#44 Peter Tea Part 1: Ramification Japanese Maples

[00:00:00] Speaker A: To baby trees. The Black Pondo podcast. So cheers. Yeah, cheers. Thanks again for coming. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Thank you for having or. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Well, yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me too. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Join in and talking with me again. Yeah, super great trees we've been working on has been. Have been awesome. What. What is this? I can't even say this name. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Oh, I think it's Shieldig. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Shield Egg. It's not super fancy or anything like that, but it's very drinkable. 12 years Speyside single malt. Funny. One of, one of my friends, actually. [00:00:51] Speaker B: He. [00:00:51] Speaker A: He really likes Macallan, for example. [00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:54] Speaker A: And all that stuff. And then I had him try this and it ended up being one of his favorites. And it's not like some super expensive whiskey, so I bought a bunch of bottles and so now we're having this. [00:01:04] Speaker B: It's great. Nice. I think you told me about this one, actually. [00:01:08] Speaker A: We may have had it in the past. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, you were saying it. It's just relatively inexpensive. [00:01:13] Speaker A: I think when I got it, it was like $30. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Wow. [00:01:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, Very nice. Yeah, I figured since we're. We're having pie, maybe I shouldn't bring out like the fancy stuff because I think the pie is going to throw it off a little bit. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So tell me about this pie. What have you heard about this pie? [00:01:34] Speaker A: So. So I live in Auburn and some of you guys out there might know that there's a. There's a, like, kind of a country store. Like a what. What started as a fruit stand called Ikeda is in Auburn. And it's, it's grown into more than just that. And they started making pies, I don't know how long ago, maybe from the beginning. And they even have like a hamburger joint next to it and they sell pot pies and all stuff. Recently, US Today, USA Today ranked them as the best pie in the country. And I always liked their pies, but I was like, wow, that's. That's really cool. So. So that's why we're trying their Dutch apple pie today while we, while we talk. It looks really great. [00:02:20] Speaker B: This pie is dense. Like it's super heavy. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah. You know how sometimes you get a pie and you take a scoop out and it just like bl. Just splatters. This, like, holds its form. This is like what you see in like cartoons, you know, or, or, you know, animations. It's a no flop pie. That's right. [00:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:41] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, it's great. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So what's the place Called again Ikeda. [00:02:49] Speaker A: I think Ikeda is how you pronounce it. Yeah. Yeah. They get pretty busy on Fridays and the weekends because people like to stop by, pick up a pie on their way to Tahoe and stuff like that. But, yeah, one of these days, I should bring the guys there because they have really good hamburgers and they have. They're. They're known for also their chicken pot pies, which is like a big, solid chicken pot pie, if you like chicken pot pies. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:13] Speaker A: Oh, they also have crab rolls and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah. I heard they have good fruit as well, just in general. [00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:03:24] Speaker B: Very good fruit. [00:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I think they still have orchards, and I don't know if all the fruit that they have in their pies are from their orchard. Probably not, because they seem to make the same pies year over year. But I think they do use their own fruit when they can, I believe. But, yeah, I always see, like, peaches there, and they're, like, giant. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:41] Speaker A: You know? [00:03:41] Speaker B: Nice. All right. I'm digging in. [00:03:43] Speaker A: They're digging. [00:03:43] Speaker B: All right. They. They should sponsor this. [00:03:45] Speaker A: They should, [00:03:48] Speaker B: actually. They really shouldn't, because I would be, like. I'd come back, like, 30 pounds heavier. They just hook you up with free pies all the time. [00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. [00:03:57] Speaker B: And that probably wouldn't be so good, but. [00:04:00] Speaker A: Mm, let's see. I haven't had their pies in a while. I generally stay away from pies overall, but. Wow, man, that's a good pie. [00:04:13] Speaker B: That's a damn good pie. [00:04:14] Speaker A: That tastes really good. That's so good, dude. I mean, it's sweet. It's not super sweet. And I. I like how the apples are not, like, mush. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:22] Speaker A: See, they got, like. They still got the crunch in it. [00:04:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:04:25] Speaker A: So it's like you're eating apples still, so. And. And you were talking earlier like, I love apples. [00:04:30] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Wow. [00:04:31] Speaker A: That is. And then the, you know, crumble on the top. Yeah. Yeah. It's no joke, right? [00:04:35] Speaker B: That's no joke. [00:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. [00:04:38] Speaker B: So I actually. There's a spot called Avila Barnes down where I live, and they make really good pies. Oh, yeah. I think this is a step above. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [00:04:48] Speaker B: But one thing that I like to do. This is really weird. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:53] Speaker B: Maybe every couple years or so, if I'm, like, really happy, or maybe I have a really bad day, I buy a full pie. Okay. And I go down to the beach. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:06] Speaker B: And I just start eating it right from the middle. And I just. Just by myself, just, like, Like a couple years or so. [00:05:17] Speaker A: I see. I see. [00:05:17] Speaker B: You should try it. It's. [00:05:18] Speaker A: I've never done that, but it sounds great. [00:05:23] Speaker B: It's the best ever. You should try it. [00:05:26] Speaker A: Hopefully you're doing that when you're really happy and not when you're down and out. Yeah. [00:05:31] Speaker B: I think I've only done it, like. I think when I started it, like, right out of high school. I think my girlfriend broke up with me in high school. [00:05:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:38] Speaker B: And that's when it started. [00:05:40] Speaker A: You started doing okay since then, it's [00:05:42] Speaker B: been more of a positive thing. [00:05:43] Speaker A: I see. Oh, that's good. That's good. Is that a pretty big pie or. [00:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Similar size. It's not like a Costco pumpkin pie. [00:05:53] Speaker B: I don't like, eat the entire thing. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:05:59] Speaker B: I can put down some pipe. Absolutely. This is very, very good. Like insane. [00:06:06] Speaker A: It's pretty. Yeah, it's great. It's been a while since I've had it. I forgot how. How good it is. [00:06:11] Speaker B: I think it pairs well with the [00:06:15] Speaker A: shield egg. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Shield egg? [00:06:17] Speaker A: The scotch. [00:06:18] Speaker B: I have no idea. I don't know about that actually, but, you know, it doesn't really. No. Pie pairs with whiskey, right? [00:06:27] Speaker A: You know, I have no idea. I bet there's somebody out there that would like my. My feeling with, like alcohol, with wine and scotch and all this stuff. I generally have a hard time pairing it with like, desserts, though they do do that. Usually. What happens is that because what you're eating dessert wise, is generally so sweet, it starts to distort the scotch or the wine at least taste to me. It actually makes the wine taste more bitter to me or more panic right now. I've never had pie with scotch before, so. So good. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Time to. [00:07:07] Speaker A: That's a new experience. Yeah. [00:07:09] Speaker B: That's probably a good thing if. [00:07:11] Speaker A: I mean, it didn't change it that much actually. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:13] Speaker A: I think it tastes fine. Yeah, that's pretty good. [00:07:15] Speaker B: It's not bad. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Might be onto something. Not a bad pie and scotch. [00:07:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:19] Speaker A: It doesn't really work when I have like abs or something with pie just doesn't. It always doesn't work for me at least. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:26] Speaker A: But the scotch is actually holding up. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like if you eat an orange and you brush your teeth kind of thing. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Does not. [00:07:34] Speaker A: There's like this weird. Yeah. [00:07:35] Speaker B: Together. [00:07:36] Speaker A: Toothpaste and orange peels don't pair. [00:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, man, I was thinking. So I think we have known each other now for 18 years. I'm pretty sure. [00:07:49] Speaker A: I think so. Yeah. Because you know, what year did you come to my house? [00:07:56] Speaker B: I think it was 08. And at the time I actually, it was funny to see your bonsai boon. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:08:08] Speaker B: From 2008 on the wall. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. Because 2008 is when I started my. Started my bonsai business actually. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:18] Speaker A: At that time. [00:08:19] Speaker B: In 08. Okay. [00:08:20] Speaker A: In 2008. Yeah. Like August of 2008. And yeah. I had just finished Boone's program and I decided to do it on this. It was kind of like a side thing. Cause I had a full time job, but yeah, 2008. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:08:34] Speaker A: And then that's how I was it. I'm trying to remember. I think either you contacted me or your wife contacted me and bought you a birthday present. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Or something like that. [00:08:47] Speaker B: I. So shout out to my wife Courtney. [00:08:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:52] Speaker B: I think I did contact you first because John Kirby told me about you. [00:08:56] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Oh that, yeah, yeah. Okay. [00:08:59] Speaker B: And I just drove up from Slow to San Jose. But then shortly after, my wife bought me a. A gift certificate. [00:09:09] Speaker A: Okay, that's right, that's right. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Okay. And that's how we continued. But yeah, I can't believe it's been 18 years. I feel like time just goes by so fast. [00:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. [00:09:21] Speaker B: That's weird. [00:09:22] Speaker A: Oh, older now. Yeah, yeah. [00:09:26] Speaker B: But at the time. So you were working as a mechanic, right? [00:09:29] Speaker A: That was. [00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, full time gig. And then bonsai was your side hustle at the time? [00:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was very much a hobby and. And I just decided to, well, you know, maybe. Maybe I can teach it on the weekends because I was, I was getting out there and doing some demos and I was like, well, maybe this could be something I transitioned to. But I don't want to just jump in a hundred percent. Yeah. Who knows, right? This is not a typical thing that people do. You know, when somebody says, yeah, I'm going to be an artist. Yeah, you're kind of like, okay, so you've decided to be broke. Right. Kind of thing. And so I decided to do it kind of as a side thing, more as a support of my hobby. Right. Paying for bonsai stuff and. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:12] Speaker A: And so yeah. And it just kind of grew from there. Yeah. Kind of weekends started getting booked up. [00:10:18] Speaker B: Uh huh. [00:10:18] Speaker A: And then Monday starting getting booked up and I started calling in sick. [00:10:22] Speaker B: Oh shoot. Did you really? [00:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. At one point. Yeah, go for it. At one point my boss was even like, peter, you've been calling in sick a lot. We're gonna need to see like a doctor's Note. Right. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Oh. [00:10:33] Speaker A: And I was like, yeah, I guess I, I must have done it along a lot and. Or at least enough for them to notice. And I was at them. [00:10:41] Speaker B: He was in. [00:10:42] Speaker A: No, no, it wasn't Ray. It was the upper management. Yeah. Yeah. Ray didn't care because he, he, he [00:10:47] Speaker B: like, wanted you to work on his trees. [00:10:49] Speaker A: He was group, right? Yeah, he was attending. Yeah, Gotcha. [00:10:54] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:54] Speaker A: So. So yeah, at that point then I, I think that started getting closer to 2010, or almost 2010. And that's when I started thinking about going to Japan and all that. And that's how that all happened. [00:11:10] Speaker B: You know, I was always wondering, working as a mechanic, is there anything that you maybe learned or have taken from that for your business or within bonsai? [00:11:23] Speaker A: I think within bonsai, yeah. I mean, the business side is kind of the separate side, right? That's just the business side. But the. I think being a mechanic, using my hands a lot, and I tend to be. I did a lot of diagnostics on the electrical side of cars, but I did most of everything. And the nice thing about it is it got me thinking in a kind of a problem solving way. Right. Ah, because, you know, you show up to work. What do you do, though? What is my job? Right. It's. There's a problem, I need to solve it. There's a problem, I need to solve it. So it's just all day, problem solved. Try, try to solve it, try to solve it. And so, and you start figuring out ways, well, how do I solve a problem, right? And in this case, it's with these particular grouping of cars. And so you start figuring out, okay, well, how do I solve these problems better? Well, you have to understand the system. You understand how these things function. Then you can start solving, okay, you have these problems and you can start dissecting it and stuff like that. And I think that that has helped me a lot in learning more about bonsai because I started seeing it as, okay, there's a goal I have here with this tree and what are the problems I have right now, the things that I don't want it to be. Right. So the problem is this branch is not thick enough or it's undeveloped. Right. That's just a bigger problem and I want it to be developed. So you started kind of learning the. So I started learning kind of the system. How does this, how does this plant, like, function? What does it naturally do? And it turns out most plants do basically about the same thing with some, some deviations here and there, but they generally do the same thing. And I have, and it's helped me a lot because once I figured out how trees grew, generally you start figuring out, okay, well, how do I then manipulate it to grow the way I want it to grow? Right. So it becomes like a. Again, a problem solving thing. And then, you know, as we're refining trees, as we're doing bonsai every day, every year, you know, other problems show up. Insect problems. Sometimes you don't know it's an insect. It's the leaves look funny, and you're like, what's going on here? They fall off. And you think it's this problem, but no, it's not. And you find out, oh, it's an insect that's doing that that you've never had before. So how do you solve that? You know, you can now all of a sudden, I know all different insecticide products and fungicides and different, you know, groupings of them, you know, so they don't. So you're not using the same group? [00:14:01] Speaker B: Different groups? [00:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say classes. Classes and groups. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't want to use stuff in the same group. Yeah. I don't even know exactly all of it too. [00:14:10] Speaker B: But frag groups might work. [00:14:13] Speaker A: That. I'm not sure. [00:14:14] Speaker B: Okay. [00:14:14] Speaker A: I'm not sure. [00:14:15] Speaker B: I know I've been asking Chatgpt a lot about insecticides and fungicides. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:22] Speaker B: Obviously it goes in one ear and out the other ear, but found that really good for insecticide and fungicides that [00:14:31] Speaker A: I've not used that I should try using it. I bet that'd be very helpful. [00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And at least from an ag perspective, there's a lot of information about fungicides and insecticides, so it can give you that information. [00:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it doesn't. [00:14:47] Speaker B: It probably like, you know, in terms of how it correlates to working on trees in a container, it might be a little different. Yeah. [00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Maybe questionable, but at least it can give you, like, the general ad knowledge and dosages and which, you know, can you mix these two, this fungicide and this insecticide in a tank together? Is it safe to do that? [00:15:09] Speaker A: Things like that. [00:15:10] Speaker B: But that's cool. I mean, I. I witnessed you. I see you diagnosing things all the time, and I never really thought about the fact that you used to be a mechanic and maybe you pick that up from there. But, like, even today we're looking at my Chinese quints, and it's not that they're not growing and it's not even that they look horrible, at least in My mind maybe. I don't know. Never mind. But for some reason, they're just not pushing with the type of vigor that a lot of people are getting, like yourself. I know you were saying, Caesars, Chinese quints are blowing out. And we were just kind of going through. Well, hey, you were asking me questions, you know, how hot is it where you live? Let's look at the UV index. What have you been feeding it? Like, going through all the different steps of a diagnosis. [00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:06] Speaker B: That's fantastic. [00:16:07] Speaker A: And. Yeah. And then hopefully, again. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:10] Speaker A: Just trying to solve this problem that we have, uh, so then we can move on. [00:16:15] Speaker B: Right. It's. [00:16:17] Speaker A: Which is interesting. Right. Because I. I started looking life as. Looking at life that way too. [00:16:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:22] Speaker A: And how it kind of plays all out. And it's. You know, when you're. When you're living, you. It's. It's generally a series of these problems that you have to overcome in life. And so, again, you break it down, hopefully that, you know, it translates a little bit and helps me out and just figuring things out outside of bonsai, which I think is great. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. Very wise. I love it. Nice. Well, hey, thank you for doing this again. Really appreciate it. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. [00:16:58] Speaker B: I'm not exact. I think it's. I don't know. I just want to talk with you about all different types of things. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:04] Speaker B: All over the place. [00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds good. [00:17:06] Speaker B: Sounds good. Uh, I was thinking initially that we would talk about horticulture and. And general care for bonsai. However, I did put a question out there on Instagram, or actually, I. I asked if anyone had questions for you. And the number one question that I got in several different formats of the question was about ramification. How do you get such good ramification, specifically on your deciduous trees? I know those two are correlated heavily, but I think ramification might be more exciting. [00:17:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. [00:17:45] Speaker B: Or we could go into. [00:17:46] Speaker A: Yeah, just try. How do I get more branches on my tree? [00:17:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:49] Speaker A: Kind of. Pretty much. That's the main question is. Especially on deciduous trees. [00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:54] Speaker A: And so, I mean, it's a great question. It's a difficult question to answer because there's so many parts to answering that question. Right. You know, you. You can spend a lifetime learning it, or you end up going to Japan, for example, or studying with somebody for a very long time to understand it. [00:18:12] Speaker B: But. [00:18:14] Speaker A: But, you know, I mean, if you. If you break it down, a big part of it for me is I. I do try to break things down to just simplify it and make it a little bit more practical so it's not so technical. I mean, it can get technical, but. But why make it more technical than it. It should be, right? And of course, it's going to vary from tree to tree. Some of the, the basic kind of foundational stuff inevitably falls back to just like when I was diagnosing problems with cars. It's just understanding how that particular plant grows. And let's just say it's a Japanese maple in this case. [00:18:50] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:51] Speaker A: I think for, for most people, if they're working on, say, like a trident maple, they're probably seeing some success. They're finding that the internodes do get shorter as they cut and stuff like that. And trident maples are a little more forgiving in that. In that sense. You cut it, you get it to divide, it slows down a little bit, the tree is weakened a little bit, so the inner nose start getting shorter and shorter. And then you start playing around with fertilizer, which you can then get things shorter. But Japanese maples tend to fight you [00:19:21] Speaker B: a little bit more. [00:19:22] Speaker A: They naturally grow longer in the nose. And so the name of the game is really just understanding, okay, well, how does a, how does that tree, particular tree grow? We know there's a lot of varieties of Japanese. Let's just talk about, say, your basic green leaf Japanese maples, they tend to have long internals. The, the main thing is that you gotta just come up with a strategy. Well, how do I start this so that it's digestible? Just keep it simple at first, right? Just understand that, okay, the, the tree's goal is to get bigger. And you're doing all these things to the tree, like watering, fertilizing the sun that you give it and that helps the tree grow. And, and the tree will grow at a certain rate based on kind of all these factors. I tend to tell my clients or my students that the. These factors, these broad categories tend to fall. I haven't said this in a while, so hopefully I get this right. And it falls under. Either it has some. Has to do with something with sun, how much you water or water quality or, you know, within that kind of water category, your fertilizing regiment, how you're fertilizing, what you're using, when you use it. The fourth category is repotting and soil and the pot that you put it in, mainly the size of the pot that will affect how, how much the tree grows. Number five is, hmm, it's been a while. What was number five? Was he number five? [00:20:59] Speaker B: Wait, what did we get so far? [00:21:01] Speaker A: Let's see, we got sun, we got water. Water, soil and pot. [00:21:06] Speaker B: Fertilizer. [00:21:07] Speaker A: Fertilizer. Oh, I. I put repotting interval as one of them. [00:21:14] Speaker B: Ah, okay. [00:21:15] Speaker A: Because if you. Depending on how often you repot or say it's the year you repot will affect how the tree grows versus if you're in, depending on how root bound the tree is. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:28] Speaker A: And then the last category is how you cut the tree. [00:21:34] Speaker B: So really quick, just to recap, I think you mentioned six different pillars of horticulture and bonsai craft. [00:21:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I would say it's the first five that we talked about are the key things that affects the entire tree. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Okay. [00:21:51] Speaker A: You know, the six being how you cut or not cut the tree. So, like, if you give the tree a bunch of sun, it generally affects the whole tree. Right. It doesn't affect necessarily, say, only a quarter of the tree. [00:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:04] Speaker A: Just like when you water the tree, you're going to affect the whole tree. The soil you put it in affects the whole tree, not half and so forth. So usually when we're trying to adjust the growth rate of the tree, I'll look at those first five categories and think about, okay, go down the line, go down the list and say, okay, in this category, and these are big categories, what are the things that I'm doing that in these categories that's causing the tree to grow at a certain rate? As we develop deciduous trees and they have, say, long inner nodes, long internodes generally means that the tree is growing either normally or it's growing very strong. And our goal is to try to get it to grow shorter inner nodes, which is something they don't necessarily do unless they're weakened. Right. And when I say weakened, it doesn't mean sick, it just means slow. Right. So our goal generally to have success in, say, ramifying a Japanese maple, where they naturally don't ramify. In such a small tree that we're trying to create, we have to get the tree to grow slower. And so, so you go down the category and you think about, okay, what are the things that we can affect as a whole to get the whole tree to grow slower? [00:23:22] Speaker B: So really quick, I want to cut you off. [00:23:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, no problem. No problem. [00:23:26] Speaker B: So I think that often within bonsai, people want to know, okay, what is the one technique or, like, maybe the two or three things I can do? [00:23:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:37] Speaker B: In order to get short inner nodes and ramify a tree? [00:23:42] Speaker A: Well, yeah, yeah, that's what, like, what [00:23:44] Speaker B: I have learned from you is that it's everything. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I mean, if, if you want maximum. If you want to know it. [00:23:54] Speaker B: All. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Right. Let's say. Or you want to give yourself the best chances to develop a really solid, refined tree. Yeah. You have to know a lot. Right. But again, I do try to take a practical approach. Right. We don't have to get all into exactly all the nuances, though. That is important when we get into refinement. Right. But if you want some like, say, quick tips, I tend to look at the things that we can change fairly easily. So the sun stuff, as long as the tree isn't getting like sunburned, because that usually will cause it to just not grow that well. And we. So we've just put shade claw. So that's kind of a different category though. If you don't give the tree enough sun, the inner nodes will grow longer. So you want to make sure it is getting enough sun. And you know, in California there's so many different microclimates. And then for those that are outside California, you have your own microclimate. So you do have to kind of get a gauge of. Okay, well, let's just make sure I'm giving it enough sun. So it's not growing longer than normal internals. [00:24:55] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:56] Speaker A: And you can tell you don't get enough sun if the, if the internodes are long and the branches are very thin, that usually means there's not enough sun. If the tree is super strong and it has a long internode, usually it's kind of thick. You can, you can see that like it's pumped, whereas not enough light. It's long, but it's kind of wimpy looking. Okay. I see this a lot in the folks I work with in Minnesota. Sometimes the maples will leaf in the cold frame and there's like no sun. [00:25:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker A: And it's like this, like, albino, like, white leaf that comes out and then the, the inner nose are like real long, but kind of like pathetic, wimpy kind of look. [00:25:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Because it was just growing in the dark. [00:25:37] Speaker B: And you recommend. Generally you want your Japanese maple, if you're working on ramification, to leaf out in full sun. Right. As opposed to with shade cloth. [00:25:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Generally in the, in the spring it's not that hot, so you can have it leaf out in the, in the full sun. And then as we get closer to summer, then you may have to protect it. Most areas, they probably don't do that well in full sun. Now, some people will get away with not having shade cloth, but let's say they only get sun from like morning till 12 and then it's in the shade. That's another way of looking at it. And people have found success that way, though I would say ultimately that might not allow you to have like super refined success, but hey, you know, that's what you have. So that's at least you got that. [00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:30] Speaker A: And it's not the opposite. Right. I get no morning sun and only hot afternoon sun. That's going to be hard. You don't protect them. [00:26:37] Speaker B: Shade cloth seems like the way to control your sun. [00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I find as easy as if you can give the tree sun all day, but give it a Limited, like 50% for example. So, you know, there's no shortage of sun. But it's just, it's just that 50% shade just cuts that intensity down. [00:26:56] Speaker B: Right. [00:26:57] Speaker A: And, and I, I find that in my area where it get, it does get pretty hot. Most people probably don't get hotter than I do or close. 50% seems to do the trick. So nice, you know, so for those that are unsure what they should use you, you're probably going to be safe with 50%. Some people get away with 40. And when I say 50, you know, which just to clarify, because people ask me this all the time, when they say it's 30% shade cloth, it means it blocks 30% of the sun, not 70. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:27:27] Speaker A: So usually when they say it's 30%, that means it blocks 30%. So in this case, 50%. It blocks 50% of the sun. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Great info there. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because sometimes it's not clear. Kind of like, oh, does that mean only 30% sun gets through or what does this mean? So going back to making it practical. Right. Okay. Hopefully you got clean water. That's just a requirement of developing Japanese maple, as in not hard water. The easiest thing, we'll just jump to number five, which is fertilizing. The easiest thing you can do is just be careful how you fertilize the tree. That's going to be a big help that affects the whole tree. If you don't fertilize or fertilize very little, the tree is going to grow slower. And that, that's one step in getting you closer to getting internode shorter. For those out there that have done that or have worked with Japanese maples, generally you'll find that that is not enough to make it shorter. It'll help, but inevitably what it comes down to is, okay, we'll, we'll try to be careful when we fertilize or how much. Okay, maybe we'll put it in the soil mixture. And this is the second one that that will affect it is what kind of soil you put it in, because that affects the whole tree. If you put the tree in a dry soil mix that has, say, very little akadama, and it's a lot of pumice or lava, so it's real free draining, or it's even coarse soil which accelerates root growth. That will accelerate foliage growth too. And your inner nose will be longer purely because of the soil medium that you use generally. My advice is that if you use a soil medium that holds more water, longer roots will generally grow slower and the tree will grow slower. So, for example, you can go all the way to. You're just going to put the tree in 100% potting soil. [00:29:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:28] Speaker A: That's pretty wet stuff. You're probably not going to water it every day, or maybe it's only once a day. The roots are going to grow slower and you could get shorter internodes that way. All right, that's not what I do. But you could do that. And you will still find that sometimes doing that is not enough. Okay. Because we've all planted the Japanese maples in a pot just for the garden, for example. It's not like they grow suddenly short internals. They can still grow long internals. And you're like, okay, well, apparently that was not enough. [00:29:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:58] Speaker A: So you got the fertilizer part, you're reducing that. You're trying to put the tree in a wetter soil medium. And for me, if people are curious, I generally use a 50% Akadama. And let's just say for the other stuff like lava or pumice, 50%. Sometimes I'll bump it even higher. It just kind of varies from tree to tree. But usually my baseline is 50% Akadama. So it holds a bit more water than less. Right. Akadama. [00:30:27] Speaker B: You always go sifted and you use the same. A similar size particle. [00:30:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I sift the dust out and yeah, I try to keep the particle size the same. I'm not a big fan of mixing bigger and smaller stuff like that though there people who do that, that's. That's up to them. So. So usually I use. Most of the time it's small. Even on big trees I use small. If I use medium, the tree will definitely get stronger. Which, which is a nice tip on the side that if you have a weak deciduous tree or trees that are weak and you want it to get stronger, put it in a little coarser. So you might have to water it more, but it will get stronger because the roots will grow more aggressive. Okay, okay. So you do these things such as, okay, I'm holding back the fertilizer. I'm putting it in soil that holds a little bit more water, and that's supposed to slow things down. You find that's still not enough. Inevitably, dealing with Japanese maples to get their inner nodes Shorter requires the 6 category, which affects parts of the tree, which is how you cut the tree. Okay. And I subdivide that into two categories. One is generally cutting back. You get a branch that's growing, it's growing one long branch. You cut a middle out, which is the strongest part. So you just weakened it and you cause it to divide. Okay. And when you cause it to divide, you know, instead of it feeding one long runner, now it has to split to two. It slows down one. You just cut the strongest part, you weaken the tree. It stressed out the tree, so it's going to be slow, and then now it's got to regrow, but it's growing two branches instead. So those two branches are going to grow proportionate to that one long one. They'll be shorter than the original branch, and you'll start finding success, or you'll start at least noticing that when you start getting more division, the inner nodes will start to get shorter. It might not be the shortness you want, but there will be some reduction. So at least you see that that is working. It's just maybe not working enough. Okay, now, you know my feeling about instant bonsai, right? Okay, instant bonsai. And we get caught up with this because we see demos or we're working on junipers, and, you know, they get whipped around to become finished trees. It gets us to thinking that what I have on my tree, what I don't want versus what I want, I get rid of what I want. I want to cut here, I want to wire these branches. And then that's what you have. With deciduous tree, it's a little different. You can't do it that way because the deal is that if you start removing too many branches and you don't have enough branch or you have fewer branches left, all the food that's stored in the root system or already on the soil is now going to feed those remaining branches and they will get stronger. So that's the part two of cutting, right? Is the. What you don't cut or the. The thinning out of a tree. The the biggest enemy of getting long, the biggest enemy of getting shorter internodes is over thinning your tree. So if you know that if you have one branch and you go to two and the inner nodes are shorter, and if you grow those two and then you cut their middle and then you get four and you'll see the internals are shorter. You can see that as you weaken the tree and you force it to divide, the internals are getting shorter. Shorter. It's, it has to share all that food, right? Assuming that, you know, you're fertilizing is the same and consistent, you're not like adding more or taking, you know, so, you know, more mouths to feed. Just think of it that way, right? And so you got four mouths or eight mouths to feed, and then you decide to cut four of them off. Now the other four gets the all the food and then suddenly they become stronger. So the biggest mistake in trying to get shorter internodes on a Japanese maple is the over thinning of the tree and not being okay with leaving branches that you know you don't want. But you have to use them as quote, unquote, sacrifice branches to keep everything else slow so that you can keep adding more branches. So that in the future when you do decide, okay, these branches I never really wanted, but everything else that I do want is growing slow enough that when I cut these branches I don't want off, they will get stronger, but not so much that they're suddenly 3 inches long internals. And okay, maybe they got a little gain or. And you're okay with that. Okay, so it's this more subtle replacement of branches you don't want with the branches that you do want. Which does mean that your tree looks very funny along the way because there's a bunch of branches, it doesn't look good. The structure looks weird because you're like, whoa, why is there that little spike ball with 10 branches growing out? Don't you want to get rid of that? It's like, well, I do. Like, who likes that? Nobody wants that, right? But you may have to keep it because cutting that off may cause the bud that you want to grow to grow a 2 inch inner. [00:35:57] Speaker B: No. [00:35:57] Speaker A: And then who really want, you have a spike ball and a branch, or you don't have a spike ball, but now you have a 2 inch branch that you can't use anyways. You might as well have just kept a spike ball. At least that spike ball had a bunch of short introdes on it, right? So backtracking to, okay, some quick ways of just getting shorter in your nose is keep more branches than you want. And you. And on a side note, you may find that that's actually not enough branches in ramification. And we have to kind of reset our idea of what is considered too many branches. Okay. Control your feeding. Adjust the soil medium that you're putting in. That's the biggest start. I always start with that is come up with a feeding regimen that isn't just super crazy. Get your tree in a soil medium that doesn't cause the root system to grow so aggressively. That's step one and two. And then you start working the branches. If you're just purely trying to get shorter in the nodes, you know you're going to do the cutback. I mean, there's so much to talk about to get it shorter. But. But just basic. Okay. You're going to cut it back. You're essentially coming up with any technique you can do to slow the tree down. Cutting back middles and getting it to divide is one way of slowing things down. You can then incorporate defoliation because now you took how the tree can produce food. You got rid of the leaves. The tree has to regrow the leaves. So that takes a bunch of food. So of course their internals are going to be shorter because they don't have a lot of food to keep feeding this growth. Right. And it's all about finding kind of the right balance of all these techniques that you use to slow the tree down and. And essentially modifying those techniques to get it to slow down exactly how you want it to grow. And there's a huge learning curve on that. Unfortunately, it's not so straightforward. You have to do the cuts that you believe is right, see how it's growing, and then decide, did that work out? If it didn't, well, should I have cut it more? Should I have cut it less? Did I do it at a funny time of the year? Maybe it was not the best time. So all those things, most of the time we're doing these techniques during the growing season when the tree is actively growing versus in the winter where the tree is just kind of sitting there. Okay. So I. So hopefully that helped some. That's kind of clear thing. I mean, we can talk about like my yearly schedule and what I do if that helps. Right. To try to slow things down. Okay. It's not a complete story, but at least it gives you an idea of what I'm doing during the year. [00:38:54] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:38:56] Speaker A: Okay, so we can go month by month. [00:38:58] Speaker B: Right? [00:38:58] Speaker A: Okay. And we'll go through this quick. Right, so January, February, that's a repotting time. If it's in a soil medium that is too dry and you want to try putting in a wetter soil medium now, that's the time to do it. [00:39:10] Speaker B: And important point. So a lot of this stuff is going to vary. When you're talking month to month, that's for your particular climate, I think it's just always important to note. [00:39:20] Speaker A: That's a good point. That's a good point. I say for most of us in California, that's probably the time. [00:39:25] Speaker B: Totally. That's my timing. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If again, if you're in Minnesota, it's probably more like March, April or something like that. Okay. Because it's so cold in the winter. All right, so January, February, let's say that's the repotting time in the springtime when the tree starts to leaf out. Okay. So you're changing the soil to something that holds more water. Now just remember when the tree holds more water. Now generally for Japanese maple, it's not so much of a problem if you over water it. It's not like you suddenly get root rot. Just be aware that anytime you change the soil medium to hold more water, say for your other trees, you can run into over watering by accident. You can't just like water it like it was in a hundred percent pumice most of the time. You really just don't need to. Okay. I've over watered Japanese maples all the time and it's generally not a problem. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:40:21] Speaker A: So once you get into March, let's say March is when the leaf starts coming out. I know in, in the Bay Area or in parts of California, sometimes February, you'll see that. So around February, March leaves start to come out and the strong terminal ends of the, or the branch ends, they'll start to extend. And your typical, okay, it grows a set of leaves, there's a middle extension, it grows and then another set of leaves opens. And so you have this elongation. Okay. So one of the things that I'll do is that that is a time where I'll start pinching the foliage. Pinching the foliage. All it is is that you're just not allowing that branch that's extending to extend. Okay. And you can pinch it with your finger because it's soft. If you cut it with your scissors, it's just cutting back. So it's nothing special. The only difference is the timing. Okay. It's at a point where it's soft that you can use your fingers if you want, but you can just cut it. And I'm doing this on the branches that I don't want to extend because if you allow a branch to extend, it's not really. Because that somehow makes the inner node shorter. I find that's not really the case. It's really that you just don't allow the branch to get stronger so that if you cut it later, the response is stronger because the branch is stronger. The branch is just trying to get strong. It's trying to extend this second growth, and then you're there to just cut the tip off. It never got strong enough. When it does divide, it's not strong enough to give you a long inner node. So the division that comes out tends to be shorter. This is not always the case because it's dependent on how strong that area is from the previous year, too. But you will see some advantages to that. So I'll do some pinching. Just be careful when you're pinching. Right. It's not just straightforward. Well, everything I see that's growing line, just pinch. It's the ones you want to slow down. Most of the time it's on the stuff that's at the top or on stuff that's on the exterior of the tree. If there's a branch on the bottom that you need to run and actually want stronger, well, don't pinch that. Right. Again, only the ones you need to slow down. And because the whole tree could be in different [00:42:40] Speaker B: phases of. [00:42:40] Speaker A: Different phases of that. Yeah. This one area, I need to blow stuff out. This area I need to slow down. Right. So do the pinching on the areas you need to slow down. So that's one thing I do in, say, February, March, April. Because you'll. You'll pinch some in March, and then the other branches that didn't have runners, they'll start to kind of get stronger because they were not messed with. Right. We messed with the branches that were trying to grow. So the other ones that weren't really going to grow, now they get a chance to grow. And you might do a number of rounds of pinching throughout that spring growth. So you're doing that in March, April, yeah, March, April, more or less. Let's say February through April. And then at the end of April or early May, again, this is more California. That's when the foliage hardens off. [00:43:29] Speaker B: Okay. [00:43:30] Speaker A: It's not soft anymore. It's got darker. You can feel it's thicker. Okay. That's when the trees kind of pass this spring push. And it's kind of stabilized. Right. And then it's going to move into the summer push. Soon as it continues to warm up at this time so you can go through the tree. Typical stuff would be, okay, new long branches that I want to use, I can, I might be wiring them branches that, that have, that I have allowed to grow long. Maybe I don't need them long. And then it's a time to cut the tree back, which would then cause it to divide. So that's a weakening technique. There might be some branches or multiple branches that I don't want that's grown out. And this is the tricky part because it's easy to just say I got all these new branches. Well, I don't want half of them, let's cut half of them off. That's the mistake. Especially if your tree doesn't have a lot of branches. You have to somewhat pick out some of the branches you want, but you have to keep some of the other branches you don't want and use them as sacrifice branches. Now don't let them just get stronger. You might have to cut it just to force them to divide, which will weaken it. But it's still there, but it's not getting stronger. Yeah, it's actually weakening the tree because it's now trying to divide. Because you cut it. And the branches you want, you might be cutting or you might be allowing to grow, depending on what you want. Right. Want them to do really quick. [00:44:59] Speaker B: So you said sacrifice branch. And my mind's usually when I think of sacrifice, I'm thinking something that you allow to run really far. Thickened. [00:45:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:45:09] Speaker B: I think you're talking about a different kind of sacrifice. [00:45:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'm talking about sacrifice branches in like the most basic way of looking at a sacrifice branch. Because yeah, most of the time people think it's a branch that you're running. Right. And it's a sacrifice branch because you're running this branch that thicken it. But you don't need the entire six foot branch. Right. You only need the first three inches, let's say. And so the rest gets chopped off, hence the sacrifice branch. And what I'm talking about is that these branches that you don't want, but you cut them back and force them to divide is another form of a sacrifice branch. They're not these six foot runners, but you're using them as like a branch that will absorb the excessive amount of food you have in the tree. It uses it. If you cut it off, then the food goes to something else. But if you keep it There and you force it to divide. It's using the food. And on top of that, if you decide to then defoliate the foliage, you're forcing it to use more food because now it has to grow leaves back on top of that. So and that's where defoliation comes into play. Where you can, it's cutting back is one thing that's going to be the best way to weaken a tree. And the defoliation is like the cherry on top to. We can just bit more right now some trees take defoliation very hard. So you can't do that on every tree. But on general Japanese maples you can. Okay. And so that's a great way to slow it down some more. Now when we're slowing trees down, it's always two sided. [00:46:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:46:45] Speaker A: You have a tree that's growing so fast and it's not working out. I'm not liking these branches. So it's like these are useless to you. So you do everything you can to slow it down. But then you have to be careful because you can go over the other side which is you slow it down so much that the branch got so weak that it starts to die. You cut the leaves off. It can't grow the leaves back. It can bear. Well, it can't. Yeah. It's let alone try to grow some kind of extension afterward. And then you start losing branches. So you've just went too far. And that's something we have to figure out too. Right. Where's this balance of I want to weaken it but not kill the tree. Right. I want to slow it down, but it still has to grow some. Right. [00:47:25] Speaker B: There's so much balance in bald side. Yeah. [00:47:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And these are things that we individually figure out as we're working on the tree. And it's like, okay, I, I, I pushed it too far. [00:47:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:35] Speaker A: I gotta pull it back. I can't be that aggressive and so forth. So. And these are things we learn year to year. And of course it's based on what we see the tree doing. So we gotta, we gotta be able to see that too. So those are the sacrifice. Those are considered sacrifice branches too. Right. And these are just like a six foot runner nobody looks at. Oh yeah, that design looked great. Right. It's not supposed to look great. It's just a necessary means to get to. It's just a means to an end. Right. So and going back to. That's why developing deciduous tree in this instant bonsai manner, it doesn't work because you, it requires too many of these sacrifice branches to stay temporarily while you're getting the branches you want to grow the way you want. And so the. So after this, the tricky part is deciding, well, when is it time to get rid of that ugly branch? That's even trickier because it requires you to understand how strong the tree is as a whole and how strong that particular area is. You have to look at the branches you actually want and say, hey, you know what? These branches are slowing down. If I cut this sacrifice branch off, that's usually further outside. Okay, If I cut that off and now the branches that I have that I want will get a little stronger. Can they absorb that without getting crazy? And when you feel that you can, that's when the sacrifice branch goes. And then you'll find out real soon. Within a couple of months, the branch you want blew up and got too strong. You're like, well, apparently, that sacrifice branch, I shouldn't have cut that off. I still needed it. And so do you just keep cutting back that sacrifice branch, force it to divide again, and then maybe after that, it's everything slowed down enough that you can then get rid of it? Okay, so we all have to figure that part out too. And with enough experience, you'll start. You'll start getting a feel for it. Okay, Just remember, the top of the tree is stronger than the bottom of the tree. So how you apply this on the top is different than on the bottom. On the top, maybe you still have to keep that sacrifice on the bottom. You're okay to cut the sacrifice off because the bottom doesn't grow as strong as the top. [00:49:51] Speaker B: Right. [00:49:51] Speaker A: So you add that into the mix. So, and then. And then big part of it is just doing it and then observing and seeing. Did it work? And if it didn't work, you start thinking about, okay, well, if it didn't work in the sense that everything still grew too strong, then you're like, okay, I didn't weaken this area. Now what can I do? If it did work out great, then you're like, great, I saw what was happening here. I made the decision. I cut the sacrifice. The branches I want didn't blow up on me. Perfect. Now I have a template of how to slow this area down and get shorter internals. Right? And you add a bunch of those kind of successes, and then you can apply it to now the whole tree or future trees or your other trees. There's a couple little extras around that, but that's kind of the meat of it. Right? But it definitely falls back. You do have to understand, like, like I was saying, how the top grows stronger than the bottom branches on the exterior grow stronger than the branches on the inside. So you have to take those things into account. And there's this slow replacement of the stuff that's going to grow too strong. It's going to happen, and replacing it with the branches that are slow and not a sudden replacement. It's a slower replacement. You chisel away at the branches you don't want and slowly bring out the branches that you do want. And that's how you get shorter inner nodes. You always get these blips, right. Sometimes one branch just shoots out real long in the nodes. Okay. We'll just cut that branch off or that little side branch. Okay. It happens. It's not going to be perfect, but as long as you're getting more gains, right? I'm getting a hundred good branches, but I'm getting 10 or 15 bad branches. The inner node's too long. Okay, well, we can work with that. We're gaining in the long run and not the opposite. [00:51:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:51:44] Speaker A: We got 10 short branches, but a hundred leggy branches or long internodes. Well, okay, now you're not gaining. You have to start thinking about, well, what am I doing that's not slowing this tree down? [00:51:57] Speaker B: Okay. [00:51:57] Speaker A: And really, the hardest part is that, you know, when we're in bonsai, we're excited. We want the tree to look good. [00:52:05] Speaker B: And [00:52:08] Speaker A: I think the biggest enemy in [00:52:10] Speaker B: getting [00:52:12] Speaker A: shorter inner nodes is that we're just too aggressive in getting rid of what we think we don't want. And most of the time, you're correct. Like, this is an ugly branch. I don't want that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I agree. Right. Nobody wants an ugly branch. The key is knowing when to get rid of that ugly branch. Not just, well, it's ugly. Get rid of it now. Because the repercussion is the problem. How the tree response to that is what's going to not give you success. So you have to learn how to live with a tree that looks funny for a period of time, because you need those sacrifice branches to weaken the tree or slow the tree down. And if you don't do that, you're going to have a very hard time. Right. Inner nodes are going to be long or you're. You're destined to just have trees that are going to be on the wider, less dense side. Okay, how do you get. Going back to ramification, right? Everybody wants a lot of ramification. Well, ramification is purely built from just cutting branches that are extending and Forcing them to divide. That's all it is. Yeah. And you get a bunch of that. The problem is that you might get a bunch of that, but it's so far away from the trunk. And that's the leggy part, and that's the long internal part. [00:53:31] Speaker B: Pausing right there. [00:53:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:33] Speaker B: You just said creating ramification is cutting branches and getting them to divide, which is totally true. Often in bonsai, I hear you cut a branch and you go from two to four, from four to eight, from eight to. And so on and so forth. Like, you keep keeping two always. [00:53:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:53] Speaker B: How do you look at that? Do you always keep two? [00:53:56] Speaker A: I think the key part is that it's exponential, as opposed to two. For those out there that have gone to, like, kokufu and seen, like, say, highly ramified Japanese trees, you'll find that the concept of using two and then four and always using two, two, two, always dividing into two doesn't work at all. It's. It's a good goal in the sense that, okay, we want that. That's, like, ideal. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Right? [00:54:31] Speaker A: Everything looks clean when it's that way. But in reality, that doesn't really work because when you keep 2, 2, 2, 1, it's it. Trees don't always just grow two twos. There's some areas where there's threes. Right. Or some areas where there's fours. Now it's again with the whole instant bonsai. What we want our trees to look like right now is sometimes when you use three branches and it doesn't have to, it doesn't necessarily mean three branches from the same point. It could be two from the same point and a third that's slightly behind. So at least it's kind of offset. Right. And so now you're starting with three, which means if you then divide that or times that by two, not divide, times it by two, then you get six. But what if those three grew three of their own? So you went from three to nine, Right. As we're developing deciduous trees, a fact of developing deciduous trees is not every branch lives. You're going to lose some branches along the way. If you're always strict on two, two, two, and then you lose one of those two, now you have no division. If you had three and you lose one, you still have the two, right? Or if you have four and you lose one, you still have three. Okay. Along the way, you will lose some branches. And the good news is that if you did have great success and you've developed an excessive amount of branches, and now your tree is super full. And you might even say it's too ramified. Well, it's very easy to get rid of branches, okay? But if your tree is the size that you want and it's not ramified, it's much harder to then try to backtrack and get it to ramify. So from a practical standpoint of view, it's better to just have too many branches and then get rid of them later than to not have enough and wish you had more, because that's way harder. But if you have too many, bring out your concave cutter scissors. Now you have less. It's that easy, right? So always, always favor too many than not enough. And, and that, that's something that's hard for people to adjust too because sometimes we have an idea of what is enough or what is ideal. And I find that generally that's usually not enough. We, when we look at a juniper versus a deciduous tree and we try to say maybe reverse engineer it, how was that made? Juniper is a little bit more clear cut. Deciduous trees of refined deciduous trees doesn't show you all the six foot branches that were there before, all the long inner nodes that were used as a sacrifice, all the four branches that people use and two of them died along the way. It shows none of that. It only shows all the leftover success. Whereas on a juniper you can kind of, you can kind of reverse. It's like right there looking back at you, you can break it down and say, oh, that was built, it's not quite that way, but. But on the deciduous tree it's not as straightforward. You can't reverse engineer. It's not as clear cut. You can't tell that there was a major branch that got cut off here and the wound was healed right. And aged to the point where you can't tell anymore. And you're like, well, how'd this tree get such great taper? Well, it didn't just grow taper by itself, right? There was a branch, a big giant trunk got chopped off, right. And the wound is 8 inches wide and a new leader was grown. And that wound was healed, not just healed shut, but to the point where you can't tell that was a wound anymore. And that that new leader has gotten so big that it looks like the tree has natural taper. Okay. It's hard to see that sometimes, sometimes you can see it because it's not completely aged out but. Or the taper change is so it's not so smooth and you can kind of see it looks like it was a cut Point. You know, maybe there's a little shoulder or something so you can't reverse engineer it, which makes it harder. Which makes it harder because you can't just look at the tree and say, I think I know what they did. It requires you to take the harder route, which is, nope, this is what these trees do. And how do I get it to this and start figuring out all the pieces that I'm not seeing on this finished tree? And unfortunately, that just requires you to work with the tree and gain experience either on your own or through instruction from somebody that does know. And they'll point these things out to you, which is a huge time saver. But, you know, the downside is you have to pay for it. Right? Just like in any education. Right? But you could technically learn it yourself, even if you have a keen eye for. How does this thing grow? And when I do this, how does it grow when I do that, how does it grow? And you start finding all the reactions and you say, well, these reactions are the groups of reaction that I like. I need. [00:59:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:41] Speaker A: How do I get more of that? Right? And you start figuring this out, piecing it all together, and then you come up with a big. With a game plan. And then you follow through with the game plan. Follow through, right? Not I cut it. And it's supposed to magically be short internodes tomorrow. It takes time for these results to kind of show themselves, hence the whole patience thing. And it sucks because it. Because you're excited. I get it. But it is. Yeah, you just have to kind of let it do its thing and see how it progresses and learn from it. And hopefully you'll get success, right? You get little success and you get more and more and more, and you keep at it, it becomes better and better. And then before you know it, you're like, you know exactly what you need to do. [01:00:30] Speaker B: Right? [01:00:30] Speaker A: And if you don't and you're still having a hard time, then, yeah, try to seek advice, right, from. From trees that you see are ramified. And you're like, what did you do? Right? It's kind of interesting that when you. You put on. On Instagram, right, you ask, well, you know, what are some questions that, that people have for me? And it was like, well, how do you get more ramification or short internals? It's not. It's kind of funny because people want to know that, but it's. It's kind of. It's weird to me because it's not like a lot of people stop me and say, hey, Peter, how do you do that either? Right. I mean, I have clients and stuff like that, but when I'm at, like, conventions or in Now, I understand. Some people, they're good about it. [01:01:28] Speaker B: Right. [01:01:28] Speaker A: They know, like, well, I don't want to bother Peter. Right. I get it. That's. That's great. But it's not like I get a bunch of questions like that either. Right. I would have thought I'd get more that. Okay. I want short internals in my. On my Japanese maple. I can't figure out how to do it. Who's creating trees that have shorter Internet? I'm not saying I'm the only one, but you look at who's doing that, it's probably good to ask them and say, okay, what is it? Whatever advice you can get. [01:01:55] Speaker B: Right. [01:01:55] Speaker A: Even if it's only a piece of it, it's important to know that it's probably only a piece. But, hey, that's one more piece that, you know. Now. Now you just have to figure out when this puzzle. Where does that piece go? And if we do sit down together and we talk about it extensively, then I. I can definitely show you the whole puzzle and say, these pieces go here, and then we. We go from there. And then you try it out and you. You work it. [01:02:18] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [01:02:19] Speaker A: And. And. And generally, we get. We have success. There's always problems. [01:02:23] Speaker B: Right. [01:02:23] Speaker A: Things happen. Some trees just aren't cooperative. Right. Some trees just don't do well with the process. And in Japan, they wean trees like that out. [01:02:37] Speaker B: Right. [01:02:38] Speaker A: Cultivars that don't seem to work well and ones that do. And it could be the exact same cultivar. It's just this genetically just. It just responds to the work we want. This one just wants to fight us everywhere, you know, and when we finally get ramification, they want to die. And on this one, it just keeps going. Yeah. And they're the same exact tree. Right. And so you. Some. At some point, you do have to say, well, I'm not. I can't just keep fighting it. This tree is just not working out. So you have to change your game plan to something that might work better. You say you just get rid of the tree, or you say, well, this tree just won't be as ramified as, say, this other tree because it's just not as responsive. And that is the reality of it, too. [01:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:21] Speaker A: You know, we have. We have to. That is a possibility, though. I wouldn't automatically jump to that. Right. Because you're not having success of all. This tree just grows on your Nose. Yeah. How like we were talking about, you know, when you're in Santa Barbara, Sierra, junipers don't grow here, right? When you first started, it's like, really, as you know, now they grow perfectly fine, if not great for you, like, great. Better than I can grow it here, right? Your environments, they love it. They grow nice and dense and super happy. So. But yeah, you hear these things, so you definitely don't want to fall in the trap of, well, it's not my fault for sure, right? It's some other fault, right? I find generally it's always your fault, right? 95% of the time, it's your fault. Not that you're a bad person. You did something that didn't work out, right? So you got to change that so that when you have success, it's your fault, right? You did it. So, yeah, we do have to take responsibility. Everything that happens in my garden with the tree, it is my fault, right? Good or bad, you have to accept it. And then hopefully it's more good than bad. Some bad happens all the time. You try to minimize it, but it happened. It's just the nature of it. And you have to then reevaluate and say, what I'm doing is not working. You have to accept that it's not that you fail. Actually, that's maybe a sign of success, is that you've decided what I'm. Or you've accepted it, right? You're honest with yourself and you say, what I'm doing is not working. You put your ego aside and you say, what do I. What am I missing? What do I need to know to get this to work instead of just chugging along doing the same thing, hoping that it'll work at some point, right? Because you're just not willing to change, okay? Either because you were instructed this way, or maybe you're just stubborn and you just feel this is the way. Or maybe even you're a little embarrassed because maybe you teach people or you're the leader of a club and you're like, well, you can't be the one that's wrong, right? Unfortunately, when you do it that way, then you take every Everybody else that you teach down with you. And it's even worse when you know that it doesn't work and you just won't adjust or admit it. It's okay. I mean, I've done that. I've done it where I've done things a certain way. It didn't quite work out. I decided, you know what? I can't just keep Doing that, it's [01:06:13] Speaker B: not gonna work out. [01:06:13] Speaker A: That's not fair to my clients. And I tell my clients, you know, I was doing it this way. I'm not seeing as good results. I'm trying. This new method seems to be working out good. I think we should do the same. Right. No clients ever faulted me for saying that. [01:06:28] Speaker B: Right. [01:06:30] Speaker A: They weren't like, oh, I thought you knew, blah, blah, blah. None of that ever happened. [01:06:34] Speaker B: Right. [01:06:34] Speaker A: I respect it. They're like, kind of like, okay, okay, well, you know, it's. This hobby is difficult. I get it. And some clients are kind of relieved. It's like, oh, even you pros have a hard time. I was like, yeah, yeah, it's a hard hobby. Right. And I don't want to take you down with me. Right. And so let's make this change and let's see if we can get better results. Right. I suppose if the results were all bad all the time, with everything that we do. Okay. Maybe I'm not much of a professional. [01:07:06] Speaker B: Okay. [01:07:07] Speaker A: Right. If we have some good results or more good results and just these little bad results and we try to figure things out, then, okay, well, that's good. We're trying to get better. We're all trying to get better. [01:07:24] Speaker B: Nice. I like that mentality a lot. And I think that's why you are so great, Peter, is because you're very self critical and going back to your diagnostic days, you're always diagnosing what's going on and looking to make small progressions forward where you build off what you previously learned. And that's why you're so great. [01:07:50] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. [01:07:53] Speaker B: Awesome. I was wondering in terms of. I think one thing we didn't really touch on yet is deciduous versus conifer, structure of branching and maybe how that differs and how that may lead to ramification or the ramification that you're looking for. [01:08:16] Speaker A: Well, depending on the structure that you're trying to create. I mean, ramification is just okay, having more branches. [01:08:23] Speaker B: Right. [01:08:23] Speaker A: A lot of. Ideally a lot of little branches. Usually that's what we think of, though, having a lot of big branches that trend that then changes to smaller branches and smaller. I mean, that's ramification too. So just say a certain number of branches on your tree. And why do we want ramification on the tree? Well, generally because we're creating these smaller versions of big trees, and big trees have a lot of branches and we have to kind of show the same feel in this small tree, which means we have to have even more and they tend to have to be very close together. Right. So it's somewhat proportionate. Now, when we get into styling, depending on the shape that you want will require a certain amount of branches. And in some styling, you don't need a lot of branches. Some you want more. When we talk about, say, conifer shapes versus deciduous shapes, I mean, you can make a conifer look like a deciduous tree structurally, and you can make a deciduous tree structurally look like a conifer, if that's what you want. [01:09:29] Speaker B: Right. [01:09:29] Speaker A: It's just where the branches go. Right. The, the lines that they follow are just different. It doesn't change the fact that there's a bunch of branches. Does one need more branches than the other? Probably a little bit, but not that much. Yeah, not. Not enough for me to say, oh yeah, the one has significantly more branches than the other. For deciduous styles, most of the time, the structure, it could be a blend of some conifer type structure and then finished off with more deciduous structure, which is a little bit more of a broom type effect. So you have a kind of a central point and it, a bunch of branches keep dividing and it keeps expanding like a broom. All right. If it's a side branch, it's like a sideways broom. Whereas on a conifer, we think of more branches that kind of come down. They have kind of these pads kind of shape and there's multiple pads in say, the main branch and you have a lot of, kind of the shelving kind of look. So you can, you can cut a deciduous tree to have that same look. And there are a number out there that looks great again, like, like that. I would say that most conifers don't look so good when they're structured like a deciduous tree, though. You'll be surprised how many conifers actually grow structurally like a deciduous tree in nature. They don't just grow pads all the time. They do grow broom type shapes. But they, they often, as they get older, they may break apart and become maybe more pad like. But structurally they can be very similar. But so, so you have conifers that don't necessarily look good with deciduous type structure. They look better with pad like structure. It tends to look older. On deciduous trees you can use some of that. Right. It doesn't have to be purely a broom. You can use things like you can bend main branches down. That looks like a conifer because it makes the tree look older. But then from that point on it levels off and maybe it turns more into kind of a broom shape. And so you get a little Bit of the best of both worlds, Right. And on deciduous trees, having a lot of branches tend to show age [01:11:52] Speaker B: and [01:11:52] Speaker A: taper change and all that. Because when you look at a very old deciduous tree, it's not sparse. It's got a ton of branches that you see all these lines everywhere. So you want to mimic that. Okay. And it's up to you and how much you want to mimic that. You know, how much ramification is enough for me. I tend to fault more. Have too much. That's better than not having enough. At least let's get onto the train or the trend of let's all have too many branches first, then not enough, then we can correct it. We can pull back. Right? [01:12:28] Speaker B: That's a problem we don't see. [01:12:29] Speaker A: We don't have yet. Our big problem is we don't have enough branches. We played that part to death. [01:12:36] Speaker B: Right. [01:12:37] Speaker A: Let's have too many and then at least ride that for a little bit. Right? [01:12:42] Speaker B: For sure. [01:12:43] Speaker A: So try to default to having too many. But yeah, I mean, structurally speaking, you're just putting branches in different spaces so that they create a different type of silhouette. Inevitably, it comes down to what is it that the creator is trying to create. Do you blend both of them where some are pads and some are broom? You don't really. We tend to. There's some consistency problems in the styling when you do that. So you tend to kind of pick one version of it and then kind of repeat it throughout the tree. So you get that same theme. [01:13:21] Speaker B: Right. [01:13:22] Speaker A: It's not some wacky circus tree. [01:13:25] Speaker B: Right. [01:13:25] Speaker A: Of random branches, some are straight and some are super curly. Yeah, that doesn't look good. Yeah, yeah. Even like, for example, the. I can't remember his name. Sorry. The guy that does the cosmic bonsai, right, there is a theme. He keeps twisting branches and that's the theme of it. There's no straight lines anywhere because it would throw off that theme. So, yeah, try to be consistent with the styling that you're coming up with. But yeah, it's not significantly different. It's just really a placement thing. Right. On. On a juniper, it might be easy because you can bend junipers and move them around. On a deciduous tree, you do have to decide a little early on because you can't just bend a 1 inch thick branch and say, oh, I wish it went down. And you already have it going horizontal or up. So I. I guess the tricky part in deciduous trees or. Yeah, deciduous trees is that you have to decide early on. There's no, like, well, let's see. How it goes, for sure. Yeah, yeah. You can always bend a pine branch. Now you can buy. Bend a really big branch, pine branch down. Yeah, there's all sorts of techniques. You can't quite do it. I mean, there are techniques with deciduous, but it's not common to do them. They just break. [01:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, most definitely. What was I just thinking on deciduous? Oh, I was wondering. So in terms of ramification and achieving high quality branching, would you rank Japanese maple quite high in terms of difficulty relative to trees that don't have internode length issues? [01:15:17] Speaker A: Yes, generally. Any trees, not just deciduous trees that grow long ear nodes are more challenging to turn into bonsai, such as on the conifer side trees like black pines or just pines in general. Sometimes they just. If you're not in control of how big the candles grow, your tree is going to get leggy very fast. And they're always trying to figure out, at least on the black pine end, how do I grow a candle strong enough so that if I decandle it, the new candles come out and they're relatively short and not too long. And then sometimes they're so short or they don't come out and then you're like, well, what did I get out of that? Right. That's the cliff on both sides too long, where you get nothing and everything in between. Hopefully you're getting what you want. And for black pines is especially hard because once you find that the response is too strong, it's there. The tree doesn't necessarily back bud that easily all the time, and you can't do anything about it until the following year, like almost one year later, at least on a Japanese maple, you cut it, say today, in two months, you see the results. Oh, it's growing too strong. It's growing great. You can then do something about it. There's still some growing season left on a black pine you don't know until the end of this year for a new decandle and you can't do anything about it until the following June. Right. And that's in itself tricky still. What do you do? And then you don't see the response of that till the end of that year. And if it worked out or didn't work, if it didn't work out, then you don't get any. You don't get to do anything until the next June. Right. On a trident maple, for example, you know, again, you make a cut in one month, it'll tell you if it worked or not. And then you can adjust and you can adjust a couple of times during the year for sure. So you can really work things out. [01:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:17:20] Speaker A: But yeah, Japanese maples have long in their nose. Any tree that has long inner nodes, it's going to be more challenging. And that's not just trees that have long internodes. It's going to be dependent on the size of the tree. Because if a tree naturally has a half inch inner node on a big tree, that's great. Those are short on your shohin, those are too long. And now what is considered a tree that has short internodes when it's only 8 inches tall, it's a tree that has longer nodes and now you have to figure out how to get them shorter. Whereas on the bigger tree you're like, oh, I'll take half inch all day. [01:18:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:18:03] Speaker A: This is easy. Why is everybody sweating? And then you get a small tree and it's significantly harder because now you have to be aware of how the tree grows. You can't just like, oh, just fertilize it. It's in whatever soil it grows. I cut it. It's great. It's ramifying. Doesn't work on small trees. And that's why small trees can be very difficult and why I don't advise that people learn on small trees, learn on bigger trees. It's more forgiving in that sense. Well, it's all more forgiving. Right. If you miss watering, they can forgive you. Right. Little trees are very unforgiving. Yeah. [01:18:45] Speaker B: Fantastic. Well, I think that, I mean, ramification, actually learning everything that you just mentioned can take an entire lifetime, I feel like, but I feel like you gave a very good summary of the things to pay attention to in terms of achieving good quality branches and high level of ramification. [01:19:07] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I would say, you know, start with those basic things that I talked about and, and, and try to kind of see what kind of results you're getting. You, you will see some result. You will see some reduction doing these things, it does take time, but you just got to keep it up and. Yeah. And keep learning. Right. Talk to people, see what they're doing. Especially people who have deciduous trees are refined. Right. Don't just ask people. And you, they just give you whatever answer and you're like, okay, I should just do that. Make sure that there's a way for you to verify that that's good information. Like, I like how their trees look. Yeah, they do have good tree. It's not because they just tell you in a very loud voice or they're the president of a club or whatever. Right. Or they Have a bonsai business. Right. Just like you were talking about. You know, the guy's talking big about bonsai, and all the pictures on his Facebook page are just other people's trees. Right. So we've got plenty of that out there. So just make sure whatever advice you're getting, you're getting it from somebody where you like what they're doing with their trees, not just because they said it or they have. They, for some reason, have some kind of authority. And I fell for that when I was young and in my. In doing bonsai, I saw that all the time. You saw. They knew exactly what they talked about, and they would just be great until I saw their trees. [01:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:32] Speaker A: And I was like, wow, they know how to talk. Right? That's about it. Yeah. And it's just disappointing. [01:20:39] Speaker B: Right. [01:20:40] Speaker A: And you just lose time. [01:20:41] Speaker B: Right. [01:20:42] Speaker A: How many years do we lose because of that? [01:20:44] Speaker B: Right. [01:20:44] Speaker A: Because we're not doing things well. [01:20:47] Speaker B: For sure. [01:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like it is hard to know who to listen to and who not to listen to. Unfortunately, in bonsai, there is a lot of bad information. I feel like it's getting better, especially in the United States. [01:21:02] Speaker A: I mean, there's so many sources now, right? [01:21:05] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:21:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good and bad. [01:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I just be wary of the local bonsai club. Even. Even everyone has really good intentions at a bonsai club or on a bonsai forum. [01:21:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:20] Speaker B: It's just like there's so. So many different perspectives, and often these people are just hobbyists, as opposed to professionals who have studied a lot in depth. And so it's. It's hard to know who to listen to sometimes. Yeah. Especially when you're. It's difficult just getting going. Yeah. [01:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And I would say when I. When I started, why I connected with Boone in the first place, I was very new. I was in the Midori Bonsai Club in San Jose, and he came and did a demo, and he brought some trees as example. Trees. And when I went to the club and I saw those trees, I was like, wow, those trees look great. Those are the best trees I've ever seen. I need to hear out what this person has to say because apparently he's. He's doing this. Right. And if that's what I want. Well, I shouldn't listen to some random dude. Right. I should probably listen to what he has to say and then go from there. Right. [01:22:19] Speaker B: So that's how you found Boone for the first time. [01:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [01:22:23] Speaker B: Nice. [01:22:24] Speaker A: He came and did a deal. Now. I actually. I knew of him, and I went on his website, and he had to test it, but I was, like. I was unsure, right. Because I didn't know him and all that stuff. And then he happened to come to the club, like, a month later, and. And I saw the trees in person. I was like, okay, I should probably learn something from this guy. [01:22:41] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [01:22:42] Speaker A: So. And, yeah, that's. That's why I started with him. And I learned a lot from him. [01:22:47] Speaker B: And then. [01:22:48] Speaker A: And then I went to Japan. [01:22:49] Speaker B: Right. [01:22:49] Speaker A: Learn more Solid. [01:22:51] Speaker B: Solid. [01:22:52] Speaker A: From people where their trees were. Great, too. Right. Okay, well, what did you do to do this? For sure. [01:23:01] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, well, I think that was awesome in terms of talking about ramification, and it's so complex and. [01:23:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:09] Speaker A: Especially when we're just talking about it and we're not. [01:23:12] Speaker B: Without seeing. [01:23:13] Speaker A: Without visuals and examples. It's tough. [01:23:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. Yes. But I think I would like to take a quick restroom break, and then maybe I could just ask you a bunch of other. [01:23:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. [01:23:25] Speaker B: Go all over the place. [01:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:23:27] Speaker B: Awesome. [01:23:27] Speaker A: Great. I think I finished this pie. [01:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't give you a chance to finish. [01:23:31] Speaker A: Oh, no, it's okay. You want more pie? [01:23:33] Speaker B: No, I'm good. [01:23:34] Speaker A: All right. [01:23:34] Speaker B: I do. [01:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So good. [01:23:37] Speaker B: It's so good. What? I shouldn't. [01:23:41] Speaker A: You shouldn't need some more pie. [01:23:42] Speaker B: It is really good, huh? Like. [01:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's great. [01:23:44] Speaker B: Phenomenal. Best pie I've ever had. [01:23:47] Speaker A: Oh, that's good. [01:23:48] Speaker B: I'm gonna leave my mic on and go pee up. [01:24:01] Speaker A: Whoa, [01:24:04] Speaker B: whoa.