I've worked with that decided to keep the native foliage, always have regretted keeping the original foliage. It's just only a matter of when is it tomorrow? Five Years later, two years later.
It always happens that way because they see that cycle and they're like, nobody told us to just not to break out of that cycle. They just kept perpetuating this cycle for whatever reason.
Another professional doesn't understand this cycle. Another professional doesn't know how to graph, so they don't want you to do that. Maybe another professional wants to wire your tree every three years for you and charge you money, right? Whatever the reason is, inevitably you'll find you won't get what you really want.
And you just don't.
You just don't want to be 15 years, 10 years in and looking back and just, I should have just grafted this thing.
It's kind of heartbreaking in a way. And I know there's going to be people who disagree with me. That's okay, that's fine, I get it. But the people who are looking for really high quality junipers, whatever they consider is high quality, inevitably they all find out that the native fold is just not going to work for what they're, they're, they're after.
And that you have to change the foliage into just a more usable foliage for bonsai. That's what it is. Again, if you like California Sierra is because of the characteristic they follow, go for it.
You're not going to get it as dense as like a kishu or toy gawa, but that's maybe not what you want. You like it natural, that's perfectly fine. But you got to know what you're getting into and you got to be really sure that's what you want.
Wiring the tree over and over, never having a tree that really looks that old as a bonsai.
But you like the foliage and you want to keep it native. I mean, I respect that.
I mean, that's a lot of work you've just committed yourself to, right?
So unfortunately, I'm a little bit lazy, right? In that sense. It's like, I don't want to wire a tree all the time. I want to be able to do directional pruning and have my tree looking good when I get to that stage. And I want to say, I put in all that hard work, this tree is looking good, I am finished. Which is a concept that a lot of people don't understand because everybody always jokes around, well, bonsai is never finished, right? It's because they never really finished one.
So people keep talking about, well, bonsai is never finished. No, they're finished. They get finished, okay? And then it's just maintaining that form.
Okay? Now you might Say, okay, well, it's not finished in that sense, but you got the shape that you wanted, you put it in the show. This is what I was trying to build and I built it and now I'm trying to keep it looking this way. That's finished. Okay.
And a lot of people haven't gotten to that stage. So the concept of finished trees is a little foreign in that sense.
[01:41:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:41:15] Speaker A: Because they're still chasing.
[01:41:16] Speaker B: So. So to recap, essentially you're saying with our native junipers, the cycle, the, the cycle of being finished or showable is just a lot shorter of a window compared to Kishu or Ito.
[01:41:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You. You start seeing this cycle of peak kind of, okay, it's looking good and then it's down for several years until you can finally replace the branches, finally get it to back bud, and then you might be moving up. It's never quite to what you originally have, though. Maybe there's some cases where you did.
There's probably people out there listening, saying, well, I did get it back. I'm not even sure that's the case. Let's just be honest about it and realistic about it. And it rarely happens, you get that same tree back. It doesn't look the same. Hopefully it just looks better. That would be great. So it goes up and it starts going. Maybe it's a different form, but it's looking good. And then it goes into that down cycle because it got leggy again.
Now it goes up and down, up and down. But the bigger picture is that inevitably if you're going to go in this up and down, up and down all the time, your tree peaks out at those ups.
Whereas a tree that has smaller foliage, like say if you put a toy gaw or kishu on there, the peak keeps going up and up and up.
So it's not always this flat, horizontal up and down. You're going up all the time. You actually, the tree is actually getting better every time you work on it. You're not just trying to recover what you had.
[01:42:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:42:50] Speaker A: And try to rebuild what you have.
[01:42:51] Speaker B: There's still a peak and a slower ascent with Kishuni Togawa, right?
[01:42:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Significantly wider. Yeah. So. So say in a five year period, you have a peak and then after five years you go down on the Sierra. Sierra, let's say that peak in five years on a Kishu, it could be 10, 15, 20 years. And then at some point will the tree get too wide? Absolutely. Every tree at some point will get too wide. Okay. If you built the structure well at year 20, you can cut some of the branches out, get the tree smaller, because you have so many branches to choose from that now you only lost, like, five years. And now you can maintain for another 20 years. Okay, that's 40 years. I think we're all happy if we can get our trees to look good for 40 years after we're finished. Right? And so I'll tell you, like I said, I'm lazy. I don't want to have to restyle my tree all the time. And the one western juniper that I had that I put in the.
In the Pacific Bonsai Expo, the first one, it was kind of peak for western, and now it's a little too lakey. Plus, it always wants to produce pollen, which is driving me crazy, too. So I've decided to graft it.
And it's been 10 years since I got that tree because I got the tree when I came back from Japan in 13. So it's been 12 years.
And just like a lot of people out there, I was like, you know, I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna see if I can make the western work. And I did. I made it work for. Let's see, in 22 is when I showed it. And it was probably. It was slightly actually after the peak. When I showed it the year before is when it peaked.
Okay. Because everything got a little bit kind of droopy, and I had to have wire to hold things up.
So I got the tree in 2013.
So 7, 8, 9. So I was able to get that tree to stay how I want or build the tree. It took me seven years or five years or something to build.
Peaked for about five years because the western juniper is tighter and smaller. Oh, surprise, surprise. It was smaller. That's why it worked. Right. And I was still only able to keep it to the shape for a handful of years. And now I'm grafting it.
[01:45:15] Speaker B: Okay, you are grafting it?
[01:45:16] Speaker A: Well, I'm going to. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's now a little bit too leggy. Everything's too droopy. I have to cut it way back to rebuild it if I wanted to keep the same shape. And I spent a bunch of time developing into what it is already right now. I was like, I don't want to do that again.
I want to spend another seven years to get it back to its original shape, to then live with it for another five and then spend another seven years to build it.
I did it once already, right?
[01:45:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:45:44] Speaker A: I don't want to do it so many times. And I don't have a lot of times to just waste on things like that. So if I graft it. Yeah, it takes some initial time to graft it and do all that. But it allows me to. When I do spend, say seven, eight years developing it with kishui toy, I haven't decided which one. I can hopefully then maintain it for the next 20, 20, 30 years without having to even think about, well, it's a little too wide now. I have to, I have to restart it.
[01:46:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you like kishuu or itoagawa better?
[01:46:21] Speaker A: That's a good question. In the sense, like in Japan, for example, itoigawa is the preferred foliage. They like it because it's softer feeling.
The characteristics of the junipers that they have there tend to be softer, flowier, a lot of movement. They feel that itoigawa has that softness to kind of go with it, which is Kishu is darker green. It's a little heavier. It's real clumpy. Almost like it's. It's so dense that it almost looks like it's going to explode. It's like, you know, it doesn't quite how it doesn't feel like there's like a nice spacing in between.
Now you can put that into it, but if you allow it to grow normally, it just looks like it's about to burst. Right. So it's just heavy looking. And so for their junipers where there's a lot of flow, they. They don't like that.
I would say that in the U.S. i don't think anybody really cares about that yet.
We're just happy that we have a tree that has like a nice looking pad right now. Okay. We're happy that we can make that. Right. And there's some density in it. So I would say. I don't think personally, I.
Yeah, I'm kind of back and forth. Generally I use both. Generally I would say that if I have a juniper that's on the powerful side, I would say I would go for more kishu and trees. That little flowy or lighter feeling. It was a bunjin or something. I would probably tend to go with the itoigawa. Usually when I talk to my clients, I'll tell them the pros and cons of one over the other is that kishu can handle more sun.
They grow, they're easier to grow in the sense that they're not. They're not sensitive to over pruning as much as the toy gawa. They can handle more sun other than spider mice. Really likes kishu that's the downside of that. Most of the time kishu tend to be easier. And so a lot of my clients would just automatically say, well, let's do kishu. I'm not trying to get a foliage that's more finicky like itoi gawa, regardless if it's bright or not for that tree. They just want the easier. Yeah.
[01:48:22] Speaker B: You know, I noticed you, you have quite a few different types of itoagawa or at least from different origins.
You have them all labeled.
[01:48:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:48:32] Speaker B: Have you found much variation in the different.
[01:48:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean how I. How I got my mother trees right. That I take graphs off of kind of throughout the years I'll get random junipers and I'll look at different junipers. And I noticed that some kishu are just a little greener than others or they're. This one seems to be denser and this one's a little leggier. And that's the same with the toy gawa. Is there one that's a little.
Just thinner looking and that may. Or denser but thinner looking and that's a characteristic. There's a tree that one of my clients has and. Well, I won't put any names out, but a professional he used to work with teacher like to use this itoigawa foliage on junipers because the characteristics of this itoigawa is that when they grew and they thickened and say, let's say it, the branch is like a pencil size. Okay. Is that for some reason this itoi gawa was much more flexible when it was pencil size than other itoigawas. So they're easier to bend and that's when still dancing all that stuff.
And that's why that was his teachers like preferred a toy gawa. Okay. And now I have some of it that I'm going to propagate. I don't know if it. How true that is. I'm not going to say the guy's a liar or anything. The guy is a well known Japanese professional so I'm sure he knows stuff. So I'd like to take some cuttings and see how it's true. See how true that is. Because yeah, one of the, one of the interesting things about it Toigawa is that if you graft it on your tree and it grows really strong, it can get very stiff very fast. It's still bendable, but it seems like. Like it's not bendable. Yeah, it can be very strong.
Whereas I don't see that as much of that with kishu actually, which is kind of Funny. Yeah, yeah. But it's. If it grows very strong, it can be very stiff. And so this other one being less stiff, maybe there's some advantages to that. Doesn't break as easily, Right?
[01:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I gotta think that everyone's environment and weather is going to play a factor.
[01:50:39] Speaker A: In which one is better. Like, it's humid in Japan and I take cuttings of it and it grows nothing like how it grew in Japan.
[01:50:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:50:45] Speaker A: And it's a bus, right? Yeah, for sure. So. So there's some. Some experimentation. But it sounds kind of cool, right? And you say. Oh, yes, from this professional's teacher.
[01:50:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that is cool. Everyone wants.
[01:50:57] Speaker A: So I'll grow. Yeah, exactly.
At least it's a good story, right?
[01:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, I was kind of surprised because I've heard how finicky itoagawa was. And then for me, I've always. Ever since I got the C type from you.
[01:51:13] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:51:14] Speaker B: It seems to grow much better than kishu for me. Like, it just.
[01:51:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If. If you. If you're an environment that itoi gawa grows well in. Like, if a toy go here now, they don't really like a lot of heat, so I have to put them under shade.
For me, I do get hot weather, but it's not as rough as some other areas. I know some areas where it's hot all the time. It's hot early in the year, it's hot throughout the whole year. It's windy and dry.
And all you have to do is. I mean, you literally all you have to do is barely work on the tree and it goes juvenile immediately. You go in and just clean it out a little bit on the inside. It goes juvenile.
It just does not like to be touched. Right. Now, that's an extreme case, but I have found that, yeah, Itoigawa, if it's healthy and grows well for you, it'll grow way faster than kishu.
Like, significantly faster. Like almost twice as fast. Yeah. Like, they spike out a lot more than kishu.
That's.
[01:52:12] Speaker B: That's what I get.
[01:52:14] Speaker A: And you have the environment which is cooler, more humid. You can grow very dense junipers or junipers seem to grow well in cooler humidity environments, like clients in San Francisco, where in the summertime it's humid and it's cold. Junipers grow so dense there. Like, I can't even get it that dense here no matter what I do.
It's. And that's purely an environmental thing now. They get it really dense. But I can grow a trident maple branch, you know, six feet in One spring and it. For them, it grows like six inches because they don't have the heat. Yeah. So, you know, for different trees, it just grows at different.
They like different environments. But, yeah, I wish I can grow juniper's that dense. That'd be amazing. Right. Because then you can really, if you. If you spend the time to develop a tissue to the shape you want and it you're in an environment where it naturally grows denser than normal, then you're for sure guarantee you can keep the tree looking good for an even longer time. Longer than I can ever do it in my environment.
Because you live in San Francisco or where you live in the Central coast, and it's like, well, that's.
What do you got to lose there? That's. I mean, that's an even better deal. Yeah. Right.
[01:53:27] Speaker B: Do you.
Do you get excited about the possibility of finding maybe dwarf or really good varieties of our native junipers?
Or do you think they're out there?
[01:53:39] Speaker A: I bet they're out there. You know, witches, brooms and things like that. I mean, that happens when with other trees. Can we find a witch's broom? Sierra juniper.
I mean, we've not seen any so far, so I gotta believe there's gotta be something somewhere it just hasn't been found. Right. Would I then use that? Yeah. I mean, if it has some characteristics. Such as.
Yeah, it's tighter. Will it ever be as tight as Kishu? Maybe not. Or is it Toygawa? But maybe it's tight enough like the Western that I have and now it's maybe worthwhile to try.
[01:54:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:54:13] Speaker A: I know that sometimes. I know people have grafted like California, so were Sierras on themselves to try, you know, to get it back. I don't know how successful.
[01:54:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I've never seen that. And it seems like it would be obvious and people would be doing it, but.
[01:54:31] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know anybody do grafting Sierra on itself.
[01:54:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
I also was surprised. It was very hard. I tried to take Sierra cuttings, which is useless. I don't know why you'd. Other than to graft maybe roots.
[01:54:43] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[01:54:44] Speaker B: Or, you know, if you wanted to go with the foliage or whatever. But it was very hard to take them from cuttings, which was surprising.
[01:54:50] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. I'm not trying to take them as cuttings. Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Because usually doing like Kishu or Itoi Gawa, they take like, no problem.
[01:54:59] Speaker B: Yeah, they do, but.
[01:55:00] Speaker A: But yeah. I mean, maybe they just don't like being taken cutting.
[01:55:04] Speaker B: So I've never tried It, I'm not sure. I don't even know. Can you easily take Rocky Mountain from cutting?
[01:55:09] Speaker A: I haven't really not tried that.
[01:55:11] Speaker B: Although in the nursery trade, I know that they do have some varieties of Rocky Mountain juniper, like the specialty conifer. They have like some blue Rocky Mountain, but I don't know, they may. They have special setups for propagation as well.
[01:55:27] Speaker A: So. Yeah, that's what it's certain chemicals fogging.
[01:55:32] Speaker B: And the leaves and all that stuff. Yeah.
[01:55:34] Speaker A: Now I know California you can take as cuttings.
I. I know a lot of people are best success taking giant cuttings.
[01:55:41] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[01:55:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like if you have a humid house and you can take a giant cut, I mean literally four or five inches wide. Yeah, just a large chop it off, stick in pumice and they root.
[01:55:52] Speaker B: Interesting.
[01:55:53] Speaker A: But yeah. And you can air layer it too.
[01:55:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:55:55] Speaker A: Sometimes you don't even have to do anything. You just put it in soil around the trunk and roots just grow out of it. Whereas Sierras don't seem to do that. Rockies don't seem to do that. Yeah, so. So yeah, even within a juniper, it's this like weird things that happen.
[01:56:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally awesome. Well, I guess maybe. Last question.
[01:56:18] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:56:19] Speaker B: Okay. So I know that recently. Well, somewhat recently. Recently you made a trip to Randy Nights with Max.
[01:56:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[01:56:27] Speaker B: And you went up and visited him. And I guess I was just curious, you know, putting foliage aside, talking about trunk quality in particular, I think you made a comment to me something along the lines of, you know, like, after going up to Randy's place and seeing some more Rocky Mountains, you know, you might rank them higher than California from a trunk quality perspective.
[01:56:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And. And I felt kind of foolish. Yeah. I went up there last year to. To visit him for the first time to. To look at some of the Rocky Mountains that he's collected. And once I saw the trees, I felt kind of foolish that it took me that long to get up there.
Oh. You know, that was. That was totally my fault in not doing that sooner. Right. Because I knew he had. He was collecting trees for a while, and I just never got a chance to go up there.
And yeah, once I saw some of the stuff that he collected, and I have to give him credit, I mean, I'm sure they're not those really nice trees that he's collecting. It's not just, oh, on the side of the road, you know, I'm sure he's looking for them too.
[01:57:27] Speaker B: Right.
[01:57:27] Speaker A: It's not like they're just everywhere either. But it's, it's, you start thinking that because all of them are like awesome and you're like, oh, this just must be everywhere. Right.
But I, I would say yeah, once I saw the rock, once I really saw some of the interesting ones I've, that he's collected, it did really change my opinion that.
Not that I had much of an opinion before, but I, I would say, I would agree that I think Rocky Mountain juniper is probably the most superior juniper material we have in this country.
The deadwood is so much harder, so much older.
The movement in the trunks are more movement I've ever seen on a California and Sierra's. I mean generally if somebody collects a California or a Sierra and has a twist in it, even they know they're like, this is not normal. This is very rare. You might see more twists in California, which is kind of rare. Like a Sierra almost never twists.
Right.
So, but say they're about the same in the sense that you're just not going to find one that's twisted. And the fact that we see so many that are twisted, that are Rocky Mountains, their conditions just must much be harsher that forces them to twist like that.
But yeah, yeah, I mean the wood is just denser. You can feel it in the weight of the wood. It's, it's denser. The dead wood is harder. The grain lines because the tree is older. You get more texture in the, in the deadwood. Much more than you, you would ever see in, in a California or Sierra. I mean you can after you touch that deadwood. On a Rocky Mountain juniper, all other deadwood, as hard as they might feel, feel soft. Yeah. And feels like there's a lot of soft tissue in it. In a Rocky Mountain you kind of touch the deadwood, you're like, oh, I can like, I seriously hurt myself on this wood. Like it's not, it's not messing around. Yeah, yeah. And so, so I, I currently, I do believe that Rocky Mountain view improves. Are definitely the superior trunks to go for. They're harder to graph. I mean I'm doing some of that now, but they're definitely harder to graft. I don't know the reason why, but they're a little trickier. Not that is impossible. It's doable, but it's not as easy as like on California's and Sierras they're much easier to graft. So Rocky Mountains are a little bit more challenging. But you know, the material is so good, it's worth it. Yeah, right.
[01:59:54] Speaker B: Seems like the, the amount of water That I say a Sierra is moving amount of fluid. It's just so vascular.
[02:00:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:00:02] Speaker B: And so like a Sierra juniper will just explode with this like water shoot almost column.
[02:00:09] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting. I've seen, I've seen that in Rocky Mountains also. Now, not. Not say that explosive growth and, and everything fattens up. But I've seen lifelines where you would cut it. I mean, I've seen both where you cut into the lifeline, you can see the live tissue portion. The part that you can graft onto is super thin on a Rocky Mountain. But I've also grafted on some lines that were so vigorous that they look thick. Like a Sierra.
You can't miss.
[02:00:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:00:36] Speaker A: Like that cambium layer is like super thick. I've seen that too. So they're not all just super thin. I've seen some where it's just like super plump also.
[02:00:44] Speaker B: And when you're talking about that, do you mean like the entire tree is super plump or just like one random branch?
[02:00:51] Speaker A: No, I'm talking like the lifeline. If I'm grafting on the lifeline, it's like just as plump as like a Sierra or California.
[02:00:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[02:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:00:57] Speaker B: But not all super juicy.
[02:00:58] Speaker A: Not all of them. Sometimes they're very thin. Some branches that I graft onto, like smaller branches, they'll be very thin. But I've grafted into branches that are real plump also.
[02:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:01:07] Speaker A: So I think the name of the game for that, at least preliminary, is that definitely you want the tree to be really strong. And if it's pumping, it seems like it's much easier to graft on than if it was kind of wimpy. But, you know, I mean, that's the case for every tree. Right. I think maybe in Rocky Mountains the lifeline can be so thin when it's wimpy that it's almost impossible to match. And of course it's not going to take. Whereas you, you get a nice happy branch and you got a lot of meat to it. The grafting is a little bit easier. Yeah.
[02:01:38] Speaker B: Awesome.
[02:01:39] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, right. I mean, if anybody out there gets a chance to go see Randy 9 see some of those trees, I mean, you, you, you won't regret it, you know, and it's funny because when I saw those things, I was like, why am I wasting time with California or Sierras? I mean, it was like that. Not to say there isn't good California. I'm not trying to offend anybody. Right. But you might as well just jump ahead of the line if you want that old.
It's just like we were talking about the foliage, right? It's, you know, for what you're trying to build. If you're looking for a trunk that's really old, it's got great deadwood and all that stuff. Why mess around with a juniper that doesn't have those features when you know, say a lot of these Rocky Mountains have it.
Just jump ahead. Just go to the Rocky Mountains. Right? Why mess with California and Sierra knowing that there's a superior trunk out there that's at least within reach that you can go to and get okay price similar. It's not like California's are cheaper than Rocky Mountains, so why not do that? I'm sure again, I'm sure there's great California's and Sierra's out there. I know there are, but from what I've seen so far with the Rocky Mountains, it's just like you might as well just go to the source at that point. It's just, the level is just so much higher.
And that's why I feel foolish that, that I didn't see that sooner.
So.
So yeah, hopefully I can visit them again soon and pick up a few more. That'd be great. And I would love that. Hate the foliage. I'm sorry, the foliage. Maybe out of all the trees, that's the worst foliage of it all. But the trunks are so good. It'd be nice if we just had a juniper that had it all like, great trunk and great foliage. Now the great trunks have the crappiest foliage and the decent foliage like Sierra or California, which we might be able to work with. The trunk is not as good as the Rocky Mountains. It's like, okay, well, we just got to work with what we have then go from there for sure.
[02:03:36] Speaker B: Well, you sold me on a couple things for sure. I definitely want one. A Randy Knight tree. And I've been grafting most of my junipers.
[02:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great, great. You won't regret it. And I know you just got to kind of for anybody, they have to just kind of trust me when I say that. Right. But.
But it is true. I mean, I have no benefit to doing the other way, right? Why would I? Yeah, yeah, no, I lied to you. Right. It's. It's just, I've gone just what I've.
[02:04:06] Speaker B: Learned with the Sierra junipers that we've worked on together. You know, I've seen the ups and downs and, and the time period where you don't, you don't have a showable tree and take. You have to rebuild, do all this work, do lots of wiring. And I feel like I'm always wiring my Sierras and there's always wire on them. I do love Sierra juniper foliage.
Keep one of them. All Sierra. But the rest of them. I'm gonna graft this graph or I have been grafting, so.
[02:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Interest. You know, one last note about those Sierras where you're talking about them exploding and blowing up branches. Yeah. Once you graft it with, like, Kishui Torgao, they don't do that anymore. That's interesting.
[02:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:04:46] Speaker A: Maybe a little bit. Like you, like on your small Sierra with the Kishu on it, the trunk got bigger. But it's not like the Kishu branches don't kind of follow suit and grow these fat branches. Yeah. Like Sierra's do. Yeah.
[02:04:59] Speaker B: And a lot of that happened when it was still with Sierra.
[02:05:02] Speaker A: Oh, that would. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. That's one thing. Interesting thing about Sierras is that once they get healthy and. And in bonsai kind of care, they plump up so fast. Yes. I mean, you'll get a branch that's only a foot long, and it's like the size of my thumb.
Right. And they just have these crazy growths on them. That's hard to control. Oh, yeah.
[02:05:24] Speaker B: It really is.
[02:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you're fighting that all the time.
[02:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah. What do you do about it? Yeah.
[02:05:30] Speaker B: It's not sometimes. I mean, it could. It's not. It's hard to use that growth.
[02:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Because it's so thick, or you can't bend it anymore. All you can do is kind of cut it off, but then another one grows. You can try to slow the tree down, but the downside of slowing the tree is so costly because foliage starts to hang and they don't grow. Right. Yeah. And so that doesn't work either. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. Yeah.
[02:05:54] Speaker B: Cool. Well, you know, I really, really appreciate your time. Thank you.
[02:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
[02:06:01] Speaker B: I think it's really important that I wanted everyone to hear your thoughts on grafting junipers. Absolutely fascinating. And you have so much experience with it. Is there anything else you'd like to chat about or mention before we head out?
[02:06:14] Speaker A: I mean, we're talking about bonsai. I guess we can talk about all sorts of stuff. Right. So, I mean, it can lead for hours and hours of them, But I think we had a good, solid talk about junipers, especially the grafting stuff. I think it's.
It. It takes a little bit of time to digest and Please, you know, don't. Don't take it like you're some kind of failed bonsai enthusiast because you don't decided not to graft. This is just real talk about kind of what to expect if you're using this kind of foliage. Just like any tree that you would expect to happen if the foliage is just too big for that trunk.
Hopefully this helps people just understand and think about, okay, what is it that they're trying to develop or what kind of juniper they're trying to develop. And is grafting what I need to do to get to where I want.
And hopefully that's. That's really the big message is. And so. So you don't accidentally pursue a route that. That inevitably will never give you what you want if you're looking, you know, in the dense or keeping a tree the same shape for long periods of time. You know, proportion, all that. All that good stuff.
And so because, I mean, bonsai takes a long time to develop. And any kind of savings in time is always valuable because our bonsai live longer than we do. And so we only have so much time in our lives to make them better. And hopefully they are going in the direction that we want.
And so that's the big message in the grafting portion. And so hopefully that that helps some people.
[02:07:38] Speaker B: Fantastic. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Peter. Really appreciate it.
[02:07:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. J from you always thank you for doing this through the years.
[02:07:46] Speaker B: I. I can't thank you enough.
[02:07:47] Speaker A: You're very welcome. Thank you.
Sa.
