BonsaiNurseryman

Life Starts Again

 

I keep putting off this letter. So much has happened in the last month or so that I guess I'm a little overwhelmed by it all. First of all, the hospital experience was something that I will never want to do again. Sixteen days in the hospital, from September 1 through the 17^th. Even when I left, I was very weak, but I just had to get the hell out of there. As usual, little went right as my body rebelled against invasion as it did the last time. The surgery went fine, no problems there, but my colon that had been lying dormant in my belly for over a year just refused to go back to work. “Lazy colon” the doctor called it. This meant that I could only eat tiny amounts of food at a time or it would back up on me and cause pain and bloating.

 

The cure for this is to get the patient up and moving as soon as possible, which was fine with me, except that every time I took three steps I got lightheaded, nauseous and threw up. It was a week before I could walk from my bed to the door and it took about five minutes to make that fifteen foot trip. The nausea was almost a constant condition the whole time I was there and no one could figure out why. Drugs helped a little but not much.

 

The first week there was a lot of abdominal pain, both from the surgery and my bloated colon. They kept trying to get my off the epidural (spinal block), but it was the only thing that would control the pain. I can't take the usual painkillers. Dilaudid is really the only thing that I can take for pain, but I had to take so much to control the pain that it just slammed me. So we stuck with the epidural far longer than usual, about a week. At one point, I had such severe gas pains that I was on about nine out of the pain scale of ten, until they upped the epidural dose. But eventually the pain eased and the by the second week, I was off the epidural and had Dilaudid shots only occasionally.

 

The second week brought less pain but another unwelcome development in the shape of a wound along the suture line. I'm not quite sure how these things happen, since there was no infection, but for some reason, part of the incision just refused to heal and I had a small hole develop, about an inch across and three quarters of an inch deep, not really very large by usual wound standards. This had to be dressed twice a day for a couple days until the doctor decided I need a wound vac. This is supposed to heal the wound faster by putting it under negative pressure. It works by using a series of sponges and clear tape to attach a line to a vacuum pump. It removes any exudation from the wound and keeps it almost dry. The dressing is changed every other day. I had to use a portable pump version when I was released which was battery operated and fit in a bag that went over my shoulder. When sitting or lying still, I had to plug it in to recharge the battery. This went on for about another two weeks after I got home.

 

The staff at John Muir are wonderful. They did everything they could do to make me comfortable and get me well as soon as possible. I got to know the entire crew of doctors, nurses and CNAs; we were like old friends by the time I left. But I am sure glad to be out of there.

So, now I am on the mend. The wound is just a hole about the size of a Q tip and Susie cleans and dresses it once day. It should be completely healed in another two weeks or so. I am walking a couple laps around the property each day with Liz (the Lab) which is about a half a mile. And in the last couple of days, I have started doing a few light jobs. Almost feeling human again, except for the weakness from the lack of exercise. I will have this colostomy for life of course, which requires some mental attitude adjustments, and also opens the door to a whole new world of jokes. We are trying to look on the bright side, such as I will never have racing stripes in my jockey shorts again, never have to desperately search for a port-a-potty, can discreetly bring wind in public without fear of embarrassment. So, it's not all bad.

 

I'm kind of living the life of Riley (while it lasts) with Susie cooking, cleaning, packing the shipments, and everything else imaginable while I am regaining my strength. I even get breakfast in bed! We call it the breakfast club. Our bedroom faces east and the morning sun has been streaming in during this fine autumn weather we have been having. So, I'm in bed with my tray, Susie pulls in a chair and has her tea and toast, while Liz lounges on the bed with me waiting for her 'treats' in the way of scraps of toast. It won't last forever, but it sure is nice. With the thousands of things to do around here, I am starting to feel guilty and will have to get up to speed soon to keep my end of the nursery going. Susie is still officially unemployed with only three more months to go before benefits run out. There will soon be some serious job hunting.

 

The garden, which we have generously shared with the raccoons, crows, gophers, and other critters is still giving us some tomatoes, cucumbers, and a few squash since our usual late September frost didn't materialize this year, and the forecast is for another week of above normal warm weather. What a glorious fall!

 

Things Are Moving Fast

It's the opposite of 'hurry up and wait'. We've spent weeks waiting for a decision and figured that it would be at least two or three more weeks for a surgery date. So, my doctor calls yesterday and and says  he wants me in the hospital tomorrow. It's a good thing its the slowest time of the year for the business. I should be in the hospital for about a week and home early in September. Since Labor Day falls in the recovery period, we have made September 13 the next shipping day. You can continue (please!) to send orders, but I won't be able to confirm them until I return. Same for email. I am always happy to answer your questions, so don't let this stop you.

Thanks!

Brent

Nearing the End, Finally

We just got back from a nice peaceful four day stay at our friend Peter's in the foothills of the Sierras. Good food and good company. Peter and I spent one day at Pinecrest Lake fishing. I caught one Rainbow Trout, but that was it for the day. It was so windy I couldn't try out my new fly fishing gear, but I got this guy on a big ole worm. Sauteed with a little butter, Yum! We had grilled steaks one night and grilled leg of lamb another night. It was a real food fest.

It's taken me so long to get back to everyone because the doctors and hospitals just keep stringing me out with delays and indecision. Things are not going well. There is no evidence of more cancer, so at least I don't have to worry about that, but I am also not getting better from the surgeries. The last surgery fixed the prolapse, but I continue to have pain and swelling, so there is obviously some other problem. My doctor is about at his wit's end trying to figure out what's wrong. He sent me for another CT scan and the stupid hospital got their records fouled up and it took three weeks to get the scan to him. When he finally got it, he called and said it didn't look good. He was hoping for a perineal hernia, or a weakness in the pelvic floor because that could be fixed, but there was no hernia. Now he believes there is so much tissue damage from the radiation that my pelvis cannot hold up my sphincter, thus the continual swelling around my anus. This probably cannot be repaired, but he wanted another week to consult with other experts. He wanted me to wait until he went to a convention of colorectal surgeons so he could get more opinions.

He called while we were at Peter's (cell phones are good for something once in a while) and talked to Susie while we were out fishing. The consensus of the other surgeons was that he just open up my colon and see what happens! He said he was reluctant to do this, and I certainly am, since the problem is getting worse, not better. So we have agreed to abandon the reconstruction and go with a permanent colostomy. All the operations, treatments and suffering will have been for nothing and he will have to tear out the reconstructed rectum, repair the pelvic floor, undo the temporary ileostomy, and install the permanent colostomy. It will be a pretty heavy duty surgery, but at least that will be the end of it, I won't have to spend the next two years learning how to poop again with the reconstructed rectum. All that will be gone, and it will be the ostomy bag for life. Right now, that's better than what I am going through. I've been functionally disabled for over a year now and I am dying to get back into shape and back to work as well as doing all the things we used to do like biking, boating, fishing, and even walking more than a quarter mile. It will probably only take two or three months to recover from the colostomy and pelvic repair. I have a pre-op consultation with Dr Kim on August 30^th. No date has been set yet for the surgery, but it will probably be in early September. My guess is that I will be in the hospital for about a week. Actually I am relieved that this is all coming to an end and that I will be able to get back to my life. Having already spent a year with an ileostomy, the colostomy certainly doesn't scare me. The colostomy is actually easier to maintain and I can eat any food and retaining hydration will be much easier.

Other than this fiasco, things are going well. It's been a beautiful summer and not too hot for a change. The nursery is in pretty good shape thanks to Susie, especially since she's unemployed and home all the time now, and the people we hired to cleanup the place this spring got things in pretty good order. It's up to me now to sell some of this stuff and try to make some more money. If we can just hold on for another couple of years, things will get a lot easier (assuming the government doesn't go broke). I will be 65 next July and can get Medicare and save $400 to $500 a month in insurance premiums. Our goal is to have all our debts paid off by the time Susie retires, it will be close, but it looks like we can still make it. Compared to a lot of other folks, we are still on easy street, so we are thankful for what we do have, but it would be nice to spend our last years not worrying about money. Thank god I had insurance when this thing happened or we would have lost everything.

The post Labor Day rush will be starting soon and I will have some waiting list pines ready for delivery. Cuttings went well and are rooting out nicely. Lots of quince and apples and even some Japanese maples are looking good. I'm looking forward to grafting season this year, will probably start sometime in October. So, keep those orders coming, we really appreciate all your moral support and patronage.

Rules You Won't Find in Books

Looks like summer is finally here. It's June 13 and we are having our very first 90 degree day. Must be some kind of record for us. It's peaking now at 93. This has been the coolest spring I can remember. So I am celebrating by sitting inside under the blast of the swamp cooler, totally bored I might add. The restrictions on my activities is really getting to me. After checking the bonsai forums for the nth time and finding nothing new that's interesting, I decided to write my own contribution.

Some rules you just don't find in the books. I have made one myself and have picked up couple others from my friend Jeff who takes a lot of workshops from Kathy Shaner and other masters in the Bay Area. I find these wonderful rules that I use all the time.

FIND WHERE THE TREE STOPS BEING INTERESTING. This rule applies to advanced and promising material that hasn't been completely styled. Usually a suitable candidate for this rule disturbs you in some way. You get the feeling that this should be a good tree, but there is just something wrong that keeps it from being really great. The trick is to start at the nebari (as usual) and go up the trunk inspecting each element. Where the tree stops being interesting is the problem. More often than not, it is a long straight portion of the trunk that is boring, but it can be anything that is ugly or out of character with the rest of the tree. For example, on a short fat tapered trunk, it's the section where the taper stops.This, like the rest of these rules is rather subjective and thus a bit harder to grasp than say something like the rule against bar branches. Indeed, these rules will not violate any of the literal rules of bonsai.

ALWAYS PRUNE COARSE TO FINE. This would seem like a no brainer, but in fact, most people don't recognize this practice. When doing branch work, either styling or maintaining them, this is a little ditty that you should keep saying to yourself. As you move outward anywhere in the canopy of the tree, the branchwork should get finer and finer. For this to happen, you have to design the tree by pruning out the large and coarse section of branches. This is how you get good ramification. Prune out the long, straight, and thick sections, always selecting for the short, fine, and thin branches. A really simple and obvious rule that is almost totally overlooked.

AVOID THE DREADED "C" CURVE. A powerful concept in bonsai design is FLOW. This is the idea that there is a visual energy flowing through the tree. It can be tickled and diverted, but it always comes back to the same direction (except when you want dynamic tension). But flow should not be stopped in its trip up from the nebari and out through the apex. Of course a tree can several bends in the trunk that slightly change the direction of the flow. This is what we call MOVEMENT, and even the term alludes to  flow. There are several things that can stop flow, but one of the most overlooked is a "C" curve in the trunkline. A bend in the trunk will stop being aesthetic when it starts to close, as in the ends of the "C". Instead of the eye dancing around the curve and up the trunk, the visual energy will stop or shoot out of the trunkline rather than moving up to the apex if the bend is closed. This is a very subtle but powerful concept.

WORK WITH WHAT THE TREE SHOWS YOU. This is another rule that you think would be obvious, but many people don't think in these terms. Instead of being partners with the tree, they try to bend it to their will. I don't consider material to be pre bonsai until it shows me something. Once it does this, then I prune and work with the tree to enhance what it has to offer. In fact, I find many trees are completely built around one excellent feature. Usually it is the trunk, but can just be the bark, or a uro, jin, shari, or the nebari. Something about the tree that is truly excellent. On many trees with outstanding trunks, the branches and foliage are just window dressing. In fact, you want to design the tree so as to enhance the outstanding feature, not to detract from or hide it. This is related to trying to see the tree in the tree. The essence of the tree will often be one outstanding feature, and the rest of the design will be obvious once you see it from this point of view.

Health Update: Healing from the last operation is proceeding very slowly. It is very frustrating trying not work, or strain myself. It now looks like the final surgery won't be until sometime in July.

Ground Growing in Heavy Clay

This is my response to a thread on BonsaiSite about ground growing in heavy clay soil in the heat of Texas:

Heavy clay soils are terrible for field growing. You would be better off growing in containers than digging holes in clay. I too have a ground growing area in very heavy clay and it requires some thought and possibly a lot of work to prepare the beds.

The first thing you have to do is establish a grade. You will be planting in beds ABOVE the surrounding grade. So, if your place is absolutely flat, you will have to import soil from a wide area. I'm lucky in that my area has a slight grade and the water drains naturally out of the beds. Digging holes for trees will just drown them or the tree will recognize the hole as a pot with heavy clay walls. A raised amended bed will allow you to get good growth in a shallow layer of amended soil. This layer should initially be six inches to a foot above the grade; it will settle over time, but that's ok. My beds are about four feet wide and initially were about ten inches deep (above the unamended grade).

Soil amendment is a must in heavy clay soils. This can involve a lot of money and work. You must amend by adding an equal quantity of good organic material (usually compost). So, if you rototill six inches of native soil, then you add six inches of compost and thoroughly mix it in. That can also be a challenge in clay soils. You can see that this is a LOT of compost for anything other than small beds. I spent a couple thousand dollars on compost amending an area approximately 100 x 100 feet. I also have a tractor tiller and row former, so at least making the beds was easy. If you are doing a large area and don't have equipment, think about paying someone to come in with equipment and doing it for you, it's usually cheaper than renting equipment and doing it yourself.

You have to give the trees enough space so you can maintain them and give them enough light and growing room unless you are doing a single row. I typically put them about 3 feet apart and keep 6 feet between the centers of the rows, and it's still a jungle after a few years.

I also live in a full blast heat and intense sun area. 100F temperatures are not uncommon, and sometimes even with dry winds. Growing maples in this setting is a challenge. It is possible to grow them in pots with protection, but even then they burn in summer. This doesn't matter in the growing out phase as long as they don't completely burn off the leaves. Maples in the ground, and other deciduous plants as well, hold up better in heat and sun than those in pots. The trick is to get them started. Small plants in the field are pretty much doomed. I don't plant anything smaller than an established one gallon for deciduous trees. These should be planted in winter while dormant. Another trick I use is to wrap them in Reemay and staple it shut. Reemay is a spun poly row cover that is white and very porous allowing lots of air and light to enter, but protecting them from drying winds and intense sunlight. The neighbors think I am crazy planting rows of trees and putting diapers on them. The Reemay pretty much disintegrates the following winter, or you can remove it then. This is the simplest and cheapest form of protection that I can think of.

Green broadleaf Japanese maples will be the most likely to succeed, but broadleaf red ones do well also, especially 'Bloodgood'. Forget the cutleaf cultivars; they make crummy bonsai anyhow despite their beauty as landscape plants. Green seedlings are the cheapest and toughest and you won't have any grafts to deal with. Probably 95% of the credible JM bonsai are green seedlings. White pines are going to be very difficult for you to grow, don't even think about putting them in beds, they sun scorch badly in direct sunlight over 100F. I can only grow them under 30% shadecloth. Black pines will do great in the ground, but need to be planted in winter to acclimatize to direct sunlight and exposure.

Brent
EvergreenGardenworks.com
see our blog at http://BonsaiNurseryman.typepad.com 

Update on the surgery: Everything went well, but the doctor was over optimistic about the recovery period. It seems my body just wants to swell up after any invasion, so we are looking at a four to six week recovery period before the final surgery of taking down the ileostomy. This will probably be the last week in June or the first week in July, which makes it almost exactly one year from the first surgery.

So Far, So Good

The operation went very smoothly this time. Not even any pain on recovery. My surgeon has declared me 'fixed' and hopefully I will be ready for the last operation in about two or three weeks. I still have some swelling and a little discomfort on standing and walking, but I no longer feel like I have a ping pong ball between my cheeks. I see the doctor again next week for a followup and hopefully he will set a surgery date then.

Our perfect spring continues, continued cool, half inch of rain last week, with more predicted for Monday, then more cloudy and cool. Fantastic weather for us considering it can be dry as a bone and close to 100F by now. The plants are growing very slowly with no heat, but are looking very good. It should be a very good propagating year if this keeps up, the wood will be perfect and plentiful.

We managed to escape (so far) a damaging spring freeze this year, so the Japanese maples are absolutely gorgeous, especially with all this cool moist weather. The should be plenty of wood for cuttings and I am thinking of devoting a good portion of the propagation area to maple cuttings. It had been part of my long term plan to do a good bit of cutting propagation of these maples, but something has always got in the way. Now that the nursery is nearly done and I am downsizing the catalog listings, it's time to devote my efforts to more of the 'fun stuff' like cutting grown maples and grafted black pines. It would be fantastic to do some more cutting grown pines, but that will have to wait at least another year until the new greenhouse is finished. I am offering a few smaller cutting grown Japanese maples this year that should be ready by the end of June. They can be found HERE.

I think it's been two years since I grafted anything, so I am really anxious to get back to that. I have a good 400 Pinus thunbergii understock ready and waiting. This will happen in the fall. There seem to be only a few cultivars that are really popular, so I am going to just concentrate on those and let the rest go. I'm not sure what to do about the Japanese white pines. There are so difficult to keep alive here and so SLOW! They take twice as long as the black pines to grow to salable plant size. Most likely, I will stick to just a few and sell them in smaller sizes.

The crew is arriving for the big Saturday work day, so I have to go. More on the last surgery after I get a date.

Good News

Some good news at last. Even though the report from the motility specialists wasn't that great, my surgeon thinks there is no problem going ahead and repairing the prolapsed rectum and then proceeding according to the original plan and opening my colon. No colostomy. It will take two operations however. The first is scheduled for May 5 at John Muir Hospital in Concord (east of Oakland) where I had the original surgery. They are a first rate outfit and they took very good care of me before. This will be a one day/night operation and I should be able to go home the day after the operation if the pain is under control.

The first surgery will repair my prolapsed rectum. Dr Kim is going to do it from the bottom, so it won't be all that invasive. He will sever the bottom of the rectum and remove the excess that hangs down into my anus. It will then be resected and he will probably also do some work to tighten my sphincter and the muscles in the pelvic floor. The report from the specialists pointed out these weaknesses. Recovery should be complete in about three weeks.

Following the three week recovery period, he will schedule the second surgery to undo the ileostomy and open my colon as originally planned. This hospitalization will probably be three to five days to make sure everything is working properly again. Once this is done, I will be a whole man again, albeit with a reconstructed rectum. It will take up to two years to learn how to use my muscles to completely control bowel movement, so I am thinking of buying stock in Depends. But if all works out, I will have a great deal more freedom than with a colostomy bag. Since I have had one for about nine months now, I know from experience what that entails.

So, keep your fingers crossed. There are still a couple hurdles to overcome, but there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

Things are going pretty good here despite the fact that I can only stand around and tell people what to do. Susie has been working like a yeoman, putting in five days a week at the office, and working the whole weekend with the crew and even packing the plants for the week's orders. We have had a crew of people here every weekend to help clean up the nursery and get ready for another season. It's a tremendous amount of work and I usually couldn't do it alone even when I was healthy. In fact, the place is in better shape this year than it has been in a long time, but it has cost us some money. Hopefully that will all come back through the business, which remains good considering the state of the economy. The orders just keep coming in, not as many as usual, but a good steady supply that keeps the lights on and the bills paid. I think the fact that we have been doing this for so long and have such a loyal clientèle is making the difference. Well over half of our orders are from repeat customers. To all those who keep ordering, all I can say is Thanks!

The weather has been fabulous- it continues to RAIN! We have had cloudy and rainy weather for weeks, which really beats the dickens out of 90 to 100F weather, which has been our norm for the last few springs. We really need the rain and the plants are loving the cool wet weather. We usually have a hard frost every spring that damages the plants to some degree, but not this year so far. We only have about another week to go before we are out of that frost window, and cool possibly wet weather has been forecast for early next week.

Well, my fingers are beginning to ache. I still have neuropathy (tingling and numbness) in my hands and feet even after five months since the chemotherapy ended. It should have stopped months ago, but it hasn't and the doctor can't explain it. Just another glitch in this long ordeal. But, as they say, it's better than the alternative!

Brent

A Plan for Young Pine Material

Here is a recent post to BonsaiSite. Click HERE to go to the thread at the site and view the pictures of the pines in question.

WARNING! Dense material ahead. If you can read this and really understand it in one go, you are a much smarter person than I.

The two main objectives in growing JBP bonsai are 1) achieving a large tapered trunk, at least in the base section, and 2) getting enough back budding and branches to make a sufficient number of sacrifice and final branch candidates. Doing either of these is not all that difficult. Doing both at the same time is the challenge since the methods of achieving these objectives are at odds with each other. To achieve a large trunk you must let the tree, or parts of it grow undisturbed. To obtain backbudding and maintain branches, you must cut this growth back or even off.

How do you achieve both at the same time, or tell when to use one method or the other? Branching and bud breaking on the trunk must occur while the tree is young and vigorous, or it will never happen. A trunk can be enlarged at any time, so it can be delayed, but not forgotten. With the use of sacrifice branches you can actually achieve both objectives at the same time with only minor setbacks. But the planning and execution can be daunting until you have a good grasp of the techniques and an understanding of how pines grow. At least you don't have to reinvent the wheel. It took me twenty years to acquire this knowledge through experimentation guided by the little printed material on the subject that exists, even to this day. You will find TONS of information on plucking needles, balancing energy, and candling, but precious little on how to get a tree to the state that you even need to do these things.

So, it's probably best for most of you to forget what you have already learned; it will only get you in trouble. Drag out that information twenty years from now when you have some decent material to work on. Instead, develop your vision of what you want your tree to look like and be able to articulate what makes these trees what they are. It's good to MOVED by powerful trees, but it's necessary to be able to analyze the elements of each to be able to create one. Then learn the techniques for producing these elements.

First and foremost is the base of the tree, as it is in most bonsai. This element anchors the tree both physically and visually. It needs to be tapered, thick, and broaden into the nebari (we aren't considering bunjin here). It can be informally upright with a little movement, or it can have a low sharp turn and be very dynamic. JBP bonsai often have this low turn and it is the element that makes for a powerful moving tree. It can carry the first branch, but it usually does not. In the informal upright, there will be a small amount of movement at this location, but a lot of taper. Both of these forms are achieved the same way. This is the site of the lowest trunk chop. In tree A above it is clearly pointed out with the red lines. Chopping at this point gives you both the low turn and the thick base. Directing the new trunk line into the first branch gives you the taper.

How long do you let this leader grow before removing it? As with all sacrifice branches and leaders, you let them grow until they have done their job (sufficient thickening), or they begin to develop incompatible characteristics, such as reverse taper, or overly weakening of the rest of the 'tree'. I usually let these grow ten years or more, but this is growing them slowly in containers. Faster growth could be achieved in five years for most trunks around two inches. How do you keep this wild leader from weakening the rest of the tree? You remove all the lower branches of the sacrifice leader to keep it from shading the 'tree'. As long as the lower part of the tree gets light, it will usually stay active and give you a decent amount of growth. If becomes too weak, then you have to reduce or remove the sacrifice to save the 'tree', and start over with a sacrifice branch in the lowest trunk section.

Which brings us to the point with which I opened this post. If you don't have branches below the sacrifice leader's first node (the base section) before you let the leader grow, you will never get them (unless you have kissed the Blarney Stone). So, the most important factor in choosing material to grow out is to look for lots of low branches and buds in the lowest portion of the tree and DON'T remove any of them. Fortunately, both of these trees pictured have a plethora of low growth. Good choices. If your material does not have this growth, then you HAVE to get it before you can grow out the sacrifice leader. To get backbudding on JBP, you have to let it grow wildly and as strongly as possible and then whack it back within three years (before this growth drops its needles at the lowest point. Usually, chopping off the leader at the first node will give you backbudding at the node itself as well as BELOW it, where you really need it. If it doesn't, then you can begin removing branches from the first node to try to force growth lower. If this doesn't work, throw it away, it's not worth the effort, start over with decent material. Now you can see the inherent conflict in this process. You can't be growing out the trunk if you are whacking the tree to get it to back bud.

These are the basics of getting the first trunk section. In a minute, we will actually get to growing a few branches. But first, there is the process of refining and enhancing the first trunk section. This is done with sacrifice branches that came with the tree or were induced by the process above. If you don't use sacrifice branches in the base section, you will not get the taper WITHIN this section which will turn a good tree into an exceptional tree. In general, you want the sacrifice branches as low as you can get them, and NOT at the same level. Branches high in the first section (just below the first node or branch) will often give you REVERSE taper. Branches at the same level will also give you reverse taper. One or two low branches at different levels will give you an enormous tapered base. If you are really lucky, you will have a branch right in the nebari. These are like gold because they will give you not only a buttress, but a dinner plate nebari. The trees above appear to have such branching, but it's difficult to tell without the nebari exposed.

The rest of the tree: Early on in the process of developing the base section, you have to select a branch from the first whorl (or an induced branch in the internode) that will be the SECOND trunk section. Once this is done, all the other branches from the whorl are removed unless you want to keep another small one (and it must stay small and refined) for the first branch. The takeaway for beginners here is to realize that when you are buying raw nursery stock, 90% of the tree that you are looking at will not be in the final 'tree', and the final tree itself doesn't even exist yet. That should make the selection of material easier. The character of the branch that will be the second trunk section will define the character of the final 'tree'. If it comes off at a sharp angle, it will have great movement and will probably end up as a slant form (but avoid a perfect 90 degree angle, it is too regular or recognizable). If it is upright or wired upright, it can be used to create an informal upright. You have some degree of control over this, through both selection and wiring.

In tree A above, this proposed branch is straighter and longer than I would have wished and ITS first internode is probably too long. Both of these can be corrected by getting back budding in this first internode. So that is first thing to do. Currently, it is not strong enough to chop back and reliably get back budding, so it has to be left to grow for another year. It should be pointed south to get maximum light and the sacrifice leader should be pruned back on this side of the tree to direct more growth energy into this branch. Hopefully it will grow a strong terminal shoot from its last node that can be removed next year. This is a young branch so it shouldn't be a problem to get it to perform. But don't underestimate the importance of getting internodal growth in this area, your 'tree' depends on it. Just like the base section, you need sacrifice branching near the base of this branch to make a smooth taper transition and to create taper WITHIN this second trunk section.

Somewhere in this second section you will have to begin the process of selecting final branch candidates. From this point on, until the tree is finished, ALL the branches will either be sacrifice branches or final branch candidates. You will have to keep repeating that to yourself because you will HAVE to know which are which, that is, to make that choice for every branch on the 'tree'. Why? Because they are trained in radically different fashions, and this is where you can 'lose' a tree in a single year by treating a branch improperly, and then it's back to restyling. Sacrifice branches are left to run wild. They are not pruned, except close to the 'tree' so as not to shade any other part of the tree. Most people really have no idea of my concept of sacrifices. These can, and SHOULD be enormous. I have pictures of some of mine somewhere on the blog. They can be ten feet long and two inches in diameter. JBP have a natural tendency toward 'stovepipe' growth. If you don't use internodal sacrifices, you will not be able to counteract this tendency. Any branch not a final branch candidate is a sacrifice branch, and remains a sacrifice until it is time to remove it (see above).

FINAL branch candidates are branches that are in possible positions for a credible final 'tree'. These positions are another whole chapter and beyond the scope of this post. If you cannot identify these positions, then you are hopelessly lost and cannot proceed until you have studied and memorized John Naka's Bonsai Techniques I. 'Tree' designs can and do change, so there is no point in putting all your marbles in one basket and betting on a single branch at a single position. Make all the useless position branches sacrifices and use all the others as final branch candidates. Even bar branches are ok because final branches are continually restrained and will not cause reverse taper. Which brings us to THEIR treatment. Unlike just about all other species for bonsai, pine branches have to exist and be trained throughout the trunk training process. For just about all deciduous species, you can completely finish a trunk before you start a single final branch. No so with pines. Final branches have to BE THERE when a trunk section is chosen or shortly thereafter, or you will never get a branch there, short of grafting. This means they have to be properly maintained throughout this whole long training process, sometimes twenty years or more.

How can you do this? By being smart enough to label a branch either a sacrifice or a final branch candidate, you can begin final training of a branch just as soon as it is identified. This process will refine and RESTRAIN these branches and keep them from getting too large and too thick. By the time the trunk is finished, all the final branches will be nearly finished as well. This gives you the opportunity to try out all the cool tricks that you have read about in the books, needle plucking and such. But I hope you walk away from this post with the realization that all the cool stuff you read about pines tells you absolutely nothing about how to grow one, and they are the very last things you do, not the first.

Brent

Surgery Postponed Again

Once again, the surgery to undo my ileostomy and open my colon has been postponed. My surgeon has finally taken my complaints seriously and it's obvious now that I have at least a partially prolapsed rectum, and that we have to deal with this before we can do anything else.

My physical condition has worsened and I can only stand for two or three hours a day before my bottom gets too swollen and inflamed to do anything but sit in my big chair. Working is out of the question, other than paper and computer work. With spring upon us, it is very frustrating. But with the help of Susie, who now pulls the plants and packs them for shipping, we are still managing to get orders out. Also we have some volunteer help and little bit of paid labor to get some other stuff done and keep the nursery functioning. It kills me to delegate so much work in my little one man venture, but it's absolutely necessary now.

Apparently, my situation is quite unusual and a first for my surgeon. The prolapse was probably due to the radiation that was quite heavy and right at the floor of my pelvis, thus weakening the tissues. I am still not clear if the prolapse is inside the anus, which is typical, or outside the anus and bulging the wall surrounding it, but my guess is the latter. We will find out in two weeks after my appointment at a specialty clinic for another ultrasound and some other tests to see if surgical intervention is required. My guess is that it is. Then I suppose my surgeon will have to decide whether to do two surgeries or try to repair the damage and open my colon at the same time.

Of course, the thing no one wants to think about is that it may not be possible to repair the damage and save the reconstructed rectum. This would mean a permanent colostomy. That doesn't really scare me since I have lived with an ileostomy for eight months, which is actually more trouble than a colostomy, but it would mean a colossal waste of a fantastic hi tech surgery, eight months of my life, sixteen weeks of chemotherapy that could have been avoided, and about a quarter of million bucks down the tube. No one can predict these things, and complications can happen; at least I'm still alive and should return to a pretty much normal life at some point. The good news is that the cancer is completely gone.

I will try to post more often, but without getting my hands dirty, it's really hard to focus on bonsai right now. Hopefully, we will have a plan by the end of this month and by summer I will be on my feet again and feel like I'm on the road to recovery. In the meantime, thank you for your continued support and patronage and keep those orders coming!

A Minor Setback

Unfortunately, the news from my surgeon is that the surgery to reverse my ileostomy and open my colon has been postponed until March (it was scheduled for Dec 16). Apparently, the 16 weeks of chemotherapy that I just finished three weeks ago has prevented sufficient healing of the resection area. According to my surgeon, this is not unusual, and now that chemo is over, healing should soon proceed normally in about three weeks after all the chemo drugs are finally flushed out of my system. It's a disappointment of course, but the alternative was to risk shutting down my colon again with another ileostomy in the event of a failure at the surgical site.

So, instead of an early recovery and back to business as usual this spring, I will probably be very limited in what nursery work I can do for another four or five months. Hopefully, after I begin to heal up, I will be able to get some work done, but of course I have to be careful not jeopardize my progress. I will try to get the specimen plants on the site by spring, but I can't make any promises. I should be able to continue shipping orders until March, and then there will of course be a two to four hiatus while I am recovering. It may pay this year to get your orders in early. I will start the catalog review this week and hopefully the 2010 catalog will be up before the first of the year. We will be short of some items next year since there was no time to propagate this year. But it does look like that some pine grafts will be available without having to wait. These will be in the new catalog.

I know it's been a long time between posts, but this round of chemotherapy was something of an ordeal, and little if anything got done except for shipping orders, and even that was a challenge at times. Now, three weeks after my last infusion, I am beginning to feel human again even with the perpetual 'sore buns' due to lack of healing. All I can say is thank god for good drugs, they kept me relatively comfortable, if not productive. Life continues to be a challenge, but we will muddle through it somehow.

PVC Structures

I have built a number of structures from PVC pipe and several of them are still in use today. My PVC hoop shadehouses are now over 15 years old and still in perfect shape. I went through several permutations before finding a formula that worked.

First, don't use anything less than 1 1/4 inch Sch 40 PVC. Anything smaller is too easily bent and crushed. Over 1 1/4 is overkill and there is a quantum leap in price. 20 foot lengths of PVC can be bent to form a thirteen to fourteen wide house with just over a six foot ceiling at the middle. Trying to lengthen the pipe to get it taller is pretty much futile and will make it weaker. Also, trying to get more arch than that will make it weaker.

There are any number of ways to anchor into the ground. I use 1 inch EMT stubs hammered into the earth and then held in place with a treated 2x4 and pipe straps. The ends of the PVC are simply slipped over the pipe, no attachment necessary as the pylons and covering will hold it down. Pylons (longitudinal wires or pipe) will keep the correct separation at the top and give it structural strength. For my greenhouse that must take a little snowload, I used 1/2 EMT and used 3 of threm. The shade houses are 96 feet long and pipe is too expensive, so I used high tensile strenth vineyard wire with ground anchors and wire grippers to hold the wire in place. The wire then locks the PVC in position by a self tapping screw and washer. I use 2 wires running the entire length. This system has been in place for almost ten years, but was built from the PVC of the old shade hoop house and most of it is 15 years or older.

Greenhouses require a bit more work. I used pipe pylons as mentioned. I also used pipe diagonals on the corners to keep it upright since there is no wire to do the job as in the hoop houses. I also use double wall plastic covering. This achieves two things: it insulated better since you have a dead airlayer, and it also makes the wall stiffer since it is puffed up with air. This also keeps the wind from flapping against the PVC which greatly weakens it.

The only UV problem I have had is that the greenhouse often gets very hot, especially when not in use and the south side PVC starts to turn brown then black from the UV and heat. This in turn heats the film to an unacceptable temperature and breaks it down where it touches the black PVC. My UV resistant film has still lasted four years, but I could have got another year or two if I had covered the top edge of the south half of the PVC with white felt. This felt is commercially available fro TEKsupply.com, as well as film and everything else greenhouse wise. I will use the felt this spring when replacing the film. Oddly enough, using a double wall involves very little more work than a single wall, but you must install a special inflation fan to keep it inflated. These run about $50 from OVG.com. Creative people can probably figure out how to use a processor cooling fan. These are very small fans that run continuously for years.

End walls and doors can be bult out of 2x4 materail, which makes double walling them easy, cover them inside and out with film. Floors are easiest if you use woven ground cloth to keep out the weeds and collect heat in winter since it is black. Put down a layer of gravel or sand first to keep it from getting muddy and make sure it is above grade.

There are a lot more details of course, but if you are doing this yourself you are probably talented enough to figure out the solutions.

What To Do With A New Juniper

Here's a post today from BonsaiSite, my response is below:

Most beginners would remove all the inner breaks and small branches and leave all the foxtail ends of foliage, and then try to figure out what to do with an impossible situation. Let me introduce you to something completely different. First, read from the tattoo on your forehead: The height of the tree will probably be best if kept around six times the caliper of the trunk. How big is the trunk? If it is one inch, then don't even look at anything beyond six inches from the base, imagine a six inch ball. This is an extremely hard thing for beginners to do, but it's either this or grow the thing out and don't worry about styling at this stage.

How to do this: Take your concave cutters and simply shorten all the branches to six inches from the trunk. If there is no foliage at this distance, then cut just leaving a bit of foliage, no matter how long the branch. DON'T remove ANYTHING else, including little bits of green stuff growing around the branches and off the trunk. Very often, these end up being the final branches while all the existing branches end up being jin.

This will help clarify your mind as to a form, you will no longer be distracted by foliage and can concentrate on line. Chances are, this pruning will be so severe that you won't be able to prune anything else at all. That's what styling sessions are supposed to be like- reducing to the bare elements and then letting it recover. Once it is a nice little fluff ball of foliage, you can begin again. What you SHOULD do next is analyze what you have left. You will never get a better chance to see the trunk and the branches. Once it starts growing again they will soon be obscured.

Now the work begins. You must decide on a trunkline or possible trunklines. How do you do this? Every single branch on the tree has the potential to be the next section of trunkline. So start at the bottom and draw or imagine a trunk that through each branch- one by one. Evaluate each one. Some will jump right out at you (usually the largest branches). Others will be more subtle, but evaluate every single one, it's excellent practice. I used to do this in demos showing I could build a tree from every branch, but some are always bound to be better than others (usually the smallest tree!). You can mark the good ones with flagging tape so they don't get lost.

If you are lucky and your choice(s) of trunkline is a major branch with secondary branching, you may even be able to select the next trunk sections. That's how you build a trunk, piece by piece by changing the direction and the caliper to gain taper. Especially for junipers, you will not use the original trunkline nine out of ten times. It will be boring, straight, and taperless.

Do this and send another pic so we can see if it has any decent possibilities. Remove it from the pot when you take pics so we can see the base clearly, and remove lose soil around the surface roots to see the nebari. The next step will be to choose a front based on the best view of the nebari.

Pathways from the Mind

What is it about these little trees that have allowed them to become such an integral part of my life? I didn't start out with a burning itch to create little masterpieces to impress my friends or even myself. It was a slow growing, not a burning love, a road to another place; perhaps a place that can't be reached, only sought, but the journey alone is sweet enough to keep me on the path. I don't even think about them much, or I think about them all the time, I don't even know which it is. But there are those special times when I am actually working on one deliberately , guiding its little body to a vision I have for it, not its own, although I don't always get my way.

It's not the same as when I am working with steel or wood, which despite their malleability, seem hard and immutable. The tool marks remain tool marks, the form remains fixed, the flaws remain flaws. Their's is the joy of function in a job well done, knowing they will last a long time, but the living part isn't there. The partnership of live wood, skilled hands, and imagination don't flow together in the same way as when manipulating the little trees. Part of the little tree is always the little tree. No matter how hard I try to change it, it won't change it, it won't change unless I kill it and turn it to wood. It will rebel against your most ambitious efforts.

How far do I go to bend that river? To force that flow? What Herculean efforts am I  willing to undertake to stabilize that vision, if even for a few decades? How long am I willing to wait for it to do what I can't do? To thicken the trunk, to form those mature bark scales and ramify that branching. How long can I neglect it to give it the "benign neglect of nursery yamadori"? Who even gets worked on? As I wander through thousands of trees, each with their little bit of potential, who will cry out the loudest to have its potential brought out, or at least manipulated? Most days- none. It is enough to brush by hundreds of years of potential work, to see what has developed, either on its own, or with a little help from the pruning shears. There is a wealth out there that can be measured in dollars, but without the guiding hand, it is an exceedingly small purse indeed. No, the wealth is in the potential, the dream for each one.

And of course, there is the crush of the overwhelming work just to keep them alive. Most days, I  have to put the horse blinders on, or I will go mad from the screams of a thousand needs, do it NOW! But of course it can't be done now, sometimes it can't be done ever. Mostly, it just has to be put off. And now, there is this new dilemma of mortality creeping into the matrix. When you're thirty, the future is infinite. No matter how hard you try, you really can't imagine your life will ever end. When you're sixty, you start counting the years left, wiping one stroke off the chalkboard each birthday. Another year done, another project that will never be completed. If that weren't enough, my own is now potentially foreshortened with cancer, making every effort even more urgent. I may have dodged the bullet this time, what lurks around the next odd symptom corner?

Hands on trees. I guess that's what it's really about for me, just hands on trees. I am never happier than when I have hands on trees. Even in freezing rain, struggling with thorns and difficult cuts, there is a sense of satisfaction of having made the right cut with the speed that the mind can't even follow. The knowledge is so thoroughly in the hands, the brain just slows things down. Thousands of cuts, millions of cuts. Each one, a little sneak of a path to a new direction. And yet, I still study them. There are still those days, but not as many now, when I can afford the luxury of slowing down and falling into my analysis mode- No cut without reason, what will happen, where will it go, where will it end, what will be the response, is this the time to  do it? The great speed breaker. From the mind of the hands, back to the agonizingly slow  mind to the hand mode. I taught myself to do this fifteen years ago in an attempt to remove all  "cookbook" formulas from my behavior. No move without a reason, no move that wasn't appropriate to the physiology of the tree. I was unbelievably slow at first, taking minutes to analyze each cut. But eventually things fall into patterns. The timing will be pretty much the same for each size cut in about the same place on the tree, and of course the seasonal timing is the same. Soon, you are down to the result of the cut. What buds pop? What will I do with the resultant growth? How long will I let it grow. Soon, even these fall into patterns too.

So, as the years went by, I even became faster at analytical pruning. After spending a few minutes setting the environmental parameters. Most of you will probably be bewildered by this since you have only a tiny fraction of hands on work that I do. But there are still lessons to be learned in working like this. It makes you self reliant. Can't find the answer in a book? Work it out. When you become at least mildly proficient at it, working  with physiology in mind becomes a tool. Probably the most valuable tool in your box, next to your imagination. When you finish a tree using these tools, you have accomplished something greater than you could have in a workshop, or by following instructions, you have melded your existence with your tree's existence, now both of you are on the same path. You are understanding your tree and guiding its tropisms to complete your vision, hopefully to a thing of beauty.

Just Checking In

No, I haven't died yet, but the new chemotherapy has the nasty habit of being cumulative. As the chemicals build up in my body, the side effects also increase. Nothing earth shaking, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with all the things that I have to do. We are still shipping and I am in the process of getting the waiting list notifications together, so you may be hearing from me in a week or two. This should have happened two weeks ago, but we are also trying to get a property  ready to rent by the first of October, so the big rush is on to finish up that project (is there ever an end to the projects?)

So if you have sent me an email and haven't got an answer, please be patient, it's not lost, it's just taking me awhile to get around to answering it. We are in the middle of what will hopefully be the last heat wave of the season, and it won't be missed. With the coming of cooler, cloudier weather, I should be able to get more done outside. Firewood is in, roofs on or fixed, we're ready for that rain, bring it on.

Beginner Mistakes and Material Selection

I posted this today on BonsaiSite. The thread can be found HERE

When I evaluate trees for bonsai, first I look for what the tree already has to offer and try to use it. This tree has nothing to offer except for the time that it took to grow that bit of straight base trunk section. From the first branch up, it is worthless. Take the wire off, you will never use those branches or upper trunk in a decent tree. The nebari is horrendous and will have to be completely ground layered off.

So, take it out of the bonsai pot, put it in a training pot, ground layer the trunk and let it grow wild for several years to develop some flair into the new roots, get some more girth and then decide where to chop to start a new top.

Considering what you would have to do to make this a decent tree, I think you got robbed. If you have five trees like this, you would be better of buying a $25 piece of decent starter stock.

When buying such material, always start with the nebari. It is the most difficult aspect to correct and takes the longest and the most skill. If you find a piece of material with a decent nebari already, BUY IT, no matter what the rest of the tree looks like. You can grow an entire new tree on top of the nebari in much shorter time than you can correct a miserable nebari on a promising top. I would never have got past the nebari on this tree. I can't tell you how many beginner trees I have seen that have had DECADES of work but are still junk because the root work was never done.

As long as we are talking about beginners: I've said it a million times on forums, but I will say it again: If you have a one inch trunk, you have a six inch tall tree, don't even both looking at the rest of tree. Why? If you are going to keep it at six inches (the infamous 1:6 ratio trunk to height), then the tree must already exist (or have the potential to exist) in those six inches. If you are going to grow it out, nothing above those six inches is going to matter anyhow, most likely it will all be cut off at some point.

Bonsai is rarely modification (except in yamadori or really excellent pre material), it almost always about growing your vision. You have to train your eye before you can train your tree.

Comparing Concave Cutters

I posted this today at the newly refurbished BonsaiSite. The thread can be found HERE.

My Contribution:

Well gee, I guess it's up to me to give the dissenting opinion. First a little background, I use bonsai tools professionally, so I really give them a workout, pruning literally tens of thousands of plants a year. I have both eight inch and ten inch concave cutters. I use the eight inch almost every day, sometimes for hours a day. I hardly ever use the ten inch. They are big and heavy. By the time I find a branch big enough to justify the ten inch cutters, I find myself using the ten inch knob cutters instead since the more extreme jaw curvature results in much greater ease of cutting.

As for spherical concave cutters, they are a superior tool, but I don't use them every day, but rather save them for special work where I want a true hemispherical cut that is very neat and clean. Regular concave cutters have straight jaws that actually make a V shaped cut. For most rough work and small work, this is fine. Spherical concave cutters work with much more ease because the curved jaws enter the wood progressively. The difference in force required is remarkable. The really big drawback to spherical concave cutters is the difficulty in sharpening them (the other reason I don't use them all the time). All concave cutters are difficult to sharpen, but the spherical version requires extreme care because of the curved jaws. I finally acquired a tapered diamond hone that does the job nicely.

California Oaks

I took these photos in March of 2008 and never got around to using them in a post. Yesterday, a customer emailed me for some information on oak bonsai and asked if I had some photos, then I remembered these. Since it's so ungodly hot now in the afternoons, I thought I  would spend a little time covering this subject.

First, let me say that I have been thinking of California oaks as bonsai almost as long as i have lived in California. Even before I was practicing bonsai, I was taking rides with Susie in late winter photographing these magnificent trees. In Sonoma County, just south of here, there were many dairy farms. Now almost all the farms are gone, but many of the pastures are still there. Dotting the springtime green fields are these majestic old oaks, standing singly, leafless with their twisted and contorted branches sometimes touching the ground. Someday, I will have to dig out these old slides and scan them, since much of this land is now developed. Still, there are enough trees left to give anyone pause who takes the time to see.

Despite this early fascination, I am sorry to say that I did little about actually working out the techniques for creating representations of these powerful images. That's often how it goes in this business- the shoemake'rs children  go shoeless. But I have given the subject a good deal of thought and have developed some pretty nice basic trunks over the years. These  I am now repotting and doing some root work in preparation for developing the branch structure. This is another benefit of slowing down the nursery and reducing the stock. Perhaps now, this important project will really happen. Of course, I am not the only one who has been taken by these images, but despite the many of us who have an interest, there are precious few good examples in pots. Hopefully that will change in the next few years.

Although Walter Pall doesn't directly mention an 'oak form' as far as I know, he was also fascinated with these oaks when he visited here several years ago. And his naturalistic style of working is perfectly suited to their development, especially his use and acceptance of "subtrunks". European oaks are of course similar to ours, but in my (probably jaded) opinion aren't as 'good'. I have studied some of Walter's fine photos of European oaks, and they just don't have the movement and round headed grace of ours. The tremendous Live Oaks of the South also evoke the same image form. Hopefully, this will be a continuing subject with more photos and more discussion on how to capture the feel and character of these heritage trees.

I photographed these on a one  day's trip from Santa Rosa north to back home in Lake County. I took all the branch detail photos as study for developing ramification. Note the contortions.  The images of these oaks just  hundreds of yards away from shopping centers is totally incongruous, but I am glad they are still there!

Seeing Value

Another post at BonsaiSite today. I am on a roll. This one about a Jim Gremel starter on Ebay. Click on the link in the thread to see the tree. The BonsaiSite thread is  HERE.

My Response:

Sheesh

What a tough crowd. This tree isn't bonsai yet, it's a STARTER plant in a four inch pot. You try growing a cultivar crab (first you have to buy the liner or start the cutting yourself (an $8 value), grow it for four to five years to get it to eight feet. Cut it down to get some branching. Dig it, then root prune it to get it in a 4 inch pot, and $26 is too much money? On top of this Jim Gremel is one the top growers in the country and one of the most honest vendors you will ever meet.

This tree has a lot of potential, but not for instant bonsai. It has a nice swollen base that could be encouraged to put out root for an excellent nebari. It has a great right hand turn low in the trunk for the next trunk section. That's all you really need to create a really wonderful tree in about five years. In the right hands that finished tree would be ten to twelve inches tall, good trunk movement, full of branches with flowers and apples, AND worth at least a several hundred bucks.

Stop looking at what's in front of your face, but rather the potential. Believe me, I see trees like this frequently and I get a whole lot more than $26 for them, and have many pleased customers, in fact they are begging for me for more. My guess is that this tree will bring $75 to $100, a fair price. If it doesn't it will be shame and a loss for such a good vendor.

I can't believe you guys can diss a tree like and wax effusive about tubular junk from home depot.

Root Rot

This thread today from BonsaiSite on root rot:

http://forums.bonsaisite.com/index.php?showtopic=19054&st=0&gopid=161704&#entry161704

My Response:

There is a great deal of confusion about this and I have tried to clear this up in previous posts and articles. Part of the problem is semantics, so we need to define our terminology. I will define 'rot rot' for purposes of this discussion as anything that causes cell death of the root structure associated with wet conditions. Now there are two major types of rot root that fall into this category, Pathogenic root rot and Non Pathogenic root rot.

Pathogenic root rot, as Will explains is actually quite rare in container growing when sensible environmental conditions are met. The pathogens can be bacterial, fungal, water molds, or rarely, viruses. These pathogens attack healthy living root tissue in environmental conditions that favor their growth. These conditions vary, but an almost common denominator is continually wet, or saturated soil, or a lack of sufficient oxygen from too dense wet soils. These pathogens are notoriously difficult to detect, so control by non professionals is almost impossible (other than controlling the environment). Even plant pathologist often can't identify the agent for one reason or another. Use of broad spectrum fungicides is often counterproductive since they kill beneficial as well as pathogenic organisms.

Non pathogenic root rot is what we see more than 90% of the time. This is indeed caused by overly wet conditions (too much watering, too dense soil, or usually both). In these conditions, roots cannot get enough oxygen. The roots decline and thus the rest of the plant suffers as well, usually showing chlorosis (yellowing of the leaves) at the start. The weakened plant will not put out new roots to counteract the wet conditions via both root and top growth so as to increase transpiration. To reverse the condition, the solution is to water less, even in really poor soil conditions. The plant will not grow vigorously, but the roots will survive and support a minimal amount of healthy top growth. This takes very careful monitoring, allowing the soil ball to become almost completely dry before watering. I have had neglected plants live for years under these conditions by using this practice.

If the water is not corrected, the roots will finally succumb (drown) from a lack of oxygen more than anything else. During our spring floods, the pear trees in the orchards can only live ten days to two weeks while submerged in water. This is NON pathogenic root death. Composters will quickly move in and cause the brown and black soft or slimy roots. These organisms present no threat to the live roots or to your other plants. And if there are some live roots left, the process can be reversed without pesticides by simply improving the environmental conditions, i.e. changing the soil and correcting the water technique. Depending on the species, many trees can be saved without almost any live roots at all.

Knowing these processes should help you diagnose and correct the problems from root rot.

Another Day, Another Challenge

Recovery continues, but at a snail's pace. It's going to be a long five months.The next round of Chemotherapy starts tomorrow. I try to get a little work done each day, but with so many limitations, there are few things I can do. I have managed to get out the orders for the last two Mondays, thank goodness business is in its usual slow summer pattern. I remain weak and have little stamina. I am still down about 15 pounds and I was a skinny dude to start. Also there are mechanical problems. My ostomy equipment is not working as advertised and is prone to leaks causing me to avoid squatting or excessive bending. Try doing nursery work without squatting or bending. This may be an ongoing problem, although I am supposed to see an ostomy nurse this week to see if there are solutions.

Despite it all, I have managed to get a couple of jobs done that have kept my spirits up. I finally solved the mysterious 'water hammer' problem in the well system. I now have two wells operating simultaneously. Since we are going through our third dry year in a row, it's the only way I can get enough water. Thus there are two pressure switches. One operates the new well and cuts in first because it is better water and that well is more reliable. The old well pressure switch cuts in about 5lbs pressure lower to boost the supply when the new well can't keep up. The problem was that no matter what I did with the pressure switches, the contacts on the new well would bounce wildly when cutting in when a heavy usage line was open. Today, I finally realized that I had almost no storage capacity in the pressure tanks. I had installed them last winter on a very cold day. I set the pressure when the temperature was very low, and they worked fine. But now we are in the 90's everyday, the tanks get so hot the pressure inside exceeds the cutoff! Effectively, I couldn't force any water in them during the heat of the day. So I have lowered the pressure to get my storage back, and now the sequential pressure switches work perfectly. It's so rewarding when you can solve a problem like this.

On the more bad news front: I spent most of late spring upgrading the irrigation system, pruning, and weeding, so that the place wouldn't fall apart without me for a month or two. That effort has paid off. The water system has held up, we have lost very few plants, and most things are in good to reasonable shape. The downside is that I missed the entire cutting propagation season, mostly because I was in the hospital or in bed for the entire duration. This means that we will be out of more species and cultivars than normal next year, so expect the catalog to be a little thin, and also expect for items to sell out even faster than usual. If there is something you really want, be sure to look for it in the new 2010 catalog that will appear by New Year's Day, and place your order with a future shipping date. This will reserve your order.

It will be a tough year for Waiting List plants too. There will be very few Acer buergerianum 'Evergreen's Roughbark' available this fall since the cuttings didn't get potted up this spring. And of course none got propagated this season. There will be some cultivar Japanese Black and White pines, but not nearly as many as usual. I probably will have enough Ulmus parvifolia 'Catlin Contorted', or close to it, since these take about four years to reach a size large enough to sell. But all in all, we should still be able to offer the majority of our usual species since we do maintain an enormous inventory. And there should be more specimen plants ready next year since I did get to repot and work up a couple hundred smaller trees this spring. These may be ready by late spring or summer. These include elms, olives, grapes, porcelain berry, oaks, apples, and others. I also expect to finally get some of those monster Chinese elms ready for sale, now that the new display area is finished so they will have a home after I pull them from the field and prune them. It was just amazing how many little gems were buried in the 'Jungle' area, and still more to come that will be dug next spring. These are my 'nursery yamadori' nurtured by years of benign neglect.

I got to spend my birthday in the hospital and now it looks like I will get to spend Christmas in the hospital too. But that will be glorious as it will be the final step on the road to recovery.

Don't Miss It: REBS 2009 Show

It's almost REBS Showtime again, and I thought I wouldl give everyone a heads up. This is one of the best shows in the West, and if you are anywhere in California, Oregon, or Nevada, you shouldn't miss it. There will be dozens of world class trees, and this year, for the first time, there will also be a judging with prizes for the winners. I think this is a great addition.

Redwood Empire Bonsai Show
Saturday August 29, 2009  10am to 5pm
Sunday August 30, 2009  10am to 4pm
FREE and open to the public.
Veteran's Memorial Hall (across the street from the fairgrounds) Santa Rosa CA

Saturday will feature Yashuo Mitsuya, Bonsai Master from Japan as the guest demostrator.

Sunday's demo will be by club sensi and Bonsai Master Kathy Shaner.

Both demonsrations will begin at 1:30PM

Here is a chance to see all those wonderful trees that I photograph and analyze here on the blog. It is an event you will never forget.

For more information see the club website http://www.REBSBonsai.org

I'm Back!...Sort of

Well, surgery was almost three weeks ago on the 8th. Everything went as planned without complications. i was seven hours on the operating table. Hospital recovery was longer than planned- eight days. Internal swelling prevented my stoma (my new temporary outlet) from working, and I couldn't be released until that happened, which it eventually did.

I wish I could say it was an uneventful eight days, but in fact, I was pretty miserable and in almost constant discomfort if not outright pain. But, thanks to some very nice drugs and excellent hospital staff, I could tolerate it and at least sleep most nights, even though it was interrupted every two hours by someone poking or prodding me. By the time was all said and done, I had lost 20 pounds and was so weak that two trips around the ward floor pushing an IV cart was my big exertion of the day, followed by a long nap.

I didn't have any food for the first ten days, never even got hungry or thought about food, as I was pumped up with IV of high protein and carbohydrate. Eventually, on the ninth day, I got a 'clear liquid' diet of which I could eat about 2 ounces, if that, and I was done.My appetite is mow coming back, but slowly, and I still have  a lot of weight to recover. I am truly a shadow of my former self, but I try to do a little more, and to eat a little more each day. I can feel myself getting slowly better, but now after three weeks, I can see it will take another month before I am close to fully functional again. I saw my surgeon yesterday and he pleased with the results and my progress, so this is as good as it gets for now.

Next week, I start the next round of chemotherapy. I met my new oncologist, and thankfully, this new fusion regime sounds pretty tame compared to the old days. With any luck, I won't lose my hair, or even get sick. I will have a session every other week for eight sessions, so I will hopefully finish around the first of December. One interesting note is that one of the drugs in this FOLFOX (sp?) fusion chemo is platinum, so I may end up more valuable on the inside than outside.

Then, hopefully about the mid to end of December, I will have the ileostomy reversed and try out my rectum. This should only be a short hospital stay and is not very invasive. The surgeon says it will take about two years for the colon and rectum to get back to close to normal function.

That's the health news. The nursery has been humming along normally without me thanks to the herculean efforts of Susie and Cathy who are my new watering staff. It doesn't look like we have lost a single plant, and this in spite of near constant 100F temperatures for three solid weeks. The weather is finally supposed to break tomorrow and get back to normal or a little below normal for a week. So, maybe I can venture out and try to get a little work done to get my strength back. My ten minute late afternoon walk was about all I could do in the heat. We are rounding  it off nicely this afternoon at 102F.

I had hoped to start shipping this week, but that was clearly out of the question. I have some orders scheduled for Monday, and with some help, I think I can get them out. Otherwise, we may have to put off shipping for a couple more weeks. Not a big deal this time of the year anyhow. As long as things are ready to go by Labor Day, we should be fine.

Beginning to tire, so I will end this now, but yes...I'm back!

Pine Video Preview

Bob is working on editing the pine pruning video that I mentioned in the last post. Here is the first segment to be completed (eventhough it is Part 7). Eventually we hope to have some large still photos accompanying the video so you can actual see what we are talking about. It's hard enough to see what's going on in real life, let alone a video. Use the comments section to let us know what you think. Your feedback is important to making this work well. We hope to do a lot more of these.

Pine Video Part 7

What A Birthday Present

Surgery was delayed a week and will now take place on July 8th, my 63rd birthday. What a present! Should spend five days in the hospital to make sure all the parts are working again, then will be laid up another week at home. After that, the doctor says I can do light work. Realistically, this means that Monday July 6th will be the last shipping date until sometime around the end of the month.

I will have a laptop at the hospital, so I may post a few things from there. Susie has been downloading books on CD for me to listen to, but I will probably get pretty bored.

There's just so much to do before I go; the place has to pretty much run itself for two weeks without me during the hottest part of the year. I have waterers lined up and I just hope nothing breaks while I'm down and out. I have been pruning like a mad man to make the watering easier and to reduce transpiration. Thank goodness we are supposed to enter a cool period starting Sunday/Monday; it's been really hot the last two weeks.

And of course, wouldn't you know it, PG&E is turning off the power for four hours right after we leave for Concord on Tuesday. That means no water during the hottest part of the day. I won't be able to fix anything that goes wrong, so I hope the timer batteries hold out and the programs aren't lost, and the pumps come back on again. Most of the watering is automated and programming the five timers is a nightmare.

Bob was up last week to help out for a day and we pruned a bunch of the Japanese black pines. He videoed me pruning and talking about the styling of them. Looks like they came out pretty good, but can't tell for sure until he gets one loaded on You Tube. Will let you know when they go up. I have wanted to do this for some time, so it's pretty exciting. If it works out, I may get a camera and make some more, sort of a one man study group.

That's about it. The next time you hear from me, I will have some new parts. You can continue to send emails and orders, but it may be a week or two before I can get back to you.

Rules Addendum

A good thread started today on BonsaiSite by Ted on why the rule of the single apex isn't always followed by beautiful trees in nature. My reply below:

Ted

Excellent question. Wish we had more threads that discussed things like this because this is the essence of bonsai.

I'll speculate. Traditionally, the Japanese art focused more on conifers than on deciduous trees. Most deciduous bonsai were flowering bonsai and the consensus was, the form wasn't as important as the flowers (I never bought into that one). Most conifers, but not all, exhibit the single leader 'pine tree' outline. Since 'rules' reflect was is 'best' in bonsai, twin apexes were frowned upon. Twin trees had to divide at the base. This pine tree form was adapted to vertical deciduous trees as well, even if they didn't grow like that naturally. The visual reason for this is that the eye cannot follow a single strong line of flow if the crown is divided in two. It doesn't know where to finish.

We have moved away from the conifer dominance in bonsai, and particularly in the West, deciduous trees play a major role. Not only that, but Western species are sometimes very different from Eastern ones, giving rise to whole new forms. The two most common examples are the mature bald cypress form and the oak form. The mature bald cypress will have all its branches in the top of the tree. Having been topped by hurricane winds, the upper branches form a vase or cup at the top of the tree. The lower branches are missing entirely, having been crowded and shaded out when the forest was young and dense. This can be a very beautiful and graceful image, but it is nothing like any traditional Eastern form.

Similarly, the oak form is as you describe, is a massive trunk seemingly made up of a collection of large upward and arching 'subtrunks' (to use a term popularized by Walter Pall). Again, these are beautiful and majestic trees, but have no Eastern counterpart.

So, the classic 'rules' don't fit. You might think that these trees break the rules. But I think that's not the proper way to look at it. These are some of the forms of the new style(s) developing in the West. Rather than thinking of breaking rules, we need to develop a new set of rules that can satisfactorily reproduce what 'works' so well in nature on this side of the ocean. Walter has done an immense amount of work in this area, but the new 'rules' are still not really codified, and certainly not in the popular bonsai lexicon. Developing the new rules will take a great amount of observation and insight. Like you, I have been looking at, and studying natural trees (oaks mostly) for years, trying to develop a system for explaining why this form works and a way of communicating it. Not there yet.

Bonsai Forums Revisited

A sad day for BonsaiSite. They have lost Will, Grouper52. I don't know all the details. Will seems to have quit this forum a couple of times but kept coming back. This time he may be gone for good, but I hope not. Will is a talented bonsai practitioner and had much to offer this forum. He devoted many hours to posting his trees, making analyses, and answering endless beginner questions. But he dles have a thin skin, and that is a fatal flaw for a bonsai personality.

The loss of Will is just one more in a long line talented people who have given up on bonsai forums in disgust. Many of you are probably tired of hearing me talk about it, but this is a problem that concerns me gravely. I consider the internet to be the most powerful tool for education since the invention of the book. It is impossible to overstate the wealth of information that is available on virtually any subject. Not only the generally accepted, but also the deviant and the rebellious views can be found here. It is a wild and woolly frontier.

The passive part of the internet is no problem, for indeed it is simply an electronic book. It is a book that is bigger, deeper, and thicker than anything ever could be in print, and it is also accessible. Information is no good unless you can find it. Search engines, particularly Google, make finding anything a breeze, even in the arcane world of bonsai.

But the internet also has a darker side. Not only does it have what you want, it also has all the things you despise and revolt you. Most of us quickly become inured to the sex ads and the spam. We develop both software and mental filters to remove the obnoxious. But what we can't remove so easily is our  defenses and our reactions to personal attacks. The interactive part of the internet, particularly the forums, has the same kind of power to improve and educate just like the 'book' part. Indeed, if you just lurk, reading the forums is the same as reading the 'book', or sometimes like watching daytime TV.

The problem comes when we want to interact with the people who are writing on the forums. Even the simple asking of questions can elicit rude and impolite remarks if the newbie breaches some point of arcane etiquette that he can't possibly be expected to know. This is the world of the EGO gone mad. It is a door for the Walter Mitty in all of us to escape. But even though it is a virtual community, it is still the real world. We open ourselves up to all sorts of criticism as well as praise. Traversing these shark infested waters is not for the faint of heart. Just like in real life, some people can do this with ease, shrugging off a slight or rude remark. Others go Postal.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if it were just the egomaniacs who self destructed, in fact it would be a blessing. But this isn't the way it works. The egomaniacs survive. It is the sensitive who withdraw. Unfortunately, it is very often the most talented people who are the most sensitive. I won't name names, but in the early days of the forums (in fact there were only a couple then) a person I greatly respected and admired, a person that was a wealth of information, and who also was a scientist, this person literally self destructed in an ego battle with a supercilious sycophant. He just couldn't let it go.What a loss. I have seen it time and again since, although not usually in such a dramatic manner. So the loss of  Will is just another chapter in the story.

In the world of bonsai forums there is hardly anyone left from the old crowd. There is Vance, Al, and me and that's about it. Even Walter is only an occasional visitor these days to the forums, at least the English speaking ones. Now, there are still a small number of knowledgeable people who do yeoman's work  answering questions  and trying to raise the general level of knowledge. But for the most part, the most talented people have jumped ship. We are left with beginners, newbies, and the egomaniacs.

Somehow, through all this, I have remained. Sure, I don't post much anymore. I burned out on answering newbie questions years ago. How many times can you answer the same question without pulling your hair out? I still jump in to try to right a blatant error or try to inject some little gem of wisdom, but it seems to come less often as the months and years go by. This is my thirteenth year of participating in the forums. It's still an ego thrill for me. I love to see my name up there. I privately glow with smug satisfaction of being the guy who always gets it right. I don't even have to deal with the personal attacks and rude remarks, because there just aren't any thrown in my direction. I have lost it a couple of times in those thirteen years, but the instances have been exceedingly rare.

How have I managed this? I pick and choose very carefully. I only post when I have something to say that I know is true or I think will have a positive impact. I guard my reputation carefully. That's not to say I don't confront people and ideas, because I do. But when I do, I make sure that I know my ground and I always approach people honestly  without rancor. It isn't always easy to do. This is how I manage to stick around the forums, seeking out little gems and giving them back too. Each one is a little treasure, either to increase my knowledge, or to expand my reputation. I am a very careful person.

When will change come, if ever? The internet is still a very new place. My guess is that the community will eventually develop its own protocol unrelated, or at least different than what we experience in real life. This change will probably be generational. We are about halfway there. The rise of the forums has been as a phenomenon for only about ten years. It will take another ten years for the kids who grew up at the keyboard to fully mature and start making the internet cultural changes that matter. Most of the rest of us are too old to fully integrate the changes that I am talking about, but we can learn to adapt. It's just too exciting a place to simply write off because we get our feeling hurt.

Growth Principles

Today, I was asked for the name of a book that would explain pruning in depth for bonsai. I couldn't think of one. One of the best places I know of for this kind of information is from my website, but even there, the information is scattered among several different articles. This got me thinking again about my approach to bonsai development. I detest cookbook approaches and prefer to take a systems approach based on how the tree grows. It's the old give a man a fish parable. If you learn how trees grow, you can answer most of your own questions about when to prune, how to prune, and the effects of such pruning.

I discovered a most influential article on this subject about ten years ago. It set me on a path of analyzing everything I did when I had a pair of shears in my hand. For beginners, I can think of no better way of learning about trees, and I encourage you not only to read this article, but bookmark it and study it. It is a little dense and you may have to look up a few things and think about it a lot, but it is probably the single best source of a concise system approach to tree growth. Other than reading Naka's books, it is the best thing you can do to guide your development to right thinking about trees.

Kim Coder's Crown Pruning Effects on Roots

(This post was first published as a thread on BonsaiSite)

Rules, Once Again

Interesting and civilized (so far) discussion of bonsai rules going on over at BonsaiSite. Here is the link to the whole thread. My contribution below:

The most important bonsai rules still apply to that tree. It has a classical scalene triangle shape to the foliage. The foliage begins about one third up the composition, the apex is directly over the base of the trunk.

I have spent many hours talking with Walter about tree design and yes, about rules too. Walter (and myself and others) operate by rules, we just don't take them literally, but rather use the principles of design BEHIND the rules. For example, you could argue that the first branch on this tree is not one third up the trunk, but the FOLIAGE IS. I had a conversation on this specific subject in which Walter explained that on yamadori you usually don't get branches where you want them and often they are all at the top of the tree. No problem, you just put the foliage where the branch would be. Kimura also does this. The trick is to get the same result that the rules would give you without the same physical route for which the rules were intended.

Once again, like many of these discussions we gather at the poles of the dialetic. You don't get good trees following NO rules and you get stilted cookie cutter trees slavishly following all the rules. The rules are tools and you have to use tools properly. An artist that doesn't use tools is a fool and certainly not an artist. Learning the tools of any art or craft is the first natural step. After learning them, you incorporate them into your being so you can forget them. You don't ask yourself if you are following the rules, you go directly to result that 'works' once you have fully integrated the principles.

I don't get that people feel 'constrained' by rules. Rules give you freedom, the freedom to design intelligently (sorry, poor choice of words there). Just as tools give the ability to do more jobs. The better you get with tools, the better carpenter or painter you become. Integrating tools allows you to see beyond the literal application of tools, it lets you tweak them for drama or tension. It lets you find solutions to problems that don't have standard answers.

I mentally design thousands of trees a year. Give me any piece of nursery stock and I can design a decent tree in about thirty seconds to a minute. I can do this stuff in my sleep. I have done it literally millions of times. Typically I can find anywhere from three to five trees in any piece of raw material you give me. I can do this because I have integrated all the rules or principles of bonsai that exist. I have even developed a few of my own that no one else has ever vocalized or written. I do it with nursery material. Walter can do exactly the same thing with yamadori, because he has done it thousands of times. Neither of us sits down and makes a check list, let's see, first branch left, one third up, second branch right, back branch next...etc. No, we are way beyond that, but that's how we got to where we are. Now, we go right to the result, our brains are trained to skip the vocalization and go straight to the solution. In fact, I find explaining it a chore, since it takes so long to vocalize how I come to the conclusion of how a tree should be and the rules that are behind the conclusion.

The above paragraph is the stratospheric end of where the rules take you. But lets start at the beginning and see the continuity of the degree of rule use right from the start. You put a tree in pot. That's a rule. If it's not in a pot it ain't bonsai. For some folks that may be enough, but I would argue that we are talking about a lot more here. The tree has to be alive. That's a rule. A tree has to have some emotional effect, at least on the owner, if not others. That's a rule, otherwise it's a houseplant, not bonsai. A tree has to represent nature in some fashion or other. That's a rule. If it represents a car or a cat (and nothing else tree like in nature), then it's not bonsai. That's a rule. Then we have all the horticultural rules, but I will leave them out of this for the moment because those aren't really the kind of rules we are talking about. Ok, so for a lot of people, these are the only rules you need for bonsai. Fair enough, I can live with that if they can. But I can't see how you can argue that you created bonsai without rules, and some pretty important ones at that.

For most of us, this isn't enough. Let's visit again the rules that it has to elicit some emotion and it has to represent treeness in nature. This is the world from whence all the other bonsai rules come. Some people can do this naturally without either having read a bonsai book, just as some painters and sculptors can. This doesn't mean they don't follow rules, it just means they didn't have to to develop the skills to perform the two basic rules above. Not many of us are that talented. In fact almost none of us are. How did the list of the secondary rules come about (front branch, back branch, caliper, taper rules, etc)? They were not handed down on stone tablets. People looked at bonsai that satisfied rules one and two above (emotion and nature representation). They analyzed what made these particular trees 'work' and what made other trees fail the test. Trees that work in general follow some, if not most of the rules. They made generalizations, and these generalizations are valid within the context of form and styles being discussed.

What most people are talking about when they are complaining about following the rules is that they are sympathizing with artists that arre frustrated with works that are cliche. In any style this eventually happens and people strain to break out. Currently  we are seeing such a strong movement to 'naturalistic' trees and a rejection of the 'school of stacked green donut' trees. This isn't a rejection of rules, it is a desire for a fresh approach and use of the rules. The principles are still the same, but the codification becomes too rigid. But it is certainly not a rejection of rules per se. If you do that, you are simply lost. Even Walter has written on several occasions that creating a good naturalistic tree isn't a rejection of the rules, but rather a very sophisticated application of the rules that is much much harder to achieve than a cookie cutter tree, but certainly not an abandonment.

For beginners to reject rules outright at the start is ludicrous. Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I am aghast at the notion that most beginners would have such a strong sense of native talent that they could accomplish rule one and two (emotion and natural representation) without any study of the art whatsoever. What are the odds? Isn't the major reason that this forum exists is that beginners are not satisfied with their work and want help to achieve what's possible from rule one and two?

The Next Step

I can't believe I haven't updated since March 27th, but then, I have been one busy boy.

I finished radiation and chemo on April 16th. I breezed through the whole process up until the last week or so. Then the promised diarrhea and skin burn kicked in. The last three sessions of radiation were called the "booster series" and boy they weren't kidding.  I got the same dose of radiation but the field was  shrunk to 50% to zero in on the tumor itself. This meant that I get a twice as heavy dose in the areas affected. The result was a nasty burn of the buns that took  almost a month to heal up.

But the payoff was better than we could have imagined. Last week I had a short colonoscopy from my new surgeon Dr. Kim and he says the radiation has nearly completely disintegrated the tumor. The only thing left is a small node that was the center. This gives him a lot more room for bowel resection and we can all heave a giant sigh of relief: No permanent colostomy. Next step is surgery that is scheduled for July 1. Below, I have made a record of the pre surgery consultation with Dr Kim which you may or may not want to read depending on your squeamishness or need to do more important things.

But first, I want to bring you up to date on the nursery and how the surgery and treatment will affect the business, as it is undoubtedly a major concern for customers as well as myself. I have been going like a madman. Since my buns healed and normal bowel function has returned, I feel better than I have for years. I have not wasted this time. We have been working from dawn to dusk trying to get the place in shape to function without me for two weeks as well as the odd days that I may be sick from post surgical chemo. I finished another seventy feet of bonsai bench for pre trained material, so that I have a place to store and care for trees that get photographed and placed in the specimen catalog of the website. Between the help of Dr. Bob, friends, wife, and a part time employee, we have actually managed to clean up the entire nursery and are basically weed and debris free at the moment. It has never looked this good. Hopefully it will never fall into a state of disrepair again.

I have upgraded the water system. The second well is in and functioning. The Jungle is organized, but the plants have not yet found permanent homes. This is my project for this month. I now have two injection ports for fertilizer that cover the entire nursery. I did the first fertilization with the new system this week and it works great, but still takes all day. I have kept up with business and have shipped a lot plants this spring, surprisingly so considering the depression level unemployment. I thank you all very much for your help in that regard.

I know that many of you are disappointed (once again) that the long promised specimen section of the catalog was stillborn, but like a phoenix, it shall rise again. Work on the plants continues, homes are being created where they will be cared for, and as soon as this ordeal is over, we will surely be moving in that direction. In the meantime, you are always welcome to inquire about your specific needs for plants. We have thousands of specimen sized plants, so just because it isn't in the catalog, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

It's subject to change, but right now, it looks like we will be shipping through June 28. After that we probably will not ship during the month of July while I am recovering, but July is dead month anyhow, so hopefully this will not impact your needs greatly. We will certainly be shipping again by August, barring complications.

The following is the plan for surgery and post surgery in detail for those that may be interested. The details are actually quite fascinating:

Susie and I went to see Dr Kim yesterday, 7/3/09 for the pre surgical consultation. Now, I have a pretty complete picture of what will happen for the rest of the ordeal. Surgery has been scheduled for July 1 at the John Muir Medical Center in Concord (just east of Oakland). I will probably be in the hospital for five days and it will take another week for me to get on my feet and be able to do light work. If I can really get that far in two weeks, I will be extremely pleased.

Soon after surgery, I will begin chemotherapy again. This will be a different kind than before and I may not get through it so easily. The chemo that went with radiation was to enhance it and was a continual low dose, so the symptoms were not severe, in fact, I hardly had any. This time around they are going after any cancer particles that may be floating around in my body. Instead of a continual low dose, I get a big pulse or infusion every other week. There will be eight of these, so it will take four months. I will have to go to Santa Rosa again for the treatments but only two times every other week. The first day I will get a big four hour infusion of drugs and also the portable pump to keep up the infusion for another 48 hours. Then, on the third day, I will go back and return the pump. During this three day period, I may suffer some bad side effects, but I really don't know yet, because people react so differently to chemo. My progress so far would seem to indicate that it won't be too bad for me. I may lose my hair this time though, don't know yet. Hopefully, for the rest of the two week period, I will be feeling semi human and be able to get some work done.

The surgery is much more complicated than I had imagined. First it is done with laproscopy or with a laproscope. That amazes me. Dr Kim says it is so tight in there, that using your hands is almost impossible without a huge opening. The radiation did such a good job of destroying the tumor that only a little central node is left a couple of inches up from my anus. This leaves him plenty of room for resection or reattachment of the colon. First he has to remove the rectum and about a foot of colon to make sure he gets all the cancer. Then, amazingly, he is going to pull down a good size section of the colon, fold it over and stitch it up along the outside and then remove the inner wall so that he creates a a cavity called a J pocket. This is reconstructive surgery. He is actually building me a new rectum. Since the rectum is bigger than the colon and acts a reservoir, this enlarged area of folded colon will serve the same function. His example was pretty good. Imagine you take a garden hose and make a severe bend in it, so that it bends back on itself and the outside walls touch for about six inches. If you could stitch the outside seams in this bend, it would stay this way. Now imagine that you can go inside the hose and cut out the portion of hose where the two walls touch. That would give you a cavity twice as big as the hose. Of course stitching the colon is a whole lot easier than stitching a hose.

Then, this J pocket has to be attached again to the anus. He has plenty of room to do this now. All this cutting and stitching will take time to heal, and there is a good possibility of leakage, which if it occurs, results in peritonitis or infection inside the abdomen. That is nasty and very dangerous. To avoid this, he will give the new section four or five months to heal. He does this by also performing an ileonoscopy (my spell checker doesn't know how to spell it either, it's a shunt to the ileum) or a shunt from the small intestine to the outside of my body. This is a small hole about the size of dime. A patch goes over this which has an attachment for a colostomy bag. The bowel movement will be diverted for the entire four months while the colon resection is healing. At the end of this period I will have to have a second operation to remove the ileonoscopy. But this is a rather simple operation where the section of small intestine is simply tied shut and pushed back into the abdomen. Only a day or two in the hospital while they wait to see if the operation works and I have bowel movements without problems.

I asked him about how normal I would be after it was all over. He says for the first year, I will be anything but normal, with multiple and frequent bowel movements, pretty much anything goes. But, by the second year, I should slowly get better and better. By the end of the second year, I should be almost perfectly normal.

As far as timing goes, I should finish chemo about mid to late October. Then I get a brief rest to recover and then the second operation would be sometime in November or December. So, it is going to take the rest of the year. All in all we are very happy with Dr Kim. He is compassionate and takes the time to listen and answer questions. He was very thorough in explaining all the ramifications of the surgery.

Halfway

First, let me thank each of you for your support and sympathy. I am deeply touched by your comments here and all the emails I have received. I was especially moved by Evan's comment to the last post. If you haven't read it already, you should. My experience is a toothache compared to what this poor fellow has survived and his endurance is a model for us all. Thank you Evan!

Today marks the halfway point in my chemo and radiation therapy. So far, I have had no side effects other than fatigue. It is amazing how far advanced treatment is now compared to the 'old days'. We have a little "Breakfast Club" of patients who get their radiation treatments about the same time every morning. I'm the only guy and the only one that has to sit in the waiting room in my clown suit (gown) open all the way down the back. All the ladies are there for breast cancer radiation and thus to get to wear most of their clothes. Their strength is remarkable and all of them, like me, are determined to get through this and go on with their lives. Natalie is in treatment for double breast cancer and has already lost her son to cancer. She is our cheer leader and says that if she can live through her son's dying, she can live through anything.

Everyone is amazed that I manage to drive almost two hours to get there every morning at 9am for fifteen minutes of treatment only to turnaround and drive home again, but I really don't mind it other than losing so much productive time. I have finished three novels on CD and started my fourth today. Mostly Tony Hillerman stories. I love the way he weaves American Native folklore into the mystery stories.

Dr. Bob, who you may remember was my apprentice until he moved to Watsonville, was here this week for several days and did a yeoman's job of potting up last spring's rooted cuttings for this year. Other friends have volunteered weekends for April, and with the help of a part time 'grunt' worker, Mary, we hope to muddle through this period. So far, we have kept up with the orders by working all weekend. Now that the weather has turned warm and dry, it is not that much of a challenge. Pulling plants in full rain gear in rainy 45F weather with a 30 mph wind blowing is not my favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.

My portable chemo pump is quite remarkable. It stays with me, and on me, 24/7 except for when I take a shower, then it hangs outside the shower door but still attached. I have to be careful not to get wrapped up in the tubing. It pumps 0.6 ml an hour of 5FU into a port in my shoulder that goes into a catheter under my skin into the vein in my neck. I get a refill and recharge every Wednesday. It has a series of warning sounds if things go wrong. This week, I was on the freeway on my way to the clinic when I heard one of those high/low sirens that European ambulances use. I could just barely hear it. I turned off the CD, looked in the mirror, no emergency vehicles. Then I scanned the dashboard to see if the car was trying to tell me something, nope, no warning lights. Finally, I realized it was me! The pump was empty and giving out this constant siren sound. Not quite sure what to do, I drove the last twenty minutes trying to ignore it until I got to the clinic where the nurse said, just take the batteries out...Oh. I can do that? Sure, it's empty, you can do that at home if you have to.

Here's  a pic of me in my clown suit next the giant radiation machine. The two halves that you see here are attached to a massive yoke so the the whole thing can rotate around your body as you lie one the table in the foreground. I am standing next to the "beam stopper". There's about a thousand pounds of lead in that big round disk. The other side is the business end that beams high energy x rays into a tight pattern that irradiates the tumor but little else. It's a fascinating machine that actually has a linear accelerator to speed the electrons into the tungsten target to generate the x rays. The doctor told me they really wanted a bigger one, but the engineers said the floor foundation wasn't strong enough to hold it!

Keeping up with the email has been a challenge, but I can do it, you just might not get a response as quickly as you are used to. Orders should not be a problem until surgery this summer, and we will just cross that bridge when we come to it.

Brent

Death, Dying, and Now Disease Continued

Friends

In my 2009 Message, I talked about what a difficult year 2008 was and how I was looking forward to 2009. Well, it seems the difficulties are not quite over yet. In January I was diagnosed with fairly advanced rectal cancer. It will be a long battle, but the outlook is actually good that I will make a full or nearly complete recovery. Of course nothing will be certain until I have surgery, sometime this summer.

I have tried to keep up the blog posts, but now I am in full treatment mode, receiving both chemotherapy and radiation concurrently to shrink the tumor prior to surgery. Amazingly, at least to me, this won't be the ordeal that it used to be, but it will still require devoting at least half my time to treatment for the next three months. I have a portable pump that I wear around the clock that continuously injects the chemo drug 5FU into a port that accesses a vein in my neck. This should greatly minimize the side effects of getting one whopping dose every week. However, I have to have 28 days of radiation (5 times a week) which will take about six weeks. This means I will have to drive four hours a day to the nearest clinic, effectively wiping out my morning work hours. Listening to books on tape and CD does help the hours speed by, and it is a pleasant drive.

I have hired a part time helper, and with the help of friends as well, I should be able to keep the nursery open and functioning throughout most of the ordeal. The doctors want me to stay active and continue doing light work, which I intend to do. So please keep the orders coming; I also need to make a living even though insurance will cover the majority of the medical expenses. Unfortunately, this does mean that there will be (once again) a delay in getting specimen plants ready for sale at the website. But I will do the best I can and there are some plants currently in the pipeline that will be available this year.

I should be able to write the occasional blog post, but most likely I won't be posting everyday. I would also like your feedback on whether or not you would be interested in receiving periodic updates on the progress of the disease and treatment, since these are more on my mind now than bonsai. You may find it fascinating and I promise it won't be gory. Somehow, and I am not quite sure why, I have remained remarkably upbeat so far. Maybe it's because I am only going through the emotional shock so far and not much pain or discomfort yet. Otherwise, I am still fit and healthy, so I have a lot going for me.

I appreciate your support and patronage, and hopefully this will be just another bump in the road.

Brent

Posts Today by Brent

From BonsaiTalk on airlayering Cedrus libani 'Green Prince':

http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/f14/air-layering-cedar-32693.html

The decision to airlayer or not at this point is premature. You would risk losing a valuable tree for a problem that most likely will not exist five to ten years from now. Unlike many other species, grafts on cedars will rarely present a problem, and in some ways make care easier.

This is a new graft even though it is four years old. 'Green Prince' is extremely slow growing and will need about ten years to get to a stage where you can actually start doing some work on it. During this time, the trunk will thicken and the understock will also thicken making the resulting graft union nearly invisible.

As on virtually all cedar cultivars, the scion was grafted to Cedrus deodara understock. This is actually quite a bonus since C. deodara has far fewer root problems than the other Cedrus species. Transplanting and root pruning will be much easier and less risky on this root stock.

Sit back, be patient, this will be a long ride. Give it maximum growth opportunities, including putting it in the ground at some point if that is appropriate for your area. Digging it up again won't be the risky affair that it would be if it were on its own roots.

Brent

And on treating hard water from BonsaiSite:

http://forums.bonsaisite.com/index.php?showtopic=17181&hl=

I agree with Alex, in most cases you don't want to go there. Trying to treat water will likely cause more problems than it solves.

If you are convinced that your water is too hard, and by convinced, I mean checking the water analysis and finding a TDS (total dissolved salts) of over 600 ppm, THEN you may want to lower the TDS IF you are actually experiencing problems. Normal filtration will remove virtually no dissolved salts, no matter what the advertising says. To accomplish this, you must use a Reverse Osmosis (RO) filter. An RO filter is not cheap and requires plumbing into your system since it requires line water pressure to function. Small household RO systems cost about $200US and will only give you about 20 to 40 liters a day max.

RO filters remove nearly all salts and actually make water too pure for plants, some dissolved salts are beneficial to plants. In most cases you would want to dilute the RO water with your tap water at 1:1. This would put you back in the normal range.

In the US, all municipal water companies are required by Federal law to provide the results of such water tests to customers free of charge. I don't know about the UK. Of course if you have a private well, you are out of luck and such tests cost about $100.

Using soluble chemical fertilizers that have a high ammonaical source of nitrogen (see the label) are acidifying and in most cases will help keep salts from building up in the soil. Watering from above with large amounts of water to daily flush out the salts also helps.

Brent

REBS 2008 California Juniper #3

Juniperus californica

Another collected Californica juniper. As you can see, collected Junipers are a big deal for our club and indeed for most of California clubs. This one is a bit unusual in that it actually has very nice buttressing which often is absent on collected trees. It also has that odd piece of base deadwood which is almost too phallic. I can't make up my mind if this is advantageous or not. If it hides a defect in the buttress, then sure, keep it. The thing that makes this artifact 'work' is that it reinforces the slanting flow and repeats the jin at the top. I haven't talked about this  yet, but it often very good to mimic or repeat a feature when possible, this can be a jin, a hollow, a branch apex, or any feature. The repetition can even occur more than once. This creates more of a 'feel', a reinforcement of the story of the feature.

The deadwood is really not all that extensive in this tree, but the total trunk is very impressive, with excellent taper, buttressing and nice 'legs' of live wood extending down into the soil. There is a really beautifully complex deadwood feature in the shari near the top which is not very clear in this photo, a bit of a hollow with a lot of wood grain around it.

Once again, we see no well defined foliage pads, although the outline is a bit too regular for my taste. Excellent branch placement keeping the foliage in tight to accentuate the trunk, good back branching, fullness, but there is still a perfect view of all the branch elements. This tree is not quite as austere as some of the others, but that's appropriate given that this tree has a large live vein and the live trunk is as much a feature as the shari.

REBS 2008 Cedar of Lebanon

Cedrus libani

Nice twin tree composition. I took this angle shot because I thought the front wasn't right. Jinning the first branch of the left tree is an excellent move resulting in an uneven base to the scalene triangle outline. The top foliage areas are a little dense; it would be nice to see into the tree and discover the fine branching in this area.

I thought this photo below shows the best front. The nebari is better, there is better separation at the top. Of course the larger tree is leaning so the planting angle would have to be changed to make it upright with the shorter tree leaning away.

Forum Links

In view of my last post in which I recommended at least lurking on the forums in order to spot the truly good stuff that occasionally comes along, I will start citing the links to threads that I consider worthy. This may help those of you who just can't stand cruising the forums, but would still benefit from such threads.

The first thread is from BonsaiTalk by Al Keppler. This is an interesting thread on the use of Humic acid substances as an adjunct to fertilizers. Although Al seems to be claiming a first here, no one is remembering past threads by Michael Persiano on superfeeding and his use of Roots 2, which contains humic acid as its active ingredient. Although I had reservations about superfeeding and over nitrolizing plants, I took a pass on the Roots 2 debate since I had read some interesting bits on the value of humic acid. Unfortunately, I never tried the product or followed up. Al has done so (with other sources of humic acid) and has provided anecdotal evidence in this thread. Of course the thread has now degenerated into the typical ego battle, but it is still worth reading. Hopefully Milehigh will follow up, as his interest has been piqued and he does have the scientific background to do a good non subjective analysis:

READY TO SPILL THE BEANS

The ever popular topic of the rules of bonsai cropped up again, this time on BonsaiSite. Since this is basically a beginners site, this thread will probably show a healthy dose of rebellion. Rebellion is always fine of course, but it does help to know what you are rebelling against. Hopefully Grouper will add some more intelligent comments here.

BONSAI RULES, ARE THEY EVER MEANT TO BE BROKEN?

Finding Your Path

Here's an interesting email from someone without a lot of resources to call upon. Undoubtedly, many of you are in this same situation.

From BC:

I would like to start by saying that I hope it is not to presumptuous of me to hope you have time to read and maybe even respond to my letter?

I have been visiting and reading your site for several years now.  I think I have read just about everything though I am not sure very much has stuck.

I wanted to write as there are now just so may reasons to do so.  First I would like to thank you for your renewed efforts on your blog.  There are only a couple web sites I visit and as bonsai is a slow process the updated are often sparse. I wanted to tell you I appreciate you making the time to try and help people like myself.

 

Second I wanted commiserate in your disappointment of the bonsai forums.  When I first discovered them I thought it was going to be great get ideas and feed back.

As it turned out any postings I had were largely ignored when you're not a mover or shaker on the site and trying to sift through all the nonsense was very time consuming.I finally quit bonsai chat a couple years back over the Will Heath debacle.  I found him a little abrasive but he actually had REAL stuff to say.  I couldn't abide the inability of the site to accept criticism. 

These forums could be so great!!  I have recently joined bonsai talk largely because you talked about it but I still haven't mustered the courage to try again to be part of the solution rather than withdrawing completely.

 

Which brings me to my final and main reason for writing.  My desire to continue to learn!  I have been doing bonsai for about 6 years and have been lucky to have a bonsai master running a club a couple hours away.  I have learned a reasonable amount and have at least gotten past the stick in a pot phase.  My problem is my club only meets about 8 times per year and the focus in these tends to be geared toward the endless steam of beginners.  I have tried to arrange private lessons or other arrangements, but after several years of trying different approaches with the instructor, nothing has come of my requests.  I was hoping you could give me some feedback?  I feel my progress is going to slow and I want to get to the next level.  Am I being too impatient?  Will I improve if I just keep going? Any advice you have for me in the absence of a willing instructor would be appreciated!

 

Thank you again for your efforts and down to earth sensibilities.

To which I replied:

First of all, thank you for your kind comments. It is rewarding to get feedback on my efforts to help educate and enlighten folks in this wonderful art.

As for the forums, it does look pretty much hopeless right now, but things do change. My advice for you is to continue to scan through all the new posts every day, even if you only lurk. I have gotten so good at spotting good posts just from the title and author that I rarely ever even open an uninteresting one. Even if I don't reply to the ones that I do read, it is good for me to keep track of what is going on out there, and I think you should do the same. There will always be these little gems several times a month. So, you can join them all (BT, BS, BN, and BC) and not participate, but joining allows you to use the 'new posts' option that greatly speeds up  the review process in your search for decent threads.

Getting meaningful instruction may be a tough one. I couldn't find where you live from your email, but I assume that finding some good instruction is going to involve traveling. This does not necessarily involve traveling very often. It is amazing how much you can learn in a just a few hours with the right person. Unfortunately, most of the really talented artists are not very good at communicating how they achieve their art. But there are a few. My two current favorites are Walter Pall and Marco Invernizzi. These two are especially good at communicating which is amazing for both of them since English is a second language. Walter is better at communicating the path toward good bonsai design. His critiques are remarkable, and this is what you really should witness. He can go through fifty to a hundred trees in just a couple of hours and give a fairly complete artistic analysis of each one that will blow your socks off.

Marco is also very good at analysis and verbalizing it, but his really strong suit is technique, that is how to achieve the vision. Incidentally, these two have worked together often and think highly of each other. Marco calls Walter 'Grandpa'. So, I would recommend traveling to see either of them no matter how far you have to go and how much you have to pay, at least once. Both of them travel all over the US, so you shouldn't have to go all that far.

Other than getting good instruction, the other forum for stretching your abilities is join or form a study group. In your case, it probably means starting one. Study groups are different from clubs. Membership is limited to serious aficionados; there are no beginners. All members have to have serious material, if not finished trees. Each person brings several pieces to each meeting and every tree brought is analyzed and discussed by the whole group. Everyone must participate. It helps to have a close knit group of friends, but it's not necessary. However, there must not be any open hostility or ego battles like on the forums. So be prepared to deal with that. In our group, new people are invited on a trial basis, and those that don't fit or have a serious interest are simply not invited back. The ideal size seems to be about six to eight people. That number will keep the discussion lively. A group must have at least one fairly knowledgeable leading member or it will just be the blind leading the blind. This person does not need to be a master (probably better if not a master). Our group has two such members. Having two often leads to conflict, but where it doesn't, as in our group, having two people politely disagree makes for a great learning experience. The idea is have everyone participate at least at some level. The minimum is the introduction of their trees with the story of its history, care, and their vision for it.

One other thing you should probably do is to make a trip to see a major collection such as the National collection in DC,  Wyerhauser, a major convention or really big club show. Seeing world class trees in person is so different than seeing images of them.

I think that's about all I can recommend at the moment. Good luck at making your bonsai connections.

Brent

REBS 2008 Nire Elm #2

Ulmus parvifolia

Interesting tree, and a good solution to a difficult problem. Once again (how many times have I said it so far?), the trunk is everything. This is a very old hollow trunk with some nice features, but also some problems. First, it has a bulbous base and almost no nebari, but even though some nebari would have made it a better tree, it isn't distracting. The shortness and stumpiness of the top present some difficulties and have been successfully overcome by a strong left to right flow of the foliage, taking the eye away from the top of the trunk. Many people probably would have gone with the short leader right at the top of the trunk as the apex, but using the right branch to extend the line and form the basis of the apex is a much better solution. Once again, as with  the Nire elm #1, we get a strong Chinese flavor here.

The thick first branch is not too fat, but it should taper more in those first three inches. I can't understand why this wasn't done since the lower part of this thick section really serves no purpose. With a bit of carving, this branch would be wonderfully improved instead of being clunky. The apex is in the right position, the use of the straight vertical section without taper (and without any small branches) should have been replaced with a succession of smaller leaders via clip and trim. This is very easy to do with Chinese elms, and the top would be greatly improved with this treatment.  The other branching is good, but not quite right. Some small adjustments are in order. Some branches need to come down a bit and the upper most tuft of foliage on the far left needs to be wired back more to give greater depth, and to break up that almost straight line extending from the apex.

It will be interesting to see this tree develop over the years. The branches aren't really showing a lot of ramification or refinement at this stage, and once that is done, this will be a magnificent and unique tree.

REBS 2008 California Juniper #2

Juniperus californica

Unfortunately, the first thing that got my attention in this tree is the odd positioning on the stand. This happened because it's in the wrong pot! This is very distracting. It needs to be in a deep rectangular pot to 'catch' the overhang of the foliage on the right. Then the pot could have been more or less centered on the stand.

I apologize for the poor photo which is slightly out of focus, but there are some things that I want to talk about in this tree so I included it anyway. Once again, the trunk is the main feature, as in nearly all cases of collected trees. The shari on the front and the two big jins at the base give the appearance of two ribbons of live wood. Even though there is no twist to the ribbons, the entire trunk compositions is very good, including the extended arm of jin at the very top that gives it an even stronger right hand flow.

The jin ends need some work. Contrast the very nice natural deadwood of the base jin on the right with the one on the left which clearly shows the hand of man. More natural breaks showing grain or a hollow would be much better. This fault extends to several of the smaller jin ends higher in the tree.

I'm sounding like a broken record, but once again note the departure from defined foliage pads in favor of austere 'see through' foliage. This gives it a natural beauty of delicate foliage accenting the rugged trunk. In this case, as in most collected trees, the small thin branches is a necessity and not distracting  since the foliage needs to be lean. Another recurring theme has been how regular to make the foliage outline and I have been coming down on the side of favoring less regular outlines. In this case, I think it is a bit too irregular and I find the tuft of foliage sticking out on the right about halfway up the tree distracting, and I think it would be much improved without it.

Lastly, a bit of discussion on flow is order for this tree. It has a fairly strong right hand flow set by the lean of the trunk. Is this angle of the trunk necessary or desirable? I considered this and I believe it is. The problem with making the trunk more upright is that the first branch (the big branch on the right) would also become more upright and more of a subtrunk rather than a branch. This would quickly destroy the unity of the image that the tree now has. The apex is a bit odd in that all the live growth comes from the single rather large upright branch near the top which goes strongly left. The tree cannot finish in this direction, and the branches are deftly wired to bring the apex back to the right to confirm and finish the flow.

REBS 2008 Nire Elm

Ulmus parvifolia

This is a huge Chinese elm that stands about two feet tall. And there's something about this elm this elm that made me keep coming back to it. At first it almost looked grotesque with the huge bulbous base, but it has such a nice natural sweep of the trunk and excellent taper. The stark almost white trunk almost made it glow. It has a very Chinese flavor to it.

It may be a little too tall. I have been playing around with it, cutting out sections of the apex and there are easily two shorter trees in there, but they have a quite different feel to them and they lose the grace and elegance that this tree has. The trunk is so big that shorter trees start looking very sumo, but for fun, try covering up  portions of the apex and see what you think.

It would have been very easy to make this tree a cliche (cookie cutter) by making the pads more defined and traditional (pine tree). Once again, we see that pads are not well defined and the result is a nice natural feel. The somewhat irregular outline is also a nice touch, keeping the tree more informal.

Branch placement is excellent and the branches are old, very tapered, and ramified. The leaf reduction is marvelous. One very obvious and unfortunate fault is the crossing root right in the front, ruining what should have been an excellent nebari. A tree like this really needs a foundation, strong clawing roots to support that trunk. That top root should have been removed years ago. Doing so now would leave a nasty channel in the bottom root. More surface rooting would have been nice, but even without any other roots, the nebari would have been perfectly acceptable and pleasing without the crossed roots.

This is one of those trees that 'dances'.

REBS 2008 Pyracantha

Pyracantha sp?

Once again, the main feature of this tree is the trunk. Pyracantha often grow naturally like this in the West where the hot dry climate will preserve dead hollow trunks for years. In this case you can see that the trunk is rotted all the way through. Unfortunately, there were no berries on the tree this year.

Although this is an excellent composition, nicely balanced and proportioned, there are a couple of things about it that disturb me. As long as I just 'look' at it and don't try to analyze it, it 'works' as a piece of art, that is, it moves me into its reality, but it has trouble holding me there. The biggest thing is probably the tidiness of the foliage and outline relative to the massive and weather beaten trunk. Fortunately, it is not a layered green pine tree look, but it still has that feel to it. The almost equilateral triangle of foliage is just a bit contrived. Making an uneven base to the foliage could help here. A bit more elevation (thickness of small branching) of the first branch would help, and perhaps a bit more definition of the branch work in the top could help as well.

I keep seeing a second tree in the tree, and my eye keeps going to this. If you look at the very top triangle of wood in the trunk, there is small mound of foliage that appears to be an apex if you don't allow your eye to go farther up the small leader to the right. I suppose this would be a valid smaller tree, but I don't think  it would be better than what we see here. Still, I would try to break up this look to improve the flow.

REBS 2008 Azalea

Rhododendron indicum

I won't torture you with an analysis of this one since I know zip about Azaleas anyhow. Notice the nice root over rock base.

REBS 2008 Black Pine No. 2

Pinus thunbergii

This tree has most of the qualities that I am personally looking for in my own trees these days. Predominately, I mean highly asymmetrical outlines with strongly moving trunks. These two things give you strong visual movement and interest. The scalene triangle formed by the foliage here has a very inclined visual base line connecting the two lower apexes (funny, my spell checker doesn't like the actual correct term: apices). Even though this outline is a fairly rigid classical form, the strong movement of the branches and the lack of clear pad structure keeps it from being a 'green donut' cliche.

Notice that the branching begins not quite two thirds up the trunk, or the reverse of the 'normal' one third, but the first branch is pulled down dramatically into the 'correct' position. Walter Pall does this and talks about it in his wonderful tree critiques. It doesn't always matter where the branching starts as long as it ends up in the right place. In this example, it works because the very nature or story of the tree is revealed in the shari of the trunk, an epic struggle. Such a tree would not have a low branch. Often, however, this technique does not work and the origin of the branches can be distracting, no matter how good the placement of the foliage. Many of Kimura's demonstration junipers do this to me. At first glance, they are wonderful creations because he is a magician with foliage placement and outline, but the more you look, the more unsettling the image becomes. Now, obviously he has little choice when he is doing a demo with material over which he has had no control, and the point is make a good show.

Also note that all the live branching on this tree is relatively young and thin. But this makes absolutely no difference because this tree is not about foliage, it's about the shari and shape of the shape of the trunk. The foliage is just window dressing or a frame. Would it be better with gnarly old ramified branches? Absolutely, but this tree 'works' well without it. Also notice that the shari in not carved. This is another feature that fascinates me because I have many trees with natural jins and shari. Sure, this happened because I neglected them for many years, but none the less, it has worked wonders on many trees. You simply can't get this kind of deadwood artificially. Most people are not used to seeing wood like this and it may take some getting used to, but I love it.

Finally, since this tree is really a literati, albeit an unusual one, the use of the bunjin pot and the round stand are a really nice and appropriate touch.

REBS 2008 Monterey Pine

Pinus radiata

Other than the striking image, the most remarkable thing about this pine is that it is a Monterey pine. Either this is a collected tree (unlikely) or it is a very old tree with decades of development. Notice the mature bark and profuse ramified branching. I wish I knew more about the history of this tree. Monterey pine typically has needles about six inches long, so the reduction seen here is nothing short of amazing.

As far as the composition goes, this is a nice informal trunk with multiple soft graceful curves. It has no boring sections and the taper is well developed and suitable for an informal upright. The only flaw, and it is a minor one, is the thickness at the very top where it branches out into the apex. There are some overly thick branches in the top that are discretely hidden in the foliage. The branches are well tapered and well ramified, revealing that this tree has had many years of patient detailed wiring and care.

This tree is at its peak of perfection vis a vis the branching and foliage. Note that the smallest branches are starting to get 'long in the tooth' with the only foliage at the tips. This is one of the things that happens to all pines and must be planned for. It will soon have to be rejuvenated and back budding encouraged to replace the longest of the fine branching with new, shorter branches from buds simulated farther back. The longer you wait, the more difficult this is to achieve.

Another thing to notice is that this tree does not have traditional pine tree layered branching, and  you can see every bit of the tree. Once again, let me point out that this is the latest trend in styling, extending to even a traditional subject like an informal upright pine (albeit not a Japanese black pine).
The branches themselves, as well as the trunk, evoke a rugged ancient air, and yet the soft regular outline gives it a bit of feminine quality to create a very nice visual balance.

A very handsome tree indeed.

REBS 2008 Japanese Black Pine

Pinus thunbergii

What can I say? This is one of those 'to die for' Japanese black pines. Clearly, the strongest feature of this tree is the trunk, both massive and moving with excellent taper and gorgeous mature bark scales. Count the trunk chops in this trunk. I get four major chops before the trunk is obscured by the apex. It takes decades of skilled work to achieve this. I keep harping on sacrifice branch and leader growing for JBP, and here is a breathtaking example of what you get if you follow this procedure.

The chops are not text book. The first chop is the low chop, quite common on JBP. Typically, this first trunk section does not carry a branch. The first low turn is to create dynamic counter movement, but in this case, since we have a slant form, it does not go against the flow but rather establishes it. However, the next trunk section (topped by chop #2) is a short section that does go against the follow, albeit not radically. It is this section that is a bit unusual in its shortness before turning into the third trunk section which restores the flow to the right. This second trunk section also does not carry a branch. This gives us a compound base that is very interesting and again, dynamic and powerful. And yet the tree is still remarkably compact even with this compound base section(s).

The third trunk section carries the first branch. And since this branch is on the opposite side of the heavy visual weight of the base, it gives a very strong pull in the direction of the flow (right).Now the tree has to counter the overbalanced right pull, and it does this very nicely with the fourth trunk section and its attendant branches moving to the left in fairly strong, but not radical fashion. This restores the dynamic balance and creates tension as well. The apex restores the flow to the right, as it should, although I wish that the apex were more defined. Undoubtedly this will occur as the branches are more refined and ramified.

This tree will need a lot of small branch wiring in future years, and continued attention to proper candling and plucking, but what a beauty. One minor detail that may be hard to correct is the poorly placed  root that goes from right to left and finishes right in the center of the nebari. This should have been corrected twenty years ago. It may still be possible to remove this root, but I would have to examine it more closely. It's such a shame to have a tree with this much going right for it, and then to have a stupid mistake like this detract even a little bit from it. It also points out just how difficult it is to get that perfect tree.

REBS 2008 Utah Juniper

Juniperus osteosperma

This species is a bit unusual for bonsai. Mostly you see California juniper and Desert or Western juniper. The foliage is a silver green, quite lovely but rather coarse like all these collected junipers of the West (with the exception of Rocky Mountain Juniper).

The split in the nebari almost makes it 'walk' or 'dance'. As in all collected material, you get what you get when it comes to nebari, but at least in this case, there is an appearance of buttressing even if it is hollow. The common very narrow nebari that is often seen is somewhat disconcerting to me no matter how wonderful the tree.

The deadwood is wonderful with just a ribbon of live wood winding up the trunk, and the use of small jins in the very top of the tree is a nice touch. It would be too tame and manicured without these.

Once again, there is the austere, loosely defined pad formation that I have been harping on, but in this case there is more classical foliage placement than in the others that we saw earlier. I am not sure that is an entirely good thing. Although this is a quite lovely tree, it does have a very regular outline for a wild collected tree. I would have to study it more to suggest improvements, but I do think that if the low right hand branch were brought down even lower, that would help break up the symmetry a bit. I would also give thought to shortening the lowest left branch to help achieve the same thing.  These two changes would also help to bring the foliage in even more and thus further accentuate the trunk. They would also give it a 'wilder' look.

REBS 2008 Fig

Ficus carrica

This fig is a good example of what you can do with non traditional material. I believe in previous years it was adorned with fig fruit, but alas, none this year. It is a very old tree with a lot of character. Notice the hole all the way through the trunk near the top and the hollow that extends nearly all the way down.

The trunk is everything on a tree like this. It doesn't matter that it has large leaves that don't reduce much, or even that it doesn't have fruit. The story is of an ancient tree past the prime of its life, healthy but struggling for a few more years of life on earth.

The leaves have been kept closely cropped to accentuate the trunk. Even so, it would have been nice to have the foliage just a little wider at the bottom to establish a bit of asymmetrical  triangle. That would have  also reduced the top heaviness.

The pot and stand are perfect for the tree, the green glaze contrasting nicely with the light gray trunk.

You probably wouldn't want a lot of these trees in your collection, but  one or two are a wonderful addition.

Bonsai Forums Self Destruct

For those of us that just can't turn our eyes away from car wrecks, we are sure getting an eyeful at BonsaiTalk, and even more so at BonsaiNut, where the nuts are truly running the show. It's amazing how just a few aggressive personalities can hijack a forum. You don't need talent, skill, writing ability, or even know anything about bonsai or horticulture to be a star. You just need the juevos to attack someone in public. The nice thing is that no one gets bloody in these duels, but that's also the bad thing. If you said these kinds of things in a bar, there would be bloody noses for sure.

Now, I don't really mind these flame wars per se. Often it's the only good entertainment your can get if you don't have cable. The problem is the chilling effect it has on intelligent discussion and debate. Most knowledgeable people with a modicum of self respect decency wouldn't be caught dead near one of these battles. Sadly, there are few knowledgeable people who are sucked in and their public, if not their own image suffers for it.

I'm not sure what it is that won't allow someone to let an insult pass. I have the same problem with tailgaters when driving. It has taken an enormous mental effort for me to just pull over and let them fly by. I try all sorts of remedies like saying "Just thank god they are ahead of me and not behind me when they self destruct", and "I'm so glad that I'm not in that mind frame anymore". It doesn't really work, but I am getting better at it anyhow. Clearly, the forums are populated with a huge number of tailgaters as well as annoyed slowpokes.

I guess you just have to have an enormous amount of self confidence of let an insult pass. Either that or such an enormous amount of ego, that it just runs off like summer rain on duck feathers. I don't really get the feeling that the players really enjoy the verbal dueling. I know that the few times that I 'lost it' on the forums, I felt miserable about it. It makes you kind of nutz and you start obsessing about what your next line of attack will be. It's not really a battle of wits, or not often at least, because most of the players are half wits. It's just that once they bite you in the butt, they metaphorically won't let go. Either responding, or not responding, they have their teeth sunk in your dignity.

The answer of course is simple, although the execution is well nigh impossible. And that is not to play the game. Like tic tac toe, every game is a draw, no one ever really wins. The only way to win is not to play the game. People push your buttons? Well, they are your buttons. Take responsibility for your buttons and pull the wires if you don't want the lights flashing. It's not someone else's fault that you have buttons, it's yours.

In a sense this is a cultural problem. The culture of the internet is still in its very early days. This is a whole new form of communication, a wonderful and yet evil way of getting your voice out to the entire world, literally. This has never happened before. We are limited by only the force of intellect and cleverness. Any Joe Blow can be read by thousands, if not millions, if he is clever enough to package an irresistible message. This has  mostly been manifested through the blogosphere. That's what you are doing right now-  reading my ramblings on a blog, albeit a diminutive effort read by only about 150 folks a day.

So, how do we put some civility in the internet culture? It's pretty clear in the barroom culture, that if you mouth off, you get your nuts cracked. But that doesn't work here. Will the ultimate nature of the internet be uncivil simply because there isn't any corporal punishment? Is banning the trolls and flame throwers the answer? I don't know. I don't like banning people. Some of the very best bonsai and horticultural stuff on the forums has come from 'heated' debates, mostly early in the cycle, which then quickly degrades into useless flame wars.

Another old saying, but not as difficult to execute is "What you feed, grows". Now this is something that might truly become part of the internet awareness without too much difficulty. It would work like this. Granted, we can't avert our eyes from the wreck, fine, but we don't need to stand around getting in the cop's way, trying to separate the parties, etc. Instead we just watch. Once the thread disintegrates into pointless flame throwing, everyone just steps back and watches, no one other than the perps participates. Yes, there is still an audience, but without additional fuel, or fresh meat, they just knock themselves out. We may watch, but we really don't care, and after awhile we will even tire of watching. Of course, this won't happen just because it's a good idea. But it may happen as the internet audience gets more 'mature'. That is, after watching so many flame wars and realizing the ultimate end is always going to be ashes, not knowledge, we just cut and run, show over.

Meanwhile, if any of the perps are reading this, I hope  you get the idea that a good deal of introspection is called for. And if you are just an innocent bystander, please consider just driving on next time you encounter a wreck.

REBS 2008 California Juniper #1

I wish I had taken notes about this juniper. This may be a grafted 'Shimpaku' (California juniper collected understock), or perhaps even a tanuki. The mystery certainly adds interest to the tree. Unfortunately, I cut off the identification in the original photo so that's no help either. I will try to find out the history and get back to you on this. My friend Jeff certainly will know the owner and the history.  For now it will be fun to speculate.

There are many things to talk about in this tree, but first let's take up the graft/tanuki issue. If you look at the very top of the deadwood, you will see the live ribbon wrap around this section. The turn of the live ribbon appears to follow the grain of the deadwood, just as a tanuki graft should. Making a tanuki by carving a channel that does not follow the grain is a dead giveaway, and should never be done in my opinion. But now look at the deadwood jin just above this ribbon. It appears to wrap around a section of straight grained wood. Now junipers sometimes do this; a section will weaken and a lower branch will actually creep upwards and over the wood of the weaker section underneath. This often happens as a twist around  and over the underlying wood. When the weaker section finally dies it makes a platform for the overlying ribbon which thickens and becomes prominent as seen here. It helps to think about 'water lines' when contemplating this.

The base of the trunk also has this single ribbon of live wood visible, but here it does appear to follow the grain of the underlying shari. The roots of the live ribbon are hidden behind the shari, so no clues there. If this is a tanuki, it is by far the best I have ever seen.

As to the foliage, it appears to be 'Shimpaku', but that is very difficult to tell from the photo, and I just don't remember if it is or not. It is possible that it is not a tanuki, but rather a grafted tree where only the branches are 'Shimpaku', having been grafted onto the live ribbon of California juniper. Again, the speculation is fun and instructive. What leads me to believe that at least the branches are 'Shimpaku' are their size and shape. When making a graft of this sort, one is working with an ancient trunk and the jins will be thick and old. However, the live branches, having been grafted, will be long and thin as seen here. This is because, it would take ten to twenty years to develop branches of similar caliper and character as the jins. And even then, it would difficult to perform since the techniques of keeping the deadwood alive and intact may not be conducive to the fast growth needed for branch thickening. In my experience, and having seen hundreds of trees worked on by Kathy Shaner (more below), most grafted trees and recently collected trees will have the branches wired early into final shape with thickening occurring later.

Kathy Shaner most likely has had a hand in the development of this tree (I will try to acertain that for sure too), since she is our club sensei and has a major role in the development of REBS show trees. Indeed, the level of quality of the trees has skyrocketed since she took over. The club runs continuous workshops in which member trees are worked on year round to prepare them for the show. As a result, many of the best trees at the show have Kathy's signature characteristics. One of these is how she treats branches. Although she certainly isn't the only artist to do this, her wiring of young thin branches is instantly recognizable, at least to me. Another one of her signature techniques is keep the foliage quite austere avoiding solid pad formation. Again, this is a technique now practiced by several of the current leading artist (see REBS 2007 Show blog for details).

I view the new austere pruning technique, and the move from defined pads as one of the great movements in classical Japanese bonsai styling (although it is not limited to just this style but applies also to the Modern or Impressionistic styles as well as the Naturalistic style). This has moved us from the tight layered and rigidly defined pads of the pine tree form (school of green donuts) to a much more natural and expansive look in which the possibilities are endless. Kathy excels in this as does Jim Gremel and Boon.

However, I find the wiring of young non tapered branches, as evidenced in this tree, to be disturbing. It certainly 'works' in the sense that it puts the foliage in exactly the right places. Indeed, achieving this is a snap working with such young material (assuming you know where the right place is!). On big old junipers like this, it doesn't bother me as much as on species like collected redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens.  Redwood lack the fineness of foliage that can soften the appearance of the 'wiggles' created by the wiring in this manner. It is difficult to impossible to put the kind of turns in the bends of the wood with wire that you can do with clip and trim. Furthermore, clip and trim gives you a bit of taper addition with each cut. Wiring these young branches is taperless and the curves are softer and more rounded. To me this looks contrived. But it does give you a finished tree years, if not decades sooner that you could get with clip and trim. So, while I can appreciate the overall image of these wonderful trees, such as above, I have to partly suspend my disbelief when it comes to how we get there.

REBS 2008 Japanese White Pine

Pinus parviflora

This is a stunningly breathtaking tree. Just look at the size and the sparseness of the needles and the mature bark. It just exudes ancient character, as if it were lifted from an antique brush painting.

First, let me say I am not a big fan of high grafted Japanese white pine on Japanese black pine stock (P. thunbergii). But this is a well executed graft deftly hidden in the foliage of the branch. If you didn't know how these grafts are made, you probably completely missed the graft. So often the understock overruns the scions in these grafts giving the tree a hideous necked down union. Here it works as taper.

There are a number of technical 'faults' in this tree that have been turned into assets. First, there is the exquisite branch placement. But notice that the second branch on the left is actually a belly branch. Now this branch serves a very important function. The 'belly' in this case is a curve that is a little too closed and dangerously approaching what I call the closed C curve, a flow killer. By putting this branch right in that space the closure is obliterated and the flow restored. Intentional or not, this works wonderfully.

Next is the trunk and apex. The lower part of this tree flows strongly to the right; there is no doubt about this. But the movement turns back to the left at the C curve. Now this is quite acceptable generally IF the apex returns to the flow set by the base. This tree does not do that. Instead, the apex finishes to the left as well. In this case, it puts the apex over the base regaining the stability of the image in a truly dynamic fashion. So, you get this really strong sense of movement going up the trunkline, but also stability at the same time. Even so, there is tension in this dynamic balance with a bit of residual net pull to the right. Some folks might want to tip it just a bit to the left, but I love trees that do this.

The branches are wonderful. I could spend a great deal of time just studying the movement of each one. They are fine and delicate but ancient at the same time. It takes a really good eye and expert wiring to achieve putting each bit branch in the right place.

This is very tall elegant tree with plenty of feminine character  befitting the traditional Japanese white pine design, but incorporating very natural elements as well. The rugged, massive base anchors the image nicely. The only things that I wish were better is that the nebari is less than desired, probably due to neglect in the early years. It would be very difficult to correct this now. And the apex needs just a bit more refinement, but these are really minor points that do not distract from that mirror through reality quality so sought after.

Silliness at BonsaiNut

Silliness reigns at the BonsaiNut forum (see the post below on the sealant battle). This forum has gone from a half dozen posts a day to well over a hundred in a couple of weeks. It really is the wild west of bonsai forums. Meanwhile BonsaiChat is as dry as our current January rainfall this year and appears to be about to dry up and blow away. One of the things that I spend WAY too much time doing is reading and studying the forums with almost anthropological scrutiny. I was even thinking this morning that it would be interesting to take one of these flame filled, but also remarkable threads, and plotting the category of posts against time to see if a meaningful pattern could be arrived. You know, something like 'flames', 'expert opinions', 'me too', 'great post posts', etc. Just like the markets, there seems to be parabolic rise and crash in number and quality of posts.

The beauty of such a system is that it really generates some fantastic information. The downside is that they can't keep it up. Everyone gets burned out or silly, or self immolates, all of which is going on over there right now. A little (even a tiny) amount of moderation from the owner could easily control this and make a truly great site, but alas, he has a truly hands off attitude. That's fine, it's his forum, but it's also a shame. I thought I might do a sealant redux on one of the other topics hitting the fan over there now, but it is simply too silly, they have more 'important' things to do right now.