BonsaiNurseryman

Solstice to Solstice

It's been awhile. Checking my post, it was December and close to the shortest day of the year that I was last here. Now, it is just after the longest day of the year. Six month hiatus, for which I apologize, but it was pretty much unavoidable.

As you know, I have been writing now and again about the nature of time and aging. Well, another chapter was written for me over the last six months. This time the reality of disease and death have hit home. Not long after the holidays, Susie's mother came to our home to spend her last days. We just couldn't see her spending her last conscious moments staring at the walls at some bleak convalescent hospital. It wasn't easy for us, but with the help of Hospice, I think we made her last days as comfortable and as meaningful as we could. I can't say enough for about the helpfulnes and compassion of the Hospice folks. They are heroes. She passed at the end of February, but there was another month of transition and settling affairs that kept us pretty busy.

Just as we were starting to feel we were getting back to our normal hermit lives, my mother feel seriously ill, and once again I was facing the reality of possible loss of a loved one. Fortunately she recovered and still has a few more good years left in her.

In addition to these burdens was the usual rush of spring, the hundreds of jobs that can't possible all get done. All my helpers crapped out on me this year, so I pretty much had to go it alone. In addition to the regular work, I also took on the mammoth goal of actually finishing the nursery this year. Seeing the health  and strength of parents decline really brought home how fragile and short life can be. So, I am realizing that I have to get these jobs done while the body is still capable of doing them. Instead of my usual one extra project each spring, this year it was three. The most exciting is a new display area for the finished and near finished bonsai. The shade structure is finished and the benches should be done in a few weeks. I built it to last a lifetime, or at least mine.

The second project is the completion of the shade area. This doubles our shade house for one gallon size plants to six thousand square feet. When all the shade areas are completed, we will have ten thousand square feet of shaded plants. The third project is the completion of the juniper and pine area that is in full sun but sits on ground cloth and has a wide spacing of plants and drip irrigation. This area has worked marvelously for bonsai. The rows are six feet apart and the rows are only one tree wide giving them the maximum amount of light and making each tree accessible for pruning without moving them. Bob and I just roll along in chairs or scooters during our annual pruning dragging a trash can for debris.Each tree is also staked to prevent blowover. I need to double the size of this space too. It may not get that large this year, but it will be close. That will put another five hundred or so tree under active cultivation.

Needless to say, I have been busy. In fact, I can't remember the last time I worked this hard or this long to get something done. So far the body is holding out, and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel has kept me focused despite the enormity of the task. Once all this is finished, the place will be nearly on a maintenance only basis for a few years, until major replacement of infrastructure may have to happen. Then we can start working on the house!

Posts for awhile hopefully we become more frequent, but probably shorter, and often only to point you to forums where I have contributed significantly to a discussion, or have copied my replies here to keep them from getting lost in black hole of forum posts that are more than a week old. Any significant essays will probably have to wait until winter, but I look forward to taking pictures and documenting the resurrection of some of my long neglected plants in the 'jungle'. The ones that have survived have taken on some really interesting characteristics. I am calling it nursery yamadori.

Thanks for being patient.

Brent

Our Message for 2007

The 2007 Catalog is Up!

It's been an interesting year. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I would have to say that my life now revolves around getting older. I hit the big six-o this year, and I think this has come harder for me harder than any other decade other than hitting thirty (remember hippies?: you can't trust anyone over thirty). I was depressed at thirty, but this is different. I haven't got time to get depressed! Susie and I are well into the planning stages of retirement, which will be here in another six years. Oh, stop rubbing your hands together, there won't be any gigantic fire sale  of Evergreen's trees forthcoming. The nursery will go on until I die, I guarantee you that, and that is probably a good twenty or thiry years off.

But I do have to change my ways. Time is no longer this endless ocean of possibilities. It has become a finite commodity, something I can no longer afford to waste. I have to work more efficiently, and plan around phasing out of construction projects and growth. I want to go out busy, but I want to be busy on my terms, not someone else's, or captive of this business. So things will change. In future years, there will be less emphasis on propagation and more emphasis on training and finishing trees. More time for travel too. All of this will take a sea change in how I work. I have started by slowing down. I don't rush at anything anymore, it isn't worth it. Several times a day, I find myself losing it, going faster than is enjoyable, and then asking myself "Where is the joy in this?" That's pretty much all it takes to get me back on center again.

I still have some unresolved planning issues such as how to handle those truly manual and grudging chores that I can't do, or don't want to do anymore. At this point, hiring someone is out of the question, so I have to go about it obliquely and somehow find a way to make more money, so I can hire someone part time. I really prefer to work alone, and have worked alone most of my life, but that just has to change, for at least a few hours a week.

Interesting questions now arise about how long things last. When I put the new roof on the house, is it going to last longer than me? I hope so. Will my '84 Toyota truck with 239,000 miles on it live for another two decades. Not so sure about that one, but I am going to give it a go. I can still rebuild engines with a little help, the rest of it is hanging in there pretty good. Most of the nursery structures will probably start to expire about the same time I do, so that will be ok. I will need less of that kind of infrastructure at the end anyhow. I want to sitting in the studio wiring little trees more than being out there in the sun. I probably have one more dog from puppy size in me (us). I agonize over the thought of leaving a dog alone in this world without me, although I am making preparations for that too. You might think that this stuff is depressing, but actually it isn't, it's liberating. A whole new phase of my life is beginning, and with any luck at all, it can be the best phase. Afterall, I still have my mind, and it just continues to get better, even if I can't remember my phone number sometimes.

So, I guess my message to all our customers for 2007 is, prepare to see less material in the future, but better material in the future. And bigger too. At long last, I think I am getting a handle on actually getting some of the larger stuff up to snuff so I can sell it. Especially look for larger and more developed pines to start to come on line. There's a lot of them out there, and many will be repotted this year and offered up for sale by this fall. More junipers are coming along too, although it will probably be 2008 before more of the larger stuff is ready. Meanwhile, expect to see a few more cutting grown Japanese maples come down the pike. I love growing those little guys, and the new propagation greenhouse is showing great potential for starting these if I can just get enough wood from the stock plants. That's exciting stuff.

Well, Happy Holidays, keep your face to the sun,  your back to the wind, and make every moment count.

Brent

Fruitcake Weather

When I was a kid, we were lucky enough to have Christmas traditions started by our family. Not generational traditions, but rather things that we started and did most Christmas seasons. Some traditions lived longer than others, some were weather dependent like ice skating on the nearby gravel quarry ponds. Mostly these were little things, but they were special to us. We had a toy mailbox bank that was army green, as they really were in those days. We would put money in the bank all year long, and at Christmas we would open the bank and count out the money. It would be used for our summer vacation in Illinois. One time we even saved $90, a fortune.

We gathered our own holiday greens and often even cut our own tree from along the railroad tracks outside of town. My father, a railroader, always felt comfortable about this, since he was likely to know anybody stopping us and asking us what we doing. We also went north to see the enormous decorated Holly tree that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened to the public during the holiday season. My sister and I baked cookies with our mother, and we always had raw oysters chilling in the icy shade of the back porch. Christmas week, we would always reserve one night to bundle up and go for a family drive around the city to see the festive Christmas lights that proud homeowners would string on their homes and property.

We also had TV traditions. We always had to watch 'A Christmas Carol' on Christmas eve, the same old classic version with Alastair Sim. We would turn all the lights down low and watch it in the dark to make it even spookier. We also looked for new Christmas shows; there was at least one new one every year, but usually they were the usual pablum. Then one year, 1966, we happened to watch ABC Stage 67 production of "Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory". Geraldine Page won an emmy award for her role as Capote's "cousin" in the depression era story of making fruitcakes. This was one  of those life changing stories that goes to the heart of your very being. It's the tale of the magic of youth and the richness of life instead of riches. Capote narrates the sad tale of his youth as Buddy and his eccentric "cousin" who doesn't have a name in the story, in making fruitcakes which they give away to their special friends.

The popular one hour production ran each season for several years afterward, and then began to fade away, resurrected occasionally on PBS. Then by the mid 70's it had disappeared completely from the world of TV. In the meantime, I had grown and left home, our little traditions only a memory for me as well. But I still remembered them and I really missed "A Christmas Memory". Then one Christmas season about 1975, I was in the library thinking about the story and remembering that it was adapted from a Capote story. I found it! I took the novella off the shelf and went to one of the big plush chairs next to windows in the setting afternoon winter sun and spent a wonderful and tearful hour reading it for the first time, but with each word I was seeing Buddy and the old woman. For several years after that, reading it at Christmas became my new tradition.

But reading the story wasn't the only tradition that started that year. I started making fruitcakes. I found a recipe in an old cookbook, They were terrible. I certainly didn't send cakes to my friends that year. But since I lived alone, I had acquired some pretty good cooking skills, and I began adapting the recipe  to what I thought a good fruitcake should be. I still have that original recipe, but I have changed it so much it bears little resemblance to the original. I have been making fruitcakes for thirty years now, sending them to friends and family as my Christmas present to them. Not something that I bought either a trifle or a trinket, but something that is a part of me, a piece of my history.

For years the fruitcake batch grew until it was a 30 pound mass of batter and perserved fruits. But this is the first year that it will shrink. Friends move and lose touch, relatives have died, others can't eat sweets anymore. But still, I woke up this morning and the ground was hard and white with frost, and I thought "It's fruitcake weather!".

Oregon Road Trip

Rob Reiner: "What do they call it when everything comes together?"
Tom Hanks: "The Bermuda Triangle."
from Sleepless in Seattle

And so it was this past weekend when Bob Potts and I visited Jason Gamby, Rich List, Randy Knight, Walter Pall, and others at Oregon Bonsai in Portland Oregon this past weekend. I almost didn't go. I hate traveling, and this was going to be nine hours straight in a car with only pee breaks, followed by two days recovering and playing with trees in Oregon, then a nine hour return after a half day workshop with Walter. Facing potential financial problems at home, I finally agreed to go only if it didn't cost me anything. Jason and Bob said "No problem". What I didn't know is that it would significantly change my life, and possibly the future of the direction of bonsai in the US. Free trip? Sure, thanks guys. 

If you are just here to see the pictures, and wish to pass up this fascinating tale of trees and terror, just scroll all the way to the bottom of this page and click on the Albums at the very bottom.

Day One: The Trip Up

At least getting up at 3:30 am wasn't a big deal for me because my brain usually kicks in at that hour anyhow. Susie dropped me off in Lower Lake where we met Bob at 5am to save the hour that it would have taken to come to our house and retrieve me. The trip started out good, it was still clear and it looked like the rain might hold off until we got up there. The discussion quickly got round to the first earth shattering event: The US electorate had decided to change the course of all our futures. Now, you may think this is good or bad, but it's hard to argue that some big changes aren't in the wind. For me, it's like I can breathe again, an oppressive weight has been taken off my back. No more four hour stints reading pre election articles on the internet. I should have seen this as the omen that it turned out to be.

At dawn we turned off Rt 20 at Williams to start the long trip north on I-5 to Portland. It was a beautiful sunrise, but it was also Red Sky in the Morning, another omen. After several hours of Bob's harrowing driving, we began to rise up out of the valley and into the mountains with the snow capped Mt Shasta beckoning us with imitations of Mt Fuji. It was at this point that Bob and I both left Tierra Firma, neither of having been any farther north than this on I-5. Beware, there be  dragons out there. The mountains were beautiful with the burnt umber stripes and polka dots of Black Oaks punctuating the emerald green conifers against the threatening gray sky. We began climbing mountain passes on the broad ribbon of smooth winding highway, three thousand feet, four thousand feet. I began thinking: Snow. Well, no point dwelling on that now, perhaps the gods will smile on us on the return trip.

The trip went extremely well. No problems, it didn't start raining until we were just south of Portland and we arrived in early afternoon with enough time to see the nursery and for Bob to select some trees for the workshops Saturday and Sunday. Didn't get lost once. Excellent, so far so good. We were welcomed by Jason, a tall well built dark athletic looking 33 year old, just a baby in this business. Walter had not yet arrived so we had time to see the nursery, which is called the Farm, and Randy's collected material at his house. Not thirty seconds after getting in the house, I was holding a nice cold micro brew ale. This was going to be ok.

There was something odd about Jason's house. It appeared to be a brand new, rather nice, typical tract home with a small backyard that I could already see had some rather nice bonsai material surrounding the inside of the perimeter fence. Then it hit me- it looked like a bachelor flat. Yes, there was some nice furniture, but there was a lot more negative space here than in most family homes in America. Jason explained, he and his wife had decided to sell the house and move, but had changed their minds and now everything was in storage and was yet to be
unpacked. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I could sense that another Bermuda Triangle opening was forming. In any case, it was quite nice and I was going to have the den with the huge sectional couch all to myself, Bob preferring  to sleep with the trees in the van, maybe getting a bit of a jump on us through osmosis.

Jason took us around the backyard first showing us the very nice collected material that he was getting from Randy as well as his own collected material, and then his original sticks in pots of only two years ago. This young man was growing by leaps and bounds, and his
enthusiasm was almost contagious. This, he assured us, was nothing, wait until we went to Randy's house.

So, refreshed, and slightly giddy from the hops and drinking too fast, I got in the truck with Jason, and Bob to head for the growing grounds called the Farm. On the seat was another brew. Umm... there was going to be trouble. Me with two beers has always been dangerous, no matter the venue. Me with two beers in a field of potential bonsai was playing with fire despite the increasing rain. Soon we arrived at a wooded area across from the site
of a clearcut. I tried hard not to denigrate Rome, not being a Roman. We turned into a drive
crossing a small creek and curiously driving through the field instead using the road. "It keeps the road in better shape" Jason assured me....Oookay.

We pulled up to the potting area after electing to try the road instead of driving through the patch of newly planted Scots pine. By now it was coming down pretty hard. Being no fool, I took my rain gear out of my pack and got ready to have fun. I have been trying to get Bob to buy rain gear for about three years now; it seems to be a futile effort. Jason, I presumed, was from the great Northwest school that just ignores the elements since his gear was a light weight jacket and a baseball cap. The fact that I looked like something out of Starwars, while they looked cool and tough, didn't dampen my appreciation for being warm and dry.

By now, the alcohol was reinforcing the hop high, and I was feeling my oats. I was getting excited. There were some pretty massive trees here and there although the leaves had just dropped from the deciduous trees and was obscuring the details of the lower trunks of tridents, elms, mume, hornbeam, and various other species. Jason was giving me a chance
to preview what Randy has been doing with field growing over the last five years or so. It was good and bad. Some things were still young, and had great potential, but the first steps had not yet been taken. In other areas, like the tridents, the three and four inch caliper trunks
often had useless balls of branches above a decent base. What it showed was that Randy had some good ideas and correct instincts about field growing, but didn't have the time or the expertise to take things to the next level. That was why I was here. I wasn't telling Jason or Randy anything they didn't already know, I was here to help them put this place back on track.

As we walked through the trees it was exciting and disappointing, exciting and disappointing. Like the tridents, the black pines showed tremendous growth in a short period of time. This part of Oregon isn't know as the nursery capitol of the US for nothing. Rows of black pine
trunks sported 4 inch caliper trunks, but then little else. The next step should have done two years ago. But it was not a lost cause. Sure, some of the pines had lost all of their bonsai
potential from shading out the lower branches and buds, but others, especially those along the edges still had received enough light to keep these low branches. This was still relatively young material despite it's massive size, and low breaks were not impossible. I would show Jason where they should have cut, and which ones could still make potential bonsai and which could be salvaged for landscape garden trees where super low branching wasn't necessary. It was fun, a BonsaiNurseryman in his natural habitat. At the end I felt refreshed and renewed. There was still a lot of potential here.

Meanwhile, Bob was zeroing in on the small amount of collected trees that Randy had stored here that would make good workshop material. It was really nice stuff, Ponderosa Pines, and Rocky Mountain Juniper. These trees had been dug sufficiently long ago that they were now
stabilized in nursery soil and would easily survive the rigors of an initial styling, or so Jason assured us. I had trouble believing it, but I took him at his word. Yes, it was good stuff and different from other collected material I had seen, but being a nurseryman, I had trouble
getting my brain out of those trees growing out there in the field. Bob found a couple trees that he thought would work without much input from me, probably recognizing that my mind was elsewhere. After about an hour, preview completed, workshop trees selected, we were back in the truck on our way to Randy's house.

After a short drive, we arrived at Randy's. Somewhere along the line, the details were getting a bit hazy, another, and larger, beer appeared. So, here I am, out of the truck, still in my Starwars black rain gear with giant beer in hand. Right on cue, the sun comes out briefly to reveal what cannot possible be true. Here in this pleasant little suburban cluster of houses was a small yard that held a collection of pines and junipers that could have been the top of the granite dome at Yosemite Falls. The top of the falls was the first time I had the humbling experience that nature also practices bonsai. Here it was again, only this time I was standing in someone's yard instead of at the top of a granite monolith at six thousand feet. These were not finished bonsai, these trees have not received a single cut made by man, except to release the roots from the soil and rock. That in itself made the experience all that more awesome. The sheer scale of these trees was overwhelming. Some
of the Ponderosa Pines were monsters with sixteen inch caliper trunks with contorted and twisting trunks and branches stretching for six feet or more, easily weighing over two hundred pounds without any soil other than the few liters of native dirt that remained after their removal.

These wild and spectacular ancient trees were potted  in small wooden boxes designed to contain the small intact rootball that accompanied each tree upon removal. When a tree was removed from a rock crevice, it would have long thin box maybe eight inches wide and four feet long. It was obvious that Randy not only knew what he was doing, he was breaking new
ground in the art and science of collecting yamadori. The health of these trees was incredible even though these trees are newly dug, months to several years ago, with only the beginnings of new growth in their new home. I thought it must be an incredible brute of a man to have packed these trees off the mountain on his back.  Then he drove up just at that moment, returning from the mountains with his latest load of new trees.

I should have know, because Jason had said Randy was tall and lanky, but here was a man that could have been chiseled from the granite himself, a six foot one, 180 pound short haired quiet man who had muscles of spun steel. Introductions were made, and after only a minute or two, Randy excused himself to reunite with his family that he hadn't seen in several weeks.

It was about then that I started to focus my attention on the junipers rather than the pines. Where the pines grab your attention with their
massive presence, the junipers have this quiet understatement of  subtle pale green winter foliage and gray deadwood. They were almost feminine next to the pine's great masculinity. But now the junipers were getting my
attention, especially a huge one right at the corner of the driveway. These were not Sierra and Desert Junipers that I am used to seeing. Although there are twists and contortions to the dominant deadwood features, they are not the wild flying bird Kimura compositions that we
have become accustomed to seeing. But that wasn't all. It was then that it struck me as I examined them more closely. It was the foliage. Here was very small delicate foliage very much different from the familiar junipers. It was so fine, that it would have been hard to believe it wasn't already grafted over to 'Shimpaku' had they not already changed to their gray green winter color. I then examined several that were under the canopy of trees and therefore still had their green summer foliage color. Incredible. If you put this foliage next to 'Itoigawa Shimpaku', you would be hard pressed to tell the two apart.  I was starting to get really excited.

I later was told that these are Juniperus scopulorum, and I will accept that for now, but I really want to do some research on these to see if we are dealing with a variant or a subspecies. In any case, I think this species of Rocky Mountain Juniper, whatever it is, is going to shake up
the world of collected bonsai.

Then it was back to Jason's house to meet Walter who had just arrived at the airport. It was good to see him again, and as this was Walter's second or third trip here, he was right at home and as charming as ever. After a very long day, we all had an excellent buffet dinner at
Jason's prepared by his partner Jennifer, and soon the long hours and lack of sleep starting catching up with me, so it was off to bed. But my brain just would not stop; it took forever to get to sleep despite my exhaustion.

Click here to see the rest of the trees at Randy's house.

Day Two: The Workshop

The next day came early for me as it always does. Awake at 4:30, I finally got up at 5:00 and started the coffee pot and tried not to wake the whole house with my early morning routines. But soon we were all awake and having bagels and cream cheese with our coffee, except for Dr. Bob who amazingly, doesn't have the caffeine habit. It had rained during the night and the sky was still gray and dark. The other workshop participants were arriving and walking around the backyard admiring Jason's trees with Walter. An almost horizontal shaft of sunlight finally managed to struggle through the clouds and made a spectacular lighting effect. We packed up our gear and headed off to the Grange Hall for a day of fun and camaraderie.

This first workshop was a small group of people invited by Jason. It included Randy, Jason, Rich List (Jennifer's brother), Bob, Lee Cheatle ( a chef as well as a talented bonsai practitioner), and myself. It was more like a
study group rather than a workshop or critique, but Walter was clearly our leader; that's why we were all there. The format was loose and comfortable. We made one round, each of us offering up a tree and Walter
performed his by now famous and familiar critique; asking us about our trees and what we thought of them, and what we wanted to see in them first, and then helping us to see that tree as well as other possibilities. We all felt free to chip in with our own comments and
suggestions. The beauty of Walter's workshops is his casual demeanor which allows you to feel comfortable about questioning him and searching out all the possibilities. This is definitely not an old school
master/novice situation, and is very suited to our Western culture.

For me, it is a test to see if I can see the possibilities before Walter points them out, and sometimes to see one that isn't even discussed in the first round. Walter is not the least put off by analyzing other points of view and will wholeheartedly embrace them if he thinks they
will lead to a good tree. It is so refreshing to stand toe to toe with one of best designers in the world and be able to do this.

It is with nursery material that I can keep up with Walter to some degree, a very satisfying feeling. But then, I have pruned and designed,
at least in my head, hundreds of thousands of nursery trees. I can usually see the tree, or multiple tree possibilities in seconds, as can
Walter. But it is with collected material, that I am usually at a loss, and it is with this material that Walter truly excels. And that is what I am really looking for from Walter these days. We talked about these things that morning, and Walter agrees. He can do with collected
material what I can do with nursery material because he has done that hundreds of thousands of times. I am just beginning to get a handle on wild material that just doesn't fall into any recognized category when you
begin. Working with this material is extremely difficult, and that is why people like Walter are so valuable to us.

Randy brought a couple of his collected trees as well as one of his Farm raised European hornbeams, a really excellent tree with a large
strong moving trunk almost perfectly proportioned in its bends and twists. I guess I admired it a little too much because he gave it to me. It is a tree that I will cherish and try to do justice.

It wasn't very long before the floor and tables were covered with slash, water and mud, and rising above it proudly were the newborn skeletons of future bonsai, some of which held the potential to be spectacular bonsai. At lunchtime, we called it a day, cleaned up and repaired to the local Chinese restaurant before heading off to Randy's house for an
afternoon of salivating over his trees with Walter at hand to give his opinions. But before we left, the local contingent realized that it would be bad form if we didn't make an appearance at the Bonsai Society of Portland's show at the Japanese Garden in the park. So, first to Randy's, then off to the show.

You can see the rest of the workshop trees here.

When we got to Randy's, the rain had stopped and the afternoon sun was casting golden shifts of light on those enormous trees. As an extra treat, Randy had unloaded the bounty of his latest collecting trip and we got to see what they look like even before they were potted up. Randy is the most responsible collector I have ever met. He won't collect a tree unless it has a very high chance of survival. Typically, over 90% of the trees he collects survive. He has spent a great deal of time and effort developing the skills and techniques necessary to achieve this.
And this has turned around my thinking about collected trees. Up to now, I have never collected a yamadori, and thought that I never would. Call me a tree hugger, but I just didn't want the responsibility for killing what nature took hundreds of years to grow. I later talked to Randy about this. He's an avid hunter, and he wanted to know if I hunted too, knowing full well that that can be a minefield to explore with some people. As it turns out, I was a hunter when I was young, starting when I was only five years old. I learned to be responsible for the lives of
animals I killed just like Randy is responsible for the lives of the trees  he collects. But as I
grew older, I stopped hunting. I told him that the world around me had just grown too small, hunting in what is, in essence, our garden no longer held any attraction for me. It is this feeling that extends to collecting for me. That feeling is changing now that I see it can be done responsibly and with such a high survival rate. Now I own a small Rocky Mountain Juniper
that will grace my bonsai bench, and if it survives and thrives, as he assures me that it will, then there may be others.

Randy and Walter are convinced that these pines and junipers will survive in many other parts of the US and the world. The track record is impressive and increasing. These species don't seem to have the problems of the Sierra and desert junipers, which very few people can collect successfully. Randy has sold trees both north and south, hot climates and wet climates and the trees are doing well.  When they fail, he can almost always trace it to the failure to completely repot and remove the original soil according the schedule that he recommends.

After Walter finished looking at his new crop collected for him by Randy, and I finished up my photos, and closer examination of the junipers and pines, we packed up and headed off to the Japanese Garden and the BSOP Show. By the time we got there it was dark and the critique by Michael Hagedorn had just begun. It was a good show, the display area was very impressive, a large Japanese style hall in natural wood with screens behind all the exhibits. Each bonsai was in its own tokonoma display. Some of the collected trees from the area were especially good as you can see from the photos below. Eventually Jason found   the location of the display of trees on loan from the Pacific Rim Collection. It was completely dark now and the light made ghostly images of the beautiful trees, but with flash photography, some very unusual photos were obtained that you can see here.

The rest of the BSOP photos can be seen here.

Exhausted once again, we go home to Jason's and Jennifer's, and still stuffed from our huge Chinese lunch, we skip dinner and  try to find the meaning of life instead. If you put a couple of bottles of red wine in front of Walter and me, you deserve anything you get. And sure enough, a wild far ranging discussion of bonsai, life, sex, drugs, education, and our destinies filled the next three hours. I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. After two exhausting days of operating on adrenalin and coffee, overwhelmed with new possibilities for bonsai, friends, and business, I was the consummate motor mouth, even putting Walter to shame, but he did his best to keep up.

Sleep was easier coming this night, but the Bermuda Triangle hadn't closed yet. I was going to spend the next morning alone with Randy, mano a mano. Good thing I didn't know what was coming.

Day Three: The Farm

The second workshop was to be held in Portland about an hour away, and Jason had kept telling me that Randy wanted to talk to me. I wasn't really signed up for this workshop and had already had a good session with Walter, so I said if they could get me to Portland by noon to head south for the long drive home, I would be free for Randy, and Randy gladly agreed
to do that. At 8:00 am we all loaded up. Randy and I headed out to the Farm while everyone else headed to Portland with Walter for the second workshop.

Randy hadn't had breakfast, so we stopped at the nearby restaurant, and we talked while Randy ate and I had yet more coffee. This was a good move. It gave me a chance to really talk to Randy and find out what makes him tick and he was doing the same. Like Walter, Randy is another corporate dropout. Also like Walter, this gives him a formidable set of business skills, something I never had, and almost too late, had to learn to succeed in my business. We talked about a lot of things in that hour that we sat across from each other at that table, business, apprentices, customers, relationships, family, as well as horticulture.
He is an incredible and unusual character, someone I hope to get to know better in the coming years. He has this quiet and unrelenting focus. He has a good idea of what he wants and he doesn't mind picking your brain to help him get there. At the same time he is absolutely clear and honest about this and you soon know that this is someone that you can trust implicitly. This is not something that is common in the business world, and it is a treasure to find it.

At last we got up to go and headed out to the farm, only a few minutes away. Having already been here once helped us cut right to the chase. We went from section to section, Randy telling me what he had done and what the results were, and asking me what I thought about the plants and their potential from the bonsai, landscape, and business point of view. I was in my natural habitat again, and it was both fun and exciting to be able to answer his questions, speculate, help him dream of making this part of the operation a success too. It was a very intense two hours of continuous give and take. We went right up to the last minute, but finally we had to leave to get Portland so that Bob and I could get back to Lake County at a decent hour. Little did we know that the Bermuda Triangle would get us again.

The Trip Home

Randy got me to Portland on time, but by the time we ate lunch, visited some more, and finally said our goodbyes, we were a little over an hour late in leaving. With any luck we could still be home around 11 or midnight. Unfortunately no luck was forthcoming. It started raining again, really hard this time, and the traffic was practically bumper to bumper on I-5 all the way from Portland to Medford, but still moving at a pretty good clip. I tried not to think about the fact that we were often only feet from other vehicles going 70 mph in a driving rainstorm. We hit Medford just after dark, and then as we came to Ashland, the chain restriction signs were up, but were still only for towed vehicles and big rigs. Maybe we could make it. It was about 37F at this elevation and would clearly be freezing on the passes. We went a few miles more just south of Ashland, then the traffic stopped. We were about four cars back and were trying to
figure out what was going on. Apparently, a big rig had stalled on the grade and they stopped traffic until they could remove it. Meanwhile it was continuing to rain slightly and was getting colder. After about twenty minutes we heard on the short wave radio that once the rig was pushed to the side, the highway would go to full chain restrictions. We were dead in the water. No chains; too late to buy any; both of us had to be back the next morning.

We turned around and went back to Ashland to consider our options. It didn't seem like we were going to be able to get chains, so I-5 was out. The only other route that I knew was to head over to the coast and go down Highway 101, which would add hours to the already delayed trip. Bob called his wife and had her check for road conditions on Hwy 199 that
goes from Grant's Pass over the Coastal Mountains to Crescent City on the coast. Looked like it was still open. This lower elevation route which was close to the ocean should present no snow difficulties....we hoped. It had been about twelve years since I last had traveled that highway and that was in summer. So, we turned around, backtracked the forty miles to
Grant's Pass and found Hwy 199 without incident. It was disappointing and we were getting tired. Once we got to the ridge tops in the mountains, the wind was blowing like hell and there was debris all over the road. It was slow going, but we were making it. Then around a curve
there was a loud deep thud. We had hit a rock that neither of had seen. That was close.

Another mile of two more, we realized we hadn't really escaped as that unmistakable sound of a tire going flat sunk in. Here we were, pitch black night, miles from civilization, around a curve, still partly on the road and we had to change the front left tire in that driving wind.
Ok, we can do this. We open the back of the van, and the first thing we have to do is unload the trees to even get to the tire and tools. Finally we manage this, and changing the tire goes pretty smoothly. I am holding the flashlight and try to alert oncoming traffic as it appears
around the curve. Fortunately, folks were driving pretty slowly and we didn't feel too threatened. By the time we got the tire changed and the trees loaded again (I made Bob do a head count), we had lost yet another hour.

The spare was one of those little emergency tires, so we didn't dare go very fast for the rest of the trip, making it almost agonizingly slow. We finally got to Crescent city and cell service again about 8:30. We called our wives and told them don't wait up for us. It was going to be at least another five hours, maybe more. Outside Eureka, we gassed up again, Dr. Clean decided he would have to dose up with a little caffeine, and I got a juice, not trusting my tummy with food under the circumstances. Back on the road again, I started getting really tired, trying desperately not to go to sleep so I could keep talking to Bob to keep him from falling asleep. But he assured me he was doing ok.

I started counting down the towns after Eureka. I've lived here a long time and been to a lot of these places. At each new place we came to, I tried to remember a story about being there with Susie, or the dogs, camping trips, restaurants, whatever. Once we reached Lake County at the top of the Blue Lakes grade, I started waking up again. I don't know if it was relief or I had actually got a little sleep in those one second drowsing off sessions during quiet moments. We rolled into my yard at 2:30 in the morning. Bob probably didn't get home until after well after 3am.

Hopefully the door to the Bermuda Triangle is closed for awhile. It's now evening the next day as I sit here typing this, trying to make a record of this incredible, wonderful, and awful journey. I have this feeling that this is something that I will want to remember for a very long time, and this journal may help me to do it. I expect big things to come from Randy, Jason, and Oregon Bonsai. If you haven't heard of them yet, you will soon, I guarantee it!

Brent

How to Graft for Bonsai

I have been working on a grafting article for several years now. It seemed like I could never finish it. Well, now I have. If you have ever wondered how to graft, this post should give you enough information to actually perform the operation. You can click on any of the pictures to see the full size photo. Questions and comments appreciated.

Introduction

Grafting is a procedure for clonal propagation. The resulting plants will have identical characteristics to the parent plant, in most cases a named cultivar. The understock characteristics (what it is grafted to) do not change the genetic integrity of the scion (the plant you graft to the understock). In some cases the understock will speed up or slow down the scion growth, but that is the only effect. Remember that the roots of your grafted plant retain the genetic integrity of the understock (sometimes referred to rootstock).

Grafting for bonsai requires special procedures not required for ordinary landscape plants. These problems are fully discussed in the article:
Root Grafts for Bonsai

This article will focus on the actual procedure in detail. Since decent grafted material is so hard to obtain, grafting can be a valuable skill. The procedure described is specifically for pine grafts, but it can be adapted for almost any species used for bonsai. The same technique (with appropriate modification) can be used for branch grafting on larger trees, either to add foliage to a naked branch, or to completely graft over to a new species such as grafting 'Shimpaku' juniper to 'San Jose' or collected mountain and desert junipers.

Graft Compatibility

Grafts are generally made using the same species for understock because grafts between species (different species for understock and scions) are not always compatible. Pines are a bit unusual in that there is a broad range of species compatibility. Japanese white pine, Pinus  parviflora,  are mostly, grafted to a different species. In the West, it is mostly commonly grafted to P. strobus (Eastern White Pine), the common understock for all white (five needled) pines. However, in Japan, P. thunbergii (Japanese Black Pine) is the most common understock for P. parviflora. I use P. thunbergii understock for all my black and white pine cultivars.

Preparation of Understock

I have spent a lot of time studying how to prepare understock. Beginning with bareroot seedlings, I originally believed the premise that saving as much root as possible (and still be able to get it in the pot) was the best thing to do. To further relieve the stress, I also pruned back the top. These small bareroot young pines didn't usually have more than one adult node, so this meant cutting off the main terminal bud. This turned out to be a bad idea. I lost many of these pines, and the ones that survived usually didn't grow strongly enough to make good understock the first year.

Then I started applying the ideas that I talk about in the article  Root Pruning Bareroot Seedlings. Even though the article is geared toward deciduous trees, the principles also apply to pines if you take some additional precautions for the unbalanced system (more foliage than root). Briefly, what I do for deciduous dormant bareroot trees is to leave as much top as possible and rootprune rather severely to remove the tap root. This allows me to be able to get it in a pot that is only 3 inches deep. Since buds already contain everything they need to open into a leaf, the roots have only to supply water at the start. So, if you can shelter these plants from heat stress, you get a fast recovery because you leave them with the maximum photosynthesis potential. I have done comparison tests on identical plants, so I know this works.

In pines and other evergreens, the principles are the same, but they are not leafless when bareroot, so there is always a transpiration loss, even when dormant. This doesn't create a problem until it gets warm and they start to grow, but it does make them more susceptible to freeze drying than deciduous plants. By leaving one or more strong terminal buds, you provide a means of quick growth and recovery from the root pruning if you can match the transpirational losses to the impaired root system. This can usually be done by keeping them shaded somewhat, out of the wind, and partially covered. I really like a product called Reemay. It is a spun crop cover that is white and gives you a slight shade factor, almost completely reduces wind drying, but allows air circulation, and allows rain or irrigation to flow through it. The only problem with it is that you can get dry spots at times during the winter. I have changed to system of overhead water frost protection that works even better, but the Reemay is a good simple, inexpensive solution.

With this new system, my losses are much less, under 10%, and sometimes nearly all the seedlings will survive. It works better with younger plants than with older ones, probably because younger, smaller plants are easier to protect. As I said, many of these are root established and ready to graft eight or nine months later. In addition, the root pruning allows me to start working on the nebari even before the trees are grafted. I begin selecting surface roots; the tap root is cut off; I can remove or shorten overly strong side roots, and position the top roots radially. I also pot the seedlings high in the pot with the soil mounded up, so that I can low graft right on top of the surface roots without digging down into the pot. This greatly simplifies the grafting process and keeps the cut cleaner. Notice the root position of the understock picture above.

For more information on understock preparation see the blog post “Where It All Begins”.

Preparation of the Scions

The scions are usually 1/4 inch caliper or less and from growth less than a year old (tips) with a single node (bud or whorl of buds) at the end.  For smaller cultivars, the scion is usually cut just above the last node (not counting the node at the tip). When the last internode section is very long, a stub can be left, or the scion shortened later. Typically, scions are one to three inches long. Always inspect the terminal bud when selecting scions. Sometimes what appears to be a really nice stick of new growth will have only a very tiny terminal bud at the tip. While these may “take”, the success rate is certainly higher when there is a nice fat bud at the tip and even better when the other buds around the terminal bud are also visible. They are an insurance policy should the terminal bud not survive. Remember that the node at the base of the terminal bud is going to provide the first branch on the grafted tree, so you don't want a really long stick of a scion; the shorter the better. The bottom needles are removed and  the bottom of the scion is cut on both sides to make a wedge that fits into the slit in the understock(if only it were that easy!). There is a long side of the wedge that should be as long as the inside of the slit on the understock. The short side of the wedge is mostly to make it pointed.

Tools

The cutting part of grafting requires a great deal of practice and skill. As mentioned above, the knives have to be razor sharp. I use Japanese carving knives and water stones to sharpen them, finally finishing the edge with a razor strop. I restrop the knives after every twenty to forty grafts. Getting the knife to shave hair is the starting point. You want the knife so sharp, that the hairs of your arm will pop right off when you touch them. Some people use single edge razor blades and discard them after a few grafts, but personally, I prefer knives.

If you choose a knife, a high quality laminated steel single bevel knife is best. Knives that are beveled on both sides (most western knives) are not suitable; you will never get a surface that is flat enough for really good grafts. Most Japanese carving and grafting knives are flat (or hollow ground as can be seen in the photo) on one side and beveled on the other. Because of the single bevel, these knives are either right or left handed. Be careful of left hand v. right handed terminology. It is usually for carving, meaning that you are going to use the knife by carving away from you (picture an old guy whittling). Grafting is done by moving the knife toward you. So the terms are usually backward. I am left handed, so I use right handed knives (pictured). Right handed people will usually want left handed knives. If this totally confuses you, Picture yourself holding the knife, and moving it toward you to make the cut. The flat side should be on the bottom, and the bevel side should be on the top. You always want the flat side next to the mating surfaces of the scion and the understock.

I actually use two knives. One knife is ground down so that the blade is very thin and fragile. This is used for making the understock cut only. The thinner and sharper it is, the easier and better the cut will be. Thick knives (short bevel) will stretch the cut, and thus lose some of its holding power. The other knife uses a standard bevel (just as it comes from the factory) and is used for making the scions cuts. Some people manage to make the scion cuts while holding the scion in their hand. I have never been able to do this and get a good result. I prefer to use a block to support the scion (pictured in the photo above). The problem with using a block is that the scion cut touches another surface that can scratch it, and can allow dirt and debris to enter the union. Therefore, it is essential that the block be kept clean and smooth. I use a poly cutting board set sideways in a 2 x 4 that I can plane smooth after it begins to roughen from the cuts. You must also keep it meticulously clean. A wipe with alcohol or WD40 after every graft is a good idea.

Making the Cuts

There are many subtle tricks to making a good cut, and not everyone is going to approach it the same way. I will try explain what has helped me to make good, flat, straight cuts. First, for both the scion and understock cuts, this is not a whittling exercise. The cuts should be, as much as possible,  a single, straight, smooth stroke. Once you begin making the cut, the knife should not stop moving. The purpose of the flat side of the knife is make a cut that does not tend  either to curl in, or curl out of the cutting plane. You need flat cuts. This is perhaps the hardest skill to obtain. It will take hundreds, if not thousands, of cuts until you can do this perfectly and effortlessly.

Understock cuts are fairly simple and you will perfect these first. You start about an inch above the existing surface roots. You want to finish the cut just above the roots. The knife should by angled so that a cut of  3/4 to 1 inch will go  about 1/3 of the way through the trunk. You will know if you go too far, because suddenly the knife resistance will be gone, and the top will be limp and the cut will not close. You need to go far enough into the trunk to create a tightly closed cut after you withdraw the knife. Too deep and the trunk will split or the top will lose its stability. Too thin and the outside of the cut won't have enough wood to make the graft tight. One third the distance of the understock is just about right. Of course, none of this will mean anything to you until you try it.

The scion cuts are more difficult. In many cases, you are working with a stick of wood little more than two or three inches long. You have to remove the lower needles so that you can position the knife properly. Make the long side of the wedge first. I have gone back and forth on this, and currently I feel it is best to do the long or mating side first. It makes the scion more stable when cutting the other side to make the wedge. Lay the scion flat on the block, and angle it so that the whorl and buds are to one side of the edge of the block. You want the section you are going to cut flat on the block for support. Position the knife and scion so that you are pulling the knife toward you, flat side of the knife down against the scion. Pull the knife through to the bottom of the scion to make a cut that is about 3/4 inches long, and make it go halfway through the scion, thus removing a small U shaped bit of wood from the bottom of the scion.

To make the scion pointed, turn the scion over and now position the cut you have just made flat against the block. This takes some practice. You must feel that it is flat against the block. Now make the shorter 1/4 inch cut by pulling the knife down through the scion in the same fashion, except that this time the knife is going to go all the way through the scion and into the block to make a flat sharp edge to the bottom of the scion. If the edge is not sharp, you will have to repeat the cut, starting at the top again. If you remove too much material, the long side will now be too short, start over.

That's the general instructions for the scion cut. Now for the detail. The sharp bottom edge of the scion must be at 90 degrees (right angles) to  the scion. If it is not, then, you have to re cut one or both cuts.

Here is what happened: The two cuts are flat intersecting planes. If they don't intersect at right angles to the edge, that means that one side of the scion wedge cut is thicker than the other. This is evidenced by the lack of the right angle at the bottom edge. It is difficult to tell with the naked eye whether these two planes intersect properly except by looking at the resulting angle at the bottom of the cut (see pictures). Since the scion wedge is going into an understock cut with parallel sides, one side of the scion cut cannot be thicker than the other or there will be a gap between the cut surfaces on one side of the graft or the other. If this gap is on the mating side of the graft, chances are good that it will fail. The best grafts will make contact on all portions of the cut surface of the scion, short and long side. Whew!

You won't make perfect cuts on your first attempt until you have made a few hundred (or thousand) cuts, so it is ok to go back and repeat the cuts if the planes don't intersect properly. When repeating a cut, always start over by beginning the cut in fresh bark at the top of the previous cut. If you don't do this, and start in the middle, the cut will not be flat (in a plane). With most pines, it is fairly easy to get the cut fully through the scion with one stroke. However, with some pines and especially with hardwoods, such as maples,  you may find you can't cut through the desired distance with one stroke. In this case it is perfectly acceptable to first make a shallow cut, or two, to remove some material before making the final cut as described as above. Without having to push through so much wood, the cut will be much easier to make.

And lastly, side veneer grafts are designed to make smooth undetectable unions. This means that there is only a slight angle between the scion and the understock; both are upright. Often, these short scions will have a fairly fat whorl of buds. You must position the scion so that no bud is directly against the understock. If you do, the bud will often touch and thus push the scion away from the understock stem. If this happens, you will not be able to close the graft. So, while you are holding the scion, preparatory to making the cuts, examine it and decide which side is going to go against the understock. This side should be able to lie nearly flat against the understock, and should have clean straight sides if cut from this position. Similarly, examine and decide where to make the cut in the understock. You want to make the cut just above existing roots in an area with relatively smooth bark and no distortions so the sides of the cut will be straight. I will sometimes even make a cut go below an existing root on the backside of the understock.

Fitting the Scion to the Understock

Insert the scion into the undertock by gently opening the understock cut by bending the stem away from the slit, and then gently positioning the scion to the very bottom of the cut. This may take a light pushing effort. When you are getting the cuts right, the scion will fit right into the slit and the rounded tops of the two cuts will come together evenly. If they don't, the cut on the understock should be longer than the cut on the scion, or the scion will dry out and die. The scion should be held tightly to the understock by the force of the cut closing on the understock when you release it. After inserting the scion, examine the graft for flatness. The cut should be closed and the surfaces mating perfectly. If you can see any light through the mating surface, it has to be closed by the rubber or tape pressing the graft together, but it is far better to have a perfectly mated surface without even touching the graft. That should be your goal, alas, it is not easy.

I recommend that you practice on willow wood for several hours before experimenting on valuable scion wood. I have students create faux grafts of willow wood because it is soft and straight. Here's how you do it. Take a small block of 2x4 lumber and drill a 1/4 inch hole in it. With a reamer or knife, taper the hole slightly so that you can insert a six inch willow stick into it tightly. That is your understock. You can practice making understock cuts on this. Then practice making scion cuts on other pieces of willow slightly smaller than 1/4 inch. You can test your skill by inserting them in your 'understock'. You can even practice tying the grafts, which is an art onto itself.

Aftercare

Aftercare is a whole other procedure to learn. If you are winter grafting, you want the grafts to stay cool and humid with indirect sunlight only (50% shadecloth) for the entire spring and summer following the grafting. If your graft 'takes',  the scion bud will probably break by midsummer. Often the scion will stay alive, but the bud won't break until the following spring. If the graft fails, the scion will be dead by the first summer. There are any number of ways of achieving the proper conditions. Some people recommend placing a plastic bag over the scion. I caution you about the bag method: You cannot let direct sunlight hit the plastic bag or you will cook your scion. Most people use some sort of glazed frame that is not completely enclosed, or a shaded area that is wind protected. Greenhouses can be used if there is good ventilation, humidity control, and the temperature doesn't get too high. Fertilize the understock normally. You want it as vigorous as possible given the low light levels. I even have seen some people create little sunscreens from foil for the scions so the rest of the understock can have more light.

Our spring weather (high Coastal Mountain valley of Northern California) is very fickle, so climate control has been exceptionally difficult for winter grafts (Dec through Feb). I had many losses. Finally, I heard about Oregon grafters grafting in August, also when budding is done. I have always had a pretty decent automatic mist arrangement for cuttings, and as cutting production is pretty much completed in August, I thought I would give summer grafting a try. It has been a godsend for me. I have found I have to graft later than August since it is still very hot here then. I am now grafting at the end of Sept and putting the new grafts under mist in a small greenhouse for about a week to ten days. The temperature is kept between 50F (night) and 95F (day) to get the grafts to knit as quickly as possible. Since both scions and understock are active, this is possible in a very short period. After a the mist is stopped, the greenhouse humidity is still kept at 60%. As the weather cools and the rains begin, I take them out of the greenhouse. Previously, I  kept the grafts in a cold greenhouse for the winter from about 40 to 60F, but since that greenhouse was remote, I never got there often enough for proper care. So now I just put them in a shadecloth hoop house once the rain has started. I don't let them get very cold, trying to keep them above 25F by watering them in the middle of the night when it's below freezing and encasing them in ice. This prevents them from freeze drying too. In colder areas, a cold greenhouse with that is kept humid would be perfectly acceptable.

Basically, proper aftercare must ensure that a high level of humidity is maintained, and that temperatures remain moderate. You want neither high heat, nor hard freeze. The temperatures and conditions vary depending on whether you are doing winter or summer grafting, but the essential principle is not to stress the plants in any way.

The understock top (above the scion) is removed after the graft takes and is well established. There are varying opinions about when and how to remove it. I do it in stages. As the scion grows, I remove more and more of the understock. You have to keep the root system strong and this is difficult to do that if you whack off the top as soon as the scion begins to grow. I remove the last of the understock after about two years.

Cultural Considerations

My understock is about two to three years old when I use it for grafts. This is smaller than most grafters use, but I like having vigorous material that is only slightly larger than the scions. I start with one year old field grown bareroot seedlings and root prune and pot them into 2 ¾ inch square pots (see the blog article above for more detail). This is done in late winter. By September these black pines are mostly root established and strong enough for understock. I use only the stronger plants that are stable in the pots. The weaker plants are culled out to be used the following year.

The grafts are made with the understock in these 2 ¾ inch pots. The tops of the understock are not pruned, and branches are not removed except where they interfere with the placement of the scion. The finished grafts are placed in flats using empty 2 ¾ inch pots to position them in every other space. A standard 17 inch flat will hold 36 2 ¾ inch pots (6 x 6), so this allows 18 finished grafts per flat.  This arrangement gives the grafts more light and air and is especially important in the darker and very humid atmosphere on the mist bench and in the intermediate house.

By late winter, usually February, I can usually tell if the grafts will take. I remove the failed grafts and repot the good ones into 4 inch pots. It is important not to let them get rootbound, which they will if not repotted at this time. No pruning is done. The rootball is loosened, but disturbance is minimal.  I used to try to separate the roots at this stage and set up the nebari, but the result was fairly heavy losses due to the disruption. Grafting is a traumatic process, and everything possible must be done to eliminate stresses. In the 2 ¾ inch pots the understock is planted high to expose the roots for grafting, but when shifting to the 4 inch pots the roots and the bottom of the graft are buried to make sure the roots survive.

The grafts stay in the 4inch pots for a year and still kept in the shade house (30% shade factor). They are fed regularly and the tops are pruned back during the summer once the roots have nearly colonized the pots. The understock is not totally removed, but rather reduced to encourage the scion to grow while restraining the understock. It is also important to make sure that the scion is not getting shaded out by the understock top.

During the second winter the 4 inch potted grafts are shifted to one gallon cans. Again, only minimal separation of the roots can be done to avoid stressing the plants. The following spring the grafts and the understock both really take off. The cans are nearly root colonized by summer. They are still kept under 30 to 40% shadecloth. It's a judgement call on how much of the understock to remove during the summer. I prefer to leave quite a bit to ensure thorough root colonization, but sometimes removing the leader will release a stubborn scion that doesn't want to break new buds. Often the black pine scions will be growing faster than the understock at this point, and the understock can be removed entirely. The dwarf white pines are usually not strong enough to grow vigorously without the help of the understock.

By autumn (two years since they were grafted), most of the black pine grafts are essentially finished and the understock is removed and the tape removed. The larger white pine grafts such as 'Ara Kawa' will be finished as well. It is at this stage that I begin selling them because I know I have a healthy stable plant with a very high chance of success, even in the hands of a beginner. Most of the white pines will have to spend another winter and summer with all, or a portion of their understock still attached to reach this same stage. They are then sold as 3 year grafts the following fall.

In most areas of the US, the black pines can be placed in full during the third winter. Winter is a good time to do this since it allows them to acclimate slowly to increasing day length and sun intensity in the spring. In our area, the white pines must remain under 30 to 40% shadecloth all summer, but  in milder areas they may be able to take full sun, or full morning sun.

Thanks to Bob Potts, my apprentice, we a little video of the grafting process. Click on the link below to see the video:

Grafting Video

REBS 2006 Show

I haven't posted since early August, but believe me, it's not because I haven't been busy! Two major projects for the blog, and eventually the website, are nearly complete - The REBS '06 show and a grafting article that I have been working on occasionally for the last two years.  First the show, and in about two weeks, the grafting article.

As usual, the REBS show was my inspirational highlight of the year. A time to wish, dream, and smoosh with old bonsai buddies. I know I keep saying it, but this show gets better every year. Once again there were a number of new trees, and the quality continues to improve. This is due to the hard work of our members and sensei Kathy Shaner.

This year, I will depart from my usual practice of just posting the trees for you to drool over and include some comments about the trees. This is my personal critique and is not meant to be disparaging in any way. We all have our personal preferences and I thought it might be educational to point what I see as problems as well as what works well. I liked all of these trees or I wouldn't have taken their portraits.

The lighting was very poor as usual. There is really nothing the club can do about this. The Vets Hall is the only location large enough at a reasonable price to hold the show. For those that are interested, I took these shots with an Olympus C-3000 without flash to avoid shadows and tried to add a bit of additional light with a battery powered handheld photoflood. Using standard lights and tripod were not an option for a casual visitor. This meant that I had to do substantial color correction in the photoeditor (GIMP on a Linux computer). You can click on any of the photos below for the full picture size.

Juniperus procumbens. A quite large subject, probably collected from a landscape project. It is a good example of how you can overcome a lot of less than favorable trunk aspects with judicious use of branching to complete the overall  outline. Most of us probably would have removed the left arm of the trunk, but that would have left the composition quite unbalanced. The branch placement is very effective, but there are still years of detail work ahead.

Juniperus chinensis. I'm not sure if this was a 'Shimpaku', it wasn't labeled as such. Again, this is a younger project that still shows the need for detail work in the foliage pads. For my tastes, I would have pulled the very end of the upper apex down on the right side to make a more rounded crown. The lower apex is visually heavy and would benefit from some reduction and refinement, but this may be all that can be accomplished at this stage.

Acer buergerianum. A nice group planting with excellent tree positioning. Note the unequal left and right 'open tunnels' through the trunks, perfectly balanced in the composition. The two crossing trunk areas add interest rather than detract from the image and make it look more natural. The canopy is not quite right for me. There is too much difference between the foreground trees and the background trees, and there could be a bit more foliage areas on the left and right extremeties.

Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca'. This tree belongs to one of our study group members, so I am very familiar with it. It has  wonderful trunkline movement. It is very natural and a pleasure to view. A problem has been how to deal with the relatively straight trunk base and the stub of the old leader. I believe future plans call for revealing a bit more shari on the right. Tilting the trunk to the left and partially covering it with a foliage pad helps reduce the  linearity. The bottom most branches  of course need more growth and refinement to complete the image, but even at this stage, this image works for me. It's hard to take my eyes away from it, the true mark of success.

Quercus suber. This cork oak has very fine trunk movement, probably the best I have ever seen, complete with fully mature bark. It's too bad I couldn't get a better shot of it to study it in more detail. The canopy outline is perfect. It could use more detail work and wiring of the branches to refine it some more, but it is an outstanding piece.

Buxus microphylla 'Compacta'. A tiny 'Kingsville' box that is only about four inches tall with perfect branching and outline. The nebari could use some work to anchor it better to the soil. That is something that should be done throughout the lifetime of training a bonsai. It is difficult to now go back and make this kind of a correction.

Juniperus sp? I don't remember the species of this piece, but it wasn't a 'Shimpaku'. The pads are striking, but not highly refined yet. The end of the cascade arm is a bit too wide for me. I keep thinking that the right side of the upper apex should be brought down a bit, but then that might make it too symmetrical. The shape of the pot mirrors the composition, which I suppose it good, but I would like to see a virtual with square semi cascade pot in dark brown. The size of this tree is awesome. It is over three feet from the upper to the lower apex.

Malus. This flowering crab in full fruit is only about six inches tall. It was part of a larger shohin display with a great stand. The nebari is about three inches across. The crown could use some more branching and undoubtedly this will come in future years. Getting a small crab to ramify is very difficult. I look forward to seeing this tree five years from now. A colored glazed pot might have shown it off better.

Pinus thunbergii. Another wonderful semi cascade shohin, this Japanese black pine is only about six inches tall with great branching, ramification and one inch needles. It would be nice to see into it a bit more, but that is an extremely difficult task in a pine this small.

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku'. An outstanding tree with incredible detail work in the foliage areas. I actually saw this tree earlier in the spring when the pad work had just been finished, and it was even more spectacular then because you could see into every pad and view all the thousands of tiny subbranches. The deadwood isn't too shabby either. You can spend a lot of time just gazing at this tree. The highly ornate stand is also a nice touch, but the tree is almost too heavy for it.

Pinus parviflora. This tree is the essence of dynamic balance. Letting the eye wander along the trunk line to the apex is a like taking a crooked path through the woods. The very strong flow to the left is balanced by the trunk movement to the right and then back to the left again at the top of the apex. The strong anchoring trunk gives it great stability despite all that visual weight to the left. Excellent detail work on the branches and extremely short needles keep it open and airy. This is a tree to drool over.

Ulmus parviflora 'Seiju'.  A very nice little  Chinese elm. If I  remember correctly, it is about  8 inches tall.  Taper and movement are very good, a result of proper training. The larger root to the right that makes up the bulk of the  nebari on that side is a little disconcerting.  Over the years this should be corrected.

Schinus molle. Pepper Tree. This is an unusual subject for bonsai, but this one works very well. It has a light airy feeling and is quite natural looking. You can't really apply most of the normal bonsai guidelines except for the foliage outline, but it still works for me. It will be interesting to see this tree in five years after it has more branch ramification.

Pinus parviflora. This Japanese white pine is not the formal upright 'Zuisho' form, but rather has more movement (and grace in my opinion). I wish I could have got more interior light to see some of the trunk detail, but this is the best I could do. Good trunk movement, perfect silhouette, and dynamic balance that makes it dance.

Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca'. Classic Blue Atlas cedar form. Mature pad formation, exquisite nebari that nearly fills the pot, perfect silhouette. The only thing that I think would improve it is the addition of a back branch just below the upper apex. It looks a little two dimensional in the photo. Still, one of the best trees in the show.

Cupressus sp? Somehow I lost track of the species in this forest planting. I think it may be Mendocino Cypress from the pygmy forest, but I'm not sure. Excellent composition and refreshingly different with the strong left flow that is reminescent of the Mendocino Coast where winds actually do this to groves. Center opening with the jutting intrusion of the deadwood is wonderful.

Bougainvillea. This sucker was a monster. Note the size of the identification card in the lower right corner (about 4 inches). The caliper of this thing is somewhere between 12 and 16 inches.

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku'. This is a difficult subject. A shohin about 8 inches tall, it  lacks the grace of a refined older tree, but the composition also needs work. There are probably several ways to go. The long first branch is problematic, too long, too straight, no taper. I think I would have been inclined to shorten this branch and make the whole tree smaller with more deadwood throughout.  I would really like to see this tree in a critique for analysis. It seems to have much more potential than is coming through in this composition.

Juniperus chinensis 'Shimpaku'. Another shohin 'Shimpaku'. This is a good contrast with the one above. This one is even less developed than the other, but it has excellent composition and works well despite its lack of ramification and refinement. Wonderful trunk movement and use of deadwood. A few years from now, this will be an outstanding piece.

Tamarix chinensis.  Somehow I managed to get a really good photo of this Tamarisk. How in the world did the owner got it to flower in late August? Again, this is a composition that is natural and seemingly breaks a lot of rules, but is stunning. I spent a lot of time staring at this tree while there and still do at the photo. It has that lightness of the Pepper Tree above, but yet has a deeper density of foliage. Even the enormous reverse taper at the top of the trunk doesn't make any difference. A few things would make it even better in my opinion. I think the branches are a little too contorted in the apex, and others are not wired at all. Compare the branch work in the apex to that on the right side of the tree. They apex is too 'wiggly' making it look somewhat contrived. I would settle on a method and degree of branch motion and make it consistent throughout, but avoid repetition.

Quercus chrysolepis. I believe this is a collected Gold Cup Oak (Canyon Live Oak), not Q. agrifolia as  the label said. This is a great old stump and a prime example of how it is possible to turn a natural mess of trunks and branches into a classic outline, but it still retains its naturalness. The hollow is an inviting  feature.

Bougainvillea. Just for flower lovers.

Juniperus rigida. A needle juniper knockoff of John Naka's 'Goshin', but still a nice composition.

Parthenocissus quinquefolia. A classic form for Virginia Creeper. It's almost like a waterfall cascading down the stand and spilling onto the table top. I would love to see this in its blazing red fall color. Note the size of the trunk.

Juniperus. California Juniper. Not sure what species this is since we have both mountain and desert Junipers. Boy, does this tree dance or what? An incredible find. The trunkline is like a river spilling out onto the sand. Excellent branchwork. One of the best examples of collected junipers I have ever seen.

Malus sp. A very nice flowering crab with loads of apples and perfect foliage. This should be quite a sight in autumn when the leaves turn and fruit ripens.

Juniperus occidentalis.  A collected Western Juniper. Excellent branch and detail work. The right side works very well, but the curved branch on the left side disturbs me. On an old collected tree like this, removing or correcting a branch like this is a very big deal, but I think it should be done.

Acer palmatum. This Japanese maple group is very refined and is probably quite old. It doesn't really have a number one tree that stands out, but it works none the less. A wider, shallower glazed pot might be better and I think the moss should be removed from the base of the trees to reveal more nebari. This is a huge planting about three feet wide.

Olea europaea.  No, it's not planted on a rock, that is the trunk of the olive tree. The caliper at the soil line is about two feet. Talk about sumo! An interesting treatment using branches as if they were trees on a mountain. Very unusual. I like it. Excellent pot too.

Juniperus chinensis 'Foemina'. This is a really fine grove. Perfect tree placement, nice empty space, and soaring trunks make this one of the nicest group plantings I have ever seen. Look at the details in the base sections of the trunks. It's just like being in an old forest. You can almost hear the quietness.

Ulmus parvifolia. A fantastic old trunk on this Chinese elm, but the composition just doesn't work for me. My friends and I went round and round about how to change the front to make this better. This view sort of works but is still unsettling. There must be some way to make that trunk work!

Well that's it. Hope you enjoyed it. This is a show that you should attend if there is any possible way. It is always the fourth Saturday and Sunday in August in Santa Rosa CA at the Veterans Memorial Hall across from the Fairgrounds. Santa Rosa is about 90 minutes north of the Bay Area.

The Myth of 0-10-10

[This post first appeared on Bonsaisite on 8/9/06]

It always amazes me that folks latch on to no nitrogen fertilizer when preparing for winter, when it is the least important of several factors pertinent to hardening off.

For starters, I haven't seen any evidence to show that nitrogen plays ANY role in actually making plants more freeze resistant. Nitrogen supports new growth, makes shoot growth longer, leaves larger, etc. But in plants that are healthy and well fed anyhow, it does not STIMULATE new growth, that is, causes bud break, or subsequent shoot growth after mid season.

Let me back up a back and explain how this works. In most deciduous temperate climate woody plants (those that go dormant in winter), the growth period of the plant is genetically predetermined and can be altered only slightly. A healthy plant that has been fed normally will usually put out SHOOT growth until mid season, ending usually in the month of July when another phenomenon takes place called budset. For shoot growth to occur the terminal bud forms a leaf and shoot from the leaf axil. At the next leaf, the same thing occurs; a bud never fully forms at the end, but rather continues to expand forming nodes. The number of nodes (leaf positions) formed depends on genetics, environment, and the health and nutrition of the plant. In unhealthy, poorly fertilized plants, a bud in spring may open only to a single leaf without any shoot formation at all (this also often happens to the buds behind the terminal bud in healthy plants too). Over the years, you can see this as a succession of bundle scars just behind the terminal bud; there is no branching and no ramification.

In normal healthy plants, shoot growth will stop in mid season, and the terminal bud will begin to form and harden (often changing color) rather than continuing to open. It has in essence begun the dormancy cycle, but it is not yet irreversible. Leaves on the plant continue to photosynthesize, but no new leaves form. The plant remains in this state until fall when the leaves senesce. For some species there is a bit of late fall growth from a few terminal buds opening, but not a significant amount of new growth. Late season nitrogen feeding has no role in changing this scenario. It will not stimulate new growth. If the plant is a bit deficient in nitrogen, it will take it up and store it for spring. Depriving the plant of this storage means that you will  be trying to feed the plant nitrogen in spring when it is difficult to take it up due to cold soil temperatures.

So what does upset budset and cause late season growth? If a plant is severely deficient in nitrogen all season and has not grown its genentically predetermined amount, it may break buds and extend shoot growth in late season if finally feed nitrogen. It is simply trying to catch up, and the result may be early winter kill of new growth at frost. If you feed at all during the season, this will not occur. BY FAR THE LARGEST FACTOR AFFECTING LATE NEW GROWTH IS PRUNING. Pruning off the terminal buds after they have set in midseason will very often release the dormant buds behind them on the branch. The harder you prune, the more of this late season new growth you are going to get, and the higher the risk of early frost damage. So, pushing your plants too hard, trying to do too much too late in the season, is the most dangerous thing you can do. Minor pinching here and there probably won't make any difference, but by and large, you just need to leave your plants alone after mid season. They have done their work, don't mess with their internal clocks.

Plants left alone harden off by themselves; they don't need any help. The factors above and the colder, shortening days begin a process that causes the the leaves to senesce (go to sleep) and finally fall off. Sugars, nitrogen, carbohydrates are withdrawn from the leaves as this is happening and stored in the woody tissues. Shorter days and colder temperatures trigger the plants to shed water in their cells and form longer chain sugars and carbohydrates that act as a kind of antifreeze to keep the cells from freezing internally. You shouldn't protect them from freezing, but deliberately let them freeze, several times during this process, but not allowing them to fall much below about 28F the first few times. Hardening off is a gradual process and will take several to six weeks to occur for full freeze resistence. Until full dormancy is achieved, it is imperative that you don't prune the plants, or the process can be reversed and new growth may occur. After full dormancy is reached, usually a week or two after leaf drop, pruning can occur if appropriate (another subject).

Many people think that non nitrogen fertilizers enhance this process, but there is really no good evidence to show that this is really true, and if there is an effect, it is marginal and probably a waste of very expensive fertilizer.  All you really need to do is to feed normally the entire season and avoid mid to late season pruning, then let nature do its job by exposing them to gradually increasing colder temperatures over a period of about six weeks.

Brent

Cuttings 2006

Well, cuttings are done for another season. Each year I go through the ritual of cutting propagation. I have been doing this since about 1985 when I started out with a little propagation case with a mist system I designed myself. From the first rooted cuttings, I was hooked. That first batch was about four flats; that's all I could fit into the case. It wasn't long before I built a 20 by 25 foot propagation house with bottom heated tables timed mist and even high pressure fog at one point. The big house (still tiny by commercial standards) held 25,000 cuttings and I used to fill it two or three times a season, starting in June and ending in August. Thanks God I don't do that anymore. It's amazing how much energy you can expend when you are young and stupid.

I shut down the old house about six years ago. I just couldn't live in one county and drive to the other often enough to make sure the cuttings were ok, and the old house finally just wore out. So, I started doing cuttings over here at the new nursery, modestly at first, doing about twenty flats in a little 6 by 15 foot greenhouse. They had mist, but no active ventilation or heating. I would have to open and close the doors each day according to the weather. This made the air inside quite dry for cuttings despite the mist. It wasn't great, but it allowed me to continue to propagate enough to keep the nursery functioning until I could build another real propagation room.

The present prop house is a culmination of all I have learned over the twenty years that I have been doing this. It is small, tight, and very efficient. But best of all, it cost me about a third of what it would cost to build a traditional type greenhouse, even a steel hoop frame house. This one is 14 by 30 feet built with 1 1/4 inch Schedule 40 PVC hoops anchored with pipes driven into the ground and secured with a border of treated 2 x 4 lumber. It is an inflated double wall poly house, and even the ends are doubled walled. It is nearly airtight in winter when the shutters are closed over the vents.

Last year, I hadn't finished the ventilation, so I regulated the heat by opening and closing the doors. Again, dry air made regulation difficult, but the cuttings did well despite the fact it got up to 110F several times. This house has fog which runs along the ridge pipe, just visible in the photo. At first I had to turn this on and off each day manually; a hit or miss system at best. This fog system is not high pressure. I discovered that if you have line pressure of about 60psi, the high pressure fog nozzles still work even though it doesn't get as good atomization as you do at 300psi. But on the other hand, you don't have to install a separate high pressure pump which eats up electricity and makes one hell of a racket.

Little by little the nursery inches toward completion. This year I installed the evaporative cooler to the propagation house and automated the fogger to hold the moisture to at least at 60% relative humidity. This allows me to keep the doors shut and everything is self acutating. The cooler is set to 96F and the fogger is turned on by the humidistat. No more guesswork. The cuttings love it. This almost total control lets me leave more foliage and softer foliage than I ever have before. The increased foliage stimulates faster root production and the nearly total lack of transpiration makes the process almost stress free for the cuttings. The first cuttings were started over three weeks ago and not a single cutting has failed yet. Some of the flats of faster rooting species are nearly ready to come out of the house. Talk about a sauna bath! It's not a pleasant experience to have to go in there during the day to deposit cuttings. I have to take my glasses off before going in or I am blinded by the instant fog on them.

The old little greenhouse has been converted to a more traditional greenhouse role. It doesn't have mist any longer, but has a thermostatic fan, and fog regulated by the same humidistat as the propagation room. It also has electric wire bottom heated beds which make it a wonderful seed starting room. The plan is to use this little greenhouse as a halfway house for the cuttings after they have rooted. It is always best to get the cuttings off the mist as soon as possible to prevent rot. I've never had a climate controlled place for them to go before, so this is really exciting and should allow me to transition a number of delicate species such as Japanese white pines, Pinus parviflora. I stuck a few 'Zuisho' cutting this summer just to see how they would do in this new setup. It's too early to tell yet, but the cuttings still look good after almost two weeks. The problem with 'Zusiho' in the past hasn't been getting them to root, whi