What a Bunch of Tools

So here we are already in the middle of January. I’m finally getting over my Christmas lurgy, my horrible knee sprain is on the mend along with my buggered up pinky and orders are flying out the door to the point we are measuring our output in weight (average 800Kg of goods daily). An almost imperceptible layer of snow is sparkling in the pristine sunlight, there’s a crackling fire in the grate and the dogs are toasting themselves right there. Life is good!

To cap it all Kevin Willson just made me the proud owner of a very special scots pine I have been developing for close on 20 years. Follow the link to his Instagram for a sneak peek. To cap it all I lost a couple of stone too though despite what every born again fatty tells me I don’t feel one iota better. So I reckon many folk are just full of crap (or I have a long way to go)! Overall 2024 has started well in the Potter household and long may it continue….. and that’s all I have to say ’bout that.

So, along with all my healing, packing, humping boxes and waxing lyrical about the good life I have also been busy listing the latest addition to the Kaizen Bonsai range of amazing products on our web site. Pleased to say we now have a very nice little selection of bonsai tools from Kaneshin Cutlery Mfg (Japan) at some pretty amazing prices all things considered. This has taken several months to put in place for reasons I no longer want to remember and the last week has been ‘kin dull as I have been sitting in front of a screen creating web site listings but it’s all done now.

See the range – Kaneshin Bonsai Tools

So if you are looking for TOP quality genuine Japanese bonsai tools please do go take a look. More will follow but for now i’m very pleased with our offering and some pretty keen prices too considering these are all largely hand made in Japan using the legendary Yasuki-Hagane (Japanese steel from Yasuki produced from local iron sand).

These days many things are far from what they seem. It appears to me a modern business can say almost anything in the pursuit of sales. Anyone seen SKY ad’s lately? Sky cinema is JUST NOT THAT GREAT. Shampoos make girls hair softer, toothpaste makes our teeth whiter and washing powder makes things so white they ought to be fecking invisible. Let’s not even get started on tech’, apps, ‘phones’ or the latest CCTV gadget that means we can all watch your house being burgled or you wheels getting lifted in what we used to call ‘glorious technicolour’ and ultra hi def’ streaming to just about and device from a watch to a flat screen the size of a duvet.

Bonsai tools are no exception in this respect. Most bonsai tools, along with almost everything else, are made in China nowadays. There is a perception that Chinese stuff is largely a bunch of crap, indeed I would concur a lot of what we do see here is indeed what the OED calls “something of extremely poor quality.” (crap:vulgar). But, much like everywhere else in life you get what you pay for. Most businesses go to China to source ‘goods‘ (not good actually) because they’re cheap, and also they (the Chinese) like to work hard, unlike us, and get things done. This ensures maximum profit margins but often saddles the customer with a crock of shit that ends up in landfill pretty quick. It’s what they call function of profitability or some such. A lot of utter crap gets made and distributed just prior to being dumped but so long as it results in a profit who cares right? Well, increasingly WE DO!

All of this is NONE of China’s fault, it’s ours. If you go to China and ask for a top quality product they can and WILL make it for you. Sadly not many folk do that, we have seen simply outstanding quality world leading products made there. These do carry a hefty price tag but quality has always cost money and top quality cost lots. Some Chinese bonsai tools are SO good in fact that many of our competitors are openly marketing them as Japanese made which is a crock of shit.

The bonsai tool market has always been a bit shifty or, should I say ‘opaque‘. These complex tools are hard to make, require quality materials and time served craftsmen (people) to build them. Bonsai tools are not made by automated machines in their millions like main stream tools. A few days ago I got an email from a Chinese producer of hammers. Apparently they make 7 million hammers annually. HOW can the world need that many hammers? I’m still using the one my dad gave me for Christmas 1976 and it’s nowhere near worn out. I doubt there have been that many bonsai tools manufactured in the last 10 years….. which is a wild guess on my part. Suffice to say small production numbers and high quality materials result in a high price. There’s an inescapable law at work in the universe much like E = mc2. This one states you get what you pay for.

In reality there are endless brands of bonsai tools. However most are no more than ‘badge engineering’. There are very few manufacturers of bonsai tools and even some of the major Japanese names are just branded packaging for standard quality tools. Not that this is a bad thing but it makes it very difficult when buying bonsai tools to figure out what’s what.

That’s why we have added Kaneshin Bonsai tools to our range, they’re kosher, the real deal, made by the same family and dedicated time served craftsmen for as long as anyone can remember. Not everyone can afford to buy the ‘best’ but it’s nice to know that good quality tools made with integrity and pride are available when we do want to treat ourselves.

As with all things ‘quality‘ is relative. There really is no limit, take Mr Yasuhiro Hirakawa as a fine example. A fifth generation blacksmith shop (Sasuke) who, among many other exquisite things happens to make the worlds most expensive bonsai scissors. These can carry a price tag right up to an eye watering $32,000 (£25,200) though his ‘standard‘ scissors go for a paltry $1100 (£866). This budget range still takes 10 hours a day for one week to turn out a single pair and in my book that’s a cheap tool.

So, having spent a week immersed in all this tool business it got me thinking about my own bonsai tools. Just for the record I love tools. As I mentioned, way back in the 1970’s my dad often gave me tools for birthday or Christmas presents. A lot of those fell off the back of his British Gas lorry but I didn’t care.

When I started doing a paper round at age 12 I had 32 houses to deliver to. At 6.30am I pedalled the 2.5 miles to the newsagent, assembled my papers myself before pedalling a mile and a half with a heavy canvas bag slung over my shoulder to the start of my round. I then pedalled/walked the 1 mile length of my round up one side of the road and back down the other side until the last paper hit the last doormat. I then had to ride back home like a demented person in order to get changed and walk the half mile to school in time for 8.45am registration. I did this round seven days a week come rain or snow. Fridays everyone got a local paper in addition to their regular title which meant a bag so heavy I could hardly heft it onto my shoulder and made for some sketchy bike riding too. To cap it all, on Saturdays I had to call at every house and collect payment for their weeks papers before accounting to the boss back at the shop. Once ALLLLLLL that was done I received the princely sum of £1.35.

When I first started that job I saved up for two weeks before taking what I thought a kings ransom to the local hardware store where I blew the whole lot on a beautiful shiny silver guess what……………… Stanley knife. Not just any Stanley knife though, this one came with 10 spare blades. I was SOOOOOO happy walking out the store I thought I was on a magic carpet.

At school I was the envy of all my mates every time I whipped out my glistening silver treasure. One time (true story) I used it to carve my name into a wooden desk top. What I actually spent the lesson doing was a beautiful intaglio carving of the phrase “Graham Potter is god” (note the small G). Funnily enough the next day I got called into the headmasters office for a bollocking. He took my treasured knife off me and I had to pick it up at the end of the day under a strict understanding that I did not bring it back to school with me ever again. I was about 13 by then, HOW much things have changed. Suffice to say I LOVE tools and in particular knives. Ohhhhh I love knives, but you get the picture right?

For my younger readers, tools are something used accomplish a task that can’t be done on a phone and is beyond the capabilities of ones own teeth or fingernails. With care good tools in skilled hands produce amazing things. Many folk like to collect high quality tools, i’ve seen a lot of folk in bonsai with “all the gear and no idea“. Tools are much like a pencil. In the right hands it can produce a work of art. In my own pubescent hands they were used to jab other kids in the forehead which if done correctly left them with a little tattoo that resembled a blackhead.

I was recently hanging around Kevin’s workshop absent-mindedly going through his ragtag assemblage of hard worked tools. Much like many skilled artisans there was not a single item there of any real significance but no artist in the UK generates more outstanding bonsai transformations than me ol’ mate from Essex. The tool is less significant than the hand that puts it to work. Left to its own devices a tool never created anything. This appears true of many skilled tradesmen and artists, their tools might be a shoddy assemblage but the skill held in the hands that wield them is often exemplary.

So, to my own tools. Whilst these may look to be that shoddy assemblage they are mostly good quality items that only became shoddy because they were good enough to survive me and have delivered a great deal of often punishing work over the decades. Like most long practicing craftsmen I have gathered up a huge selection of tools from some of the best available to others repurposed from other disciplines, some are custom made, some are bastardised bits and bobs of scrap and random busted items that at one time or another were just perfect for the task at hand.

Looking at my own dirty tray of disgrace It occurred to me I do about 95% of all my bonsai work with no more than eight items as you can see here. Were I traveling somewhere to work these are my ‘must have‘ tools that I simply cannot function without. All the other tools get used extremely infrequently but we have a lot of history together so I keep them all.

So here is my MUST HAVE tool kit which consists of two groups of four items. One group I use 100% of the time and the other not so much. Every one of us well experienced bonsaists can probably show their own unique collection and some folk have actually expressed an interest in mine so here goes……

So this first bunch is the stuff I use 100% of the time. From the top we have…….

Masakuni #8309 – This is the long handle version of the very popular #8009. This is the only wire cutter I use for wire up to about 2.5mm. It’ll cut thicker and i have bent it a few times doing just that. Nothing comes close to being this brilliant especially when removing fine wire from densely ramified bonsai.

Next is my beautiful little Yagamitsu SP1. This is a hand forged scissor made by a single blacksmith. I have had it over 20 years and even back then they were very expensive but it’s THE best scissor I have ever owned by a country mile. When pruning densely ramified bonsai the short length allows very accurate work to be carried out at super fast speed. Longer scissors may be needed for deeper access but for top work who needs all that excess length in the way. It’ll cut branches as thick as a pencil and chop 4mm aluminium wire like it’s made of cheese.

The next tool is my Masakuni #8812. I only got this because I typed the wrong number onto an order years ago but it’s the best tweezer I have ever seen. This thing has the pulling power of pliers with the accuracy of a scalpel. Technically it’s a pine tweezer made for pulling needles and thinning candles and congested buds but to me it’s an absolute must have at almost any price.

Finally in this group I have our very own Superior Long Handle Scissors. For the price these are superb and can be found doing anything from pruning bonsai, cutting roots, branches, wire, working like a chopstick, creating deadwood and they are great around my motorcycle workshop making gaskets, cutting rubber, plastic and wires. They’ll open a can of soup, cut a sandwich in half or trim up ‘ur nose hair. This pair have a few custom grinds and subtle mod’s which I like and suit me personally and the way I work.

This next group of tools are items I use every time I work on bonsai but I do put them down from time to time.

From the top we have my little Jin pliers. No idea where I got these but they have been in my pocket for over 20 years at least. From making deadwood to wire work I could barely finish any task without these. The slim straight handles double up as a pair of re-potting sticks too when i’m in a hurry. I have bent them on a few occasions but they can be straightened and a little heat restores everything back to normal.

Below that we have the fine twig cutter or NBBC (narrow blade branch cutter). I recently did a video pruning a maple where these can be seen in action. This pair have been bent and abused to a criminal extent. I cut the end off a broom handle with them one time which was stupid but thankfully I have become very good at sharpening and resetting the blades. They are only made for very light pruning of deciduous twigs and small branches which they do remarkably well as they give great access in a tight spot. I very rarely use any other type of branch cutter since I mastered these little guys.

Below that we have the mighty Masakuni #8007. From time to time I get a tree come in that’s wired and sometimes that’s done in a horrible way or with entirely inappropriate materials like galvanised steel fencing wire. Whilst mini bolt cutters can sort that out these give better access and are significantly more powerful. They’ll cut 10mm aluminium (yes it does exist) 5mm hardened copper and 3-4mm steel including most nails and screws. They also make a great hammer if I find myself short of one and can smash up the largest bonsai pots with consumate ease. Why? don’t ask 😉 Masakuni tools seem to be disappearing fast as I believe there is only one craftsman left now but I may be wrong. We certainly never get what we order anymore.

Finally in this group is the Small Bonsai Knob Cutter. Trimming up a cut to enable it to heal flat is a skill that takes a long time to master and judge correctly. When dressing cuts I like to use the small tool to nibble away at it which I find much more accurate than just blasting in with a big gun. Also knowing that the little tool is somewhat more delicate I treat it with some respect and so it lasts much longer that it’s big brother in my hands.

Some of these tools are stainless and some are black. This just happened and was in no way intentional. Stainless steel will never hold as good an edge as a high carbon steel and stainless tools are not 100% rustproof either. The correct term should be ‘stain resistant‘. A 100% stainless steel is too soft to carry an edge or retain its integrity under pressure. There are some utterly spectacular stainless hardenable steels available today and whilst these make spectacular knives they are not suited to bonsai tools.

As I said I have virtually every bonsai tool ever made somewhere in my old filing cabinets and on occasions I will dive in there for a tool to do a specific job that just can’t be accomplished any other way but this set of eight tools are what I use all the time. There are just two more items I cannot work without. First up is this…..

Bonsai tools that cut mainly work on the scissor/plier principle of two parts joined together by a pivot. This pivot is the single most important part of an opening and closing tool because it keeps the cutting edges in alignment even under pressure whilst acting as a fulcrum to magnify the amount of force one applies at the handles. Once this gets full of crap, wears and becomes loose the tool will NOT cut properly no matter how sharp.

Every day I pick up one of my bonsai tools I put a tiny drop of oil in the base of the blades just above the pivot and two more at the base of the blades/top of the handles just behind the pivot. This is quickly drawn in and not only keeps the union lubricated but prevents the ingress of dirt. Those little Yagamitsu SP1s have no wear in the pivot after 20 years and still have perfect blade geometry. Keep your tools lubricated, it’s the single most important factor in ensuring tools perform well and last a long time.

At this point someone will ask me what oil I use. Currently this is a 30 weight non detergent mineral oil that’s used in vintage motorcycle engines that do not run oil filters. This particular one is made by Millers Oils, a superb UK company, Vintage Millerol 30. The reason I use that is because the last time I filled up my little oil can it was close at hand. Honestly who gives a shit it’s oil for scissors. Don’t go and use WD40 or similar, it’ll do nowt unless your tools are rusted shut, use proper oil and use it often.

And finally we get to my most versatile, treasured and best tool that goes with me ALL the time. Honestly! If I’m dressed this tool is about my person and it is……

As I said, I have a passion for knives. There are hundreds in my house from 200 year old antiques through military weapons and farm implements. Then there are a whole bunch of artisan made and unique pieces that can only be called works of art. However a man needs a good working knife.

My grandad was never without his trusty Sheffield made pocket knife. I never saw him a day in his life without his waistcoat, tie, Zippo and pocket knife. I have no need for the former two items but the later I do.

This Benchmade knife designed by the late and great Mel Pardu is simply the best working knife I have ever owned and it’s been by my side every day for years now. I did modify the blade angle to a much shallower pitch which increases it’s sharpness and ability to cut things like cardboard and plastic. That took weeks of patient work by hand because the steel is SO darn hard. I have used this to cut everything including mild steel wire and my own flesh. It’s so sharp one does not immediately feel a cut from the edge until it touches bone, Trust me 😉

This little bit of incredible steel is one of my most treasured possessions without which I could neither do bonsai or live. A pocket knife must be strong. I have used this to split logs by hammering in into wood with a baton but it must hold a good edge without the need for continuous grinding. A good old fashioned steel brings this back to a razor edge in only a couple of swipes and about once a year I put it across a water stone just to freshen it up.

It is not legal to carry in the UK simply because it’s blade locks. So that makes me an outlaw then I guess. Never buy a pocket knife without a locking blade unless you need to loose part of a finger. I rarely carry a phone when I go out but I will never be found without this in my pocket. In fact I think I’ll have this buried with me when I go.

I love and adore tools, as I said. Tools open up a whole world of possibility and creativity and I love mine with an absolute passion. I hope this little post has passed on a little bit of my knowledge and enthusiasm. I could go on all day but there are parcels that need packing so I need to go.

If you made it this far I extend my sincere thanks and respect. If you have any sensible questions about tools of any sort do get in touch. After all a passion shared is a passion doubled right?

Graham

 

The post What a Bunch of Tools appeared first on Graham Potter | Kaizen Bonsai Blog.

Bonsai Repotting Adventures

This time of year we are always insanely busy. It gets to the stage where we judge our output each day by weight rather than order numbers. A bad day is currently about 500kg of goods but we have shipped over 1200kg on our better days this year. For an old man and his son-in-law that’s a lot of graft. Currently work has ground to a crawl as we have been let down by a supplier and so I thought I would take the opportunity to share some of my most recent Bonsai Repotting Adventures.

Regular visitors to this blog might have noticed that for 14 years i’ve spent this time of year ranting and raving about why I think most folk are re-potting bonsai both too early and too often. Whilst I realise this is good for our business it’s far from ideal for bonsai and there are many things much more important than the few quid we earn supplying ‘Bonsai Soil Products‘ to our lovely customers. Rather than spend my time fussing over what everyone else may or may not be doing I thought I would share some of my own recent bonsai re-potting adventures.

We have had an incredibly mild winter and that’s a GOOD thing by and large. 2023 was one of the worst years for cultivating bonsai that a can remember and I have a LOT of those behind me these days. As in most years I have filled my greenhouse with a huge number and variety of trees, primarily for protection from wet. A long mild wet British winter can be very detrimental to bonsai in a number of ways. Whilst most folk are worried about root rot and the like most hardy varieties in good condition can deal with wet feet. My own concern is more related to the degradation of deadwood and bark quality. A dry winter under cover makes a massive difference to these oft overlooked elements. Protection from howling north-easterly onshore winds that affect us out here on the east coast is also very important especially to finely ramified trees like elm varieties.

The downside of putting plants inside is that they will begin growing much sooner than those left outside. This can cause problems when temperatures begin to rise. A couple of days ago my greenhouse hit 25 degrees Celsius whilst outside it was 9. This means plants flush much earlier but once early summer gets here indoor temperatures are too high for some species like maples. A sunny day in May can easily see the mercury blast over 50C whilst it’s barely 15C outside. As soon as my trees buds begin to open they go outside unless my intention is to keep them in for the entire growing season. These things can get complicated but used wisely a greenhouse can add several weeks to our meagre growing season.

There is a simple rule to follow that ensures optimum timing for re-potting bonsai. I covered that in some detail in an earlier post When To Repot Bonsai.

These days I have largely stopped trading bonsai trees and concentrate on doing my own work and my own bonsai. Everything’s always for sale apparently but you’ll have to speak to Catherine about that 😉 Previously we were just pouring trees out the door and to a greater extent my bonsai activities became little more than a job running a production line. To some extent I lost my soul doing that but now it’s stopped and thanks to some hard work with my mentor Kevin Willson i’m back doing my own thing, not just producing a commodity to sell and I like it.

So, here are a few images of trees I have worked in the last week with hints and tips I thought ya’ll might like to see…..

Japanese Maple

First up a Japanese maple I bought a year ago. Whenever I bring in a new tree I leave it alone for the first season to get a measure of it’s vigour and general condition before I go blundering in unsighted. This little guy was unusually almost too vigorous as can be seen by the ugly coarse growth. This tree needs slowing down a bit which almost never happens especially in such a small pot.

The great thing about Japanese bonsai is that you get a good root system and a nice well prepared flat base to the trunk which makes repotting a doddle. As it turned out this tree was mostly planted in massive coarse Lapillo. A very bad choice in this case for such a small shallow pot where it can hinder fine root ramification and reduce root volume. The grains were mostly the size of marbles and above.

Now planted in pure Akadama graded to about 4mm and with the old soil cleaned right back onto the trunk base this tree should gradually come back into a sensible equilibrium. In time work can begin in developing appropriate ramification and refinement. There’s many years to go on this journey.

Korean Hornbeam

This lovely old tree came from a collection I bought a few years ago. It sold instantly and the new owner put it in this large plastic pot. These hornbeams grow very slowly in Blighty and restoring one like this is the work of many years. Repotting is not something that needs doing very often but when this tree came back to me last year I decided to clean it out to and make sure I have the most vibrant root system possible. A little prune, a little wire and a bag of our Premium Bonsai Compost No1 along with an old Chinese pot guaranteed to wind up somebody and we’re good to go.

Field Elm

Imported from Italy back when such things were easy. This big lump was a cheap and cheerful buy I intended to flip quickly. When it arrived in a plastic tub it had almost no branches. Last year I repotted and cut the base of the trunk nice and flat. A year later it was lifting itself out of the pot. In order to keep elm developing quickly I tend to repot every year simply because these trees make so much root and if they get pot bound they have a habit of dropping branches in my experience.

Dwarf Japanese Maple

Japanese maple tend to be one of the first trees to break cover at the end of winter and of those some of the first will be the dwarf forms like katsura or in this case what I assume it kiyohime. This tree came from a collection I bought a year ago. It looks to me like this is one branch of what was a larger tree once upon a time. Kiyohime are basally dominant and when not cared for correctly often the tops die out in whole or part. I can’t say that’s what happened here but I would wager a hefty sum it did. There was a lot of die back when it turned up.

Not repotted in decades the first job is to get it out of that pot. A rubber mallet was pressed into service and just before I worked up a sweat it all parted company. Once out I found an interesting hack to ensure the pot was not going to become waterlogged, it did come from the north-west. Either that or someone was trying hard to save a bit of soil.

The tree was planted either in John Innes No2 or garden soil. Hard to say but at least it cleaned out easily enough. I did spend some time last season giving this little tree some TLC and it’s vigour improved significantly so a drastic root prune this year is safe enough to complete. Now in a new more appropriate training pot this will grow like a weed this year. A big pot is not always a good idea and in this case a smaller pot full of vibrant root will produce better results than that other big blue fence post.

Chinese Elm

I make no secret about my love of Chinese elm, one of the finest deciduous species in bonsai. Trees like this one (less the rock etc’) are actually sold as bonsai in this country but they are very far from that being an appropriate moniker. However I have proven again and again just how quickly they can be developed into significant bonsai. So I put this one on/in this water worn limestone. I know it’s currently shit but I did make this one out of an identical type of elm about 6 years ago.

Privet Cutting

This silly bit of privet stump clutters up my bench and has done for a long time now. I really can’t be assed to style it so it gets the hedge treatment. For those of you that follow my work this may be familiar from the daft video I did a while back.

English Elm

Ulmus procera are everywhere, easy to find and collect. Over the years I have had hundreds and hundreds of these beautiful elms. However I have never seen one quite as nuts as this one. I gave it a first style last year and murdered the roots but it grew happily all summer. Now allied with the crappiest pot I could find. Not one for the purists….. like I care!

Privet Bonsai

Over the last 35 years I have owned literally hundreds of privets and a lot of them have gone on to become well know and important bonsai. Trouble is I never kept one for myself. I blagged this one from the garden of a mate a few years ago as a bare stump we jacked out of his hedge. It was potted properly about 4-5 years ago when the base was cut dead flat. To be honest I could not really figure out what to do with it and was too busy and preoccupied to care so it languished outside in a corner whilst the deadwood rotted away (that’s a good thing).

So recently I thought it was time to buck up my ideas and sort it out. I intended to make a video of the work but by the time I figured out what to do we were too busy so it’ll have to wait. I have been looking at this for years now and just could not solve the puzzle. In the end I photographed it from every angle. Then with a little chemical help from my friend Jack Daniels and a good herf the answer fell into my lap whilst flicking through those images. I can’t recommend substance abuse as a bonafide bonsai technique but we all have to walk our own path despite what anyone thinks.

Because I have neglected the tree for a long time now repotting was extremely overdue. In general privets should be repotted every year because they make so much root and sulk badly when pot bound. I got fed up trying to water this last summer and so a repot just had to be done. However the rootball was so compacted even a reciprocating saw was not going to sort this one out so I turned to my special root pruner.

Maybe I can shoot my movie in the autumn. In the meantime I would welcome your opinions. Answers on a postcard as they used to say. It won’t change my mind, I already know what this tree will become but it’s interesting to know what ya’ll think.

The post Bonsai Repotting Adventures appeared first on Graham Potter | Kaizen Bonsai Blog.

Two Half Heads are Better Than One!

Creating bonsai takes a really long time. It also takes a long time to figure out exactly how to do it so if you are starting out TODAY assume it will take twenty years to figure out the basics, and that assumes you are busy and not applying yourself in a ‘working from home‘, civil service, tired hands kind of a way.

Having been hammering away at bonsai now for the better part of forty years I might be so bold as to say I figured this all out a while back. I often say it takes ten years to figure out which end goes into the soil. Now that’s not strictly true in a Trumpian kind of a way, it’s not to be taken literally, it’s a figure of speech which illustrates that even after a decade in the saddle one can still be susceptible to chafing. That’s another figure of speech isn’t it but illustrates my point I hope.

Sadly todays society has, by and large, lost the appreciation of things that take time unless that time can be charged for of course. A bottle of Private Collection Glenlivet 1949 74 Year Old will set you back about £35,000 whilst a bottle of Whyte & Mackay Blended Scotch Whisky from Asda comes in at a very reasonable £17.00. I don’t drink Scotch but i know folk who do and they would be very keen to point out the difference of which I would be largely oblivious.

The basics of these two bottles are much the same (a distilled spirit) but the fact is one got left in the shed for a really long time and to a connoisseur who is blessed with a sensitive palate the difference is night and day and quite possibly worth every penny. The single malt had time to develop it’s special unique character alone whilst the blended one was engineered to taste a certain way and always the same way. Long ago I worked as a printer when the use of chemicals was acceptable workplace behaviour and I burned away whatever sensitive tissues I had in my head, my nose has not really worked since and so my ability to taste at all is minimal and as a result I have literally ZERO appreciation of these fine things.

For sure I wouldn’t drink that cheap blended s**t. On the very rare occasion I have Scotch in the house it’s going to be a 15 year old Glenlivet (donations gladly accepted). To be honest my preference is for a single barrel Jack Daniels, donations of which, again, I would be very glad to receive. Leave that blended stuff to the kids getting hammered on a Friday night.

So in this respect I feel I am like a lot of bonsai folk I encounter in daily life. I appreciate, at some level, the difference between good and bad, i know the basics but beyond that i literally know nothing and have no comprehension of the finer points. What I call a good whisky is unlikely to ever touch the lips of a true aficionado who might well look down on my choice as ‘window cleaner’ or some such.

After a lifetime spent immersed in something so deeply and so fanatically it’s impossible not to develop one’s palate and appreciation but it’s far from guaranteed. I know lovely folk that have spent twenty years travelling the world, attending every top bonsai exhibition year after year who see the very best our world has to offer and getting to know all the right people but don’t have a worthy bonsai to their name or a single clue how to make one.

I guess that’s like racing drivers, you don’t have to know how to engineer a car to drive one. If you want to be at the top of the game there’s a lot you need to know about how your machine works, why it does what it does or not. That way you can relay information back to the man that actually knows how it works so he can make it better for you. That’s why racing cars are largely managed and supported by a team. It brings all the best elements together that can never be embodied by a single person and the net result is better.

Seems to me many folk have money, opportunity or both and so have these nice things but can lack the apparatus to genuinely understand and appreciate their true value whilst a lowly person lacking in means but with highly developed senses, acquired through long application looks on in horror at the flagrant waste of true value and lack of appreciation and understanding beyond some notion of smug pride, that ‘look at what i’ve got’ nose in the air notion. Remember Stanley and Pammy……

These days I don’t tend to leave home, i did an insane amount of windscreen time back in the day and unless i am on two wheels I tend to avoid all travelling and stay off the roads. I don’t drag my trees all over the place showing them off and I’m very particular who I let visit my garden. I have no interest in impressing anyone with my work until I myself am impressed and trust me I am very far from that level so I continue to work hard and carefully to improve my results every single day and if I get the time perhaps one day i just might make a good bonsai in much the same way a blind squirrel might find a nut.

Going back to my analogy of a motor racing team it has always struck me that working together is best. However finding someone I can work with has not been easy. Most bonsai folk, certainly those I might choose to work with are a very long way from me. Just nipping over to Milan to work with Salvatore or Marco is not entirely practical. I’m also what one might call a ‘rummun‘. Hard to get along with, opinionated, largely oblivious to the feelings of others and determined to do it my way. Finding anyone to work with therefore was always going to be a challenge but lucky for me I know a guy….

Thankfully that guy lives not too far away, about 40 minutes on a well sorted Shovelhead. On paper Kevin Willson and I should not get on, we should fight like a cat and a dog but somehow, after 25 years, turns out we can actually work together fairly well. Mutual respect goes a long way and as they say ‘two heads are better than one’. Considering our advanced age and history of ‘substance abuse‘ I might say that two ‘half heads‘ make one properly functioning one but that might be unfair on my buddy. Whatever, between us we can knock up a half decent tree when we combine our skills despite our differing ideas on how that actually happens.

I guess we all have bonsai trees that have spent decades on our benches. Some become special to us whilst some are just bulk in our collection. This scots pine was one such for me. It came here from Norway perhaps fifteen years ago. Surprisingly it survived and I even styled it and made a video of the process though that was never released. Ultimately I got bored with it. I tried to sell without success and in time it started to suffer a little from neglect. I just could not bring myself to love it and having spent so long looking at it, as it was, I had absolutely NO inspiration to do anything with it at all.

Sound familiar? You got one on your bench?

Nowadays I stopped selling trees like we did at one time and am just rediscovering my love of bonsai work. I really don’t want anything in my garden that’s not special. So this pine stuck in my craw, can’t sell it, too much heart to dump it and no inspiration to reinvent it. As they say I could not see the wood for the trees. So what to do?

I’m a firm believer in letting folk do what they are good at. I don’t do any book keeping, banking or accounting because I have absolutely no head for numbers, absolutely NO clue whatsoever so I leave that stuff to professionals as I do web site stuff and lots of other things. Now when it comes to reinventing a bonsai tree there is only ONE place to be and that’s 40 minutes up the Norfolk coast and so it was I dropped this pine off on my unsuspecting mate last autumn.

I can’t imagine anything worse than having to create a bonsai tree from another artists work for that very same artist. Especially when you know it’s all going to end up online for the world to see in glorious Technicolour. That’s pressure right there but thankfully my raffish mate has a cast iron work ethic, a thick skin and’s not really that bothered what the hell I think. But then I did tell him to do whatever he wanted with my long suffering scotty.

As anyone who has had a tree worked by Kev’ will know, chances are when you get it back it’ll be tipped up on it’s side. No1 item on the agenda is finding the best trunk line and inclination. After that it’s just the technicalities of how to get the branches in the right place and with a good trunk line that’s usually pretty easy. But, this tree has a problem, one I failed to deal with decades ago and now I have no choice but to bite the bullet.

Now when I first got this tree it was recently collected and I vaguely remember it was a planted in a long thin wooden box that was about a foot square and four feet long. It had been growing in a crack and had a long V shaped rootball with a good couple of feet folded back on itself. The growth was pretty much non existent. Come August Rammon helped me get it out of the box with the intention of sorting out the roots but that long hard V shaped root ‘ball’ was rock solid and mostly composed of wood in the form of big thick roots. The only live root ends I could find were insufficient to fill a teaspoon. I was entirely disgusted with the whole affair and intended dropping it in the bin but Rammon was insistent we give it a chance and so we broke up the rootball as best we could, cut away a load of dead suff, shortened it all as much as seemed safe and stuck it in a plastic pot with all that ugly wood just squeezed into the rectangular pot corner to corner. Miraculously it survived obvs.

So, as soon as I got the restyled tree back for Kevin my heart sank because I could see there was no chance of potting it at the appropriate inclination. Come last weekend and with buds extending i decided to bite the bullet. I would not normally repot a newly styled tree and I certainly would not recommend it but over the years I learned a few things that make a difference and create possibilities where there was none. Sometimes we just have to pull on the big boy pants and step up. Back in the day I would have done this without thinking but nowadays I don’t kill trees because I learned the finer points and have ‘developed my palate’ somewhat.

In conclusion working together, with someone of weight and experience really is the only way to create special bonsai trees worthy of the title. However finding that person’s not easy and if you are lucky and find one in you life hang onto them for all you are worth. Just last week my one and only bike riding mate of fairly recent acquaintance dropped dead on the way to a football match. Never even made it into an ambulance and I am totally heartbroken to have lost such a lovely positive and special friend.

Keep it real folks! Who knows what is just around the corner.

The post Two Half Heads are Better Than One! appeared first on Graham Potter | Kaizen Bonsai Blog.

Open Your Eyes!

My job has, over the years, developed into something more of a lifestyle than just being what I do to pay the bills. Part of that job these days entails putting myself into the public domain. For a socially retarded carrot cruncher from deepest Norfolk with a bit of an attitude and an old school opinion on everything that’s definitely not a comfortable place to be. I get a lot of emails and telephone calls asking for advice on the cultivation of bonsai and many of those leave me dazed, confused, baffled and even angry. The level of ignorance often leaves me shouting at my screen though I do my utmost to help where I can.

“Open your eyes!“

Professionals everywhere, it appears, are often exasperated at the ignorance of their customers. I spend most Saturday afternoons loitering around my mates motorcycle workshop where the endless topic of conversation revolves around events of the proceeding week including great long and detailed recounting of, to us, hilarious tales of ignorance and stupidity. Sadly these days few folk understand the intricate workings of a motorcycle and as a result endanger themselves and those around them. When they come into the workshop for help my very experienced mate can tell instantly wether he is dealing with an experienced and knowledgeable rider bestowed with mechanical integrity or a total numpty. He and I both have an intolerance of fools.

Now before you go off on one let me say, we were all ignorant once and that’s okay. When I was little I wore nappies because I didn’t have sense not to crap myself. However in time I learned what to do, jettisoned the plastic pants and so these days I rarely crap myself. There’s no shame in ignorance, but to remain ignorant is largely unforgivable. These days there’s absolutely no reason to be in ignorance regarding much of anything at all. The internet places almost the entire canon of human knowledge and experience at our finger tips so how can anyone be in the dark about anything?

Of course the issue, as I have said many times before, is that we allow literally any WAF* to publish stuff online. Nobody has to prove their qualification, experience or understanding on a subject before they go posting their two penn’orth. Allow me the bandwidth to recount a tale I read once on a Jaguar (car) forum. The guy concerned had purchased a repossessed Jaguar from an auction. However he could not get it to run in anything other that limp home mode. This was a nice car in good nick, not an old beater. Having tried the obvious he started posting questions online and a whole host of what turned out to be WAF chipped in with their opinions.

This was, as much as it does not sound it, a fascinating example of my point and I sat here and read pages and pages of posts. Over time and at the behest of many armchair mechanics the guy started spending money on things like plugs, coil packs, sensors, fuel pumps, filters and an array of ‘black boxes’. This being a V8 there were a lot of parts and soon the bill reached several thousand pounds. Because nothing worked folk then started to question the quality of his replacement parts. After a year (yes seriously) he still had a limp home Jag’. Eventually he took it to the authorised Jaguar dealership in trepidation, expecting a bowel loosening bill at the end. An hour later the dealer called him and said it was all fixed. The bill was under a hundred quid. Simple fix, a new transponder in the key just needed matching to the cars security system. A moments job with a laptop. Because the car had been repossessed the bailiffs had towed the car without keys, they got new ones but never programmed the car to recognise them.

This illustrates the importance of two things……

1. Ask the right questions. (Spare us you opinions)

2. Ask the right people. ( Sizzle or sausage?)

Of course in our relative ignorance of a situation it’s not easy to hit these points. A little knowledge informs us that perhaps things just ain’t right but who to ask? Is a self proclaimed expert really an expert or just someone who talks a lot? Go into my mates bike shop and ask the wrong question and he might throw you out the door on your ear. A few weeks back a youngster came in on his little 125 and asked for a new tyre. When asked what size he said “ I don’t know, you got a tape measure, I’ll go measure it.” He got chucked out right there, no tyre and no explanation. That just proves ‘the customer’s always right‘ to be a crock of shite. My own approach to customer service and education is perhaps a little more generous…. sometimes.

Trying to keep your end up. Sounding smart, intelligent, informed, knowledgeable or experienced in front of a genuine expert is a fools errand and best avoided. My own approach is always to plead ignorance and ask for help. I then listen hard, accept and act accordingly. In many things I have a little experience but with the exception of bonsai and motorcycles i’m no expert, and even then I have more to learn than I currently know. In general experts are happy to share what they know when approached with respect. However phone a guy at 10pm when he’s half cut and start spouting off about what you know and who you know and how brilliant you are or waste an hour of a guys time right when he’s insanely busy and you can justifiably expect a metaphorical bleeding earhole.

I could go on about this ALL day. These things ARE important but sadly ‘social’ media has given a lot of folk a sense of entitlement when approaching knowledgeable folk. Seeing as it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours relentless practice to master even a simple discipline we should respect folk who have put in the hours and be very grateful for any help. Keep questions short and to the point, refrain from trying to ingratiate oneself into favour and listen to the answer. Then offer sincere thanks, be polite and finally offer to send lots of free money. Experts have spent a lot of their lives learning through great effort and sacrifice and it’s the height of disrespect to simply expect to receive the benefit of their hard earned wisdom just because you feel entitled and that’s all I have to say about that.

So in relation to helping folk ask the right question of their chosen expert, and this relates to most things……

Open Your Eyes!

Let me offer the following example. It’s early spring and today is sunny and warm, the first day of the year to be so. Walking amongst my trees at first light today I noticed something about all the scots pines (pinus sylvestris). Some are still asleep, some are waking up and some are romping away. Thankfully none are dead! So why are the trees all at different stages considering they are all outside in the same yard? Overall the answer is VIGOUR. A strong tree will be raring to go in spring and with all it’s ducks in a row will begin growth early but the old tired sad sack of a tree that’s been neglected or abused will not.

My advice has always been do not go to the internet for answers before you Open Your Eyes! See what you are looking at and think it through. For this you need some peace and quiet both externally and internally. That’s why I was outside at 5am and that’s why I smoke stogies. Some significant skills lacking in a few folk I speak to are focus and an ability to shut up. Put simply there is just too much noise out there. To make great bonsai we need focus, focus, focus, quiet, quiet and more quiet. A lot of the time we instinctively know the answers we seek but learning to extricate what we need is, yet again, something we have to learn by working at it.

So here are a series of photographs, all taken this morning, of scots pines in my garden. I have put a few notes alongside each to explain what’s to see. Notice these go from absolutely no movement whatsoever to displaying significant early season growth.

Enjoy!

Further hints and tips on pine cultivation……

* WAF – Wind assisted f***wit

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Great British Bonsai

Over the last few years I have been buying up a lot of bonsai collections. As a result I have obtained some previously unknown or unseen Great British Bonsai. Typically when that happens I buy everything, we buy live trees, a few dead ones, the benches, old pots, tools, books lock stock the f***** lot. This makes folk very happy to know that what is often decades of their hard work is assured a good future. I don’t sell these trees to just anyone, in fact I mostly don’t sell them at all. It’s sad when we have to part with our trees but that’s life, in the end we leave it all behind.

Sometimes folk have left it a bit too long and some of the trees can be in less than perfect condition, sadly on occasions they are hanging by a thread. These days I spend a great deal of my time restoring and rehabilitating these old soldiers. I have always said that in order to produce significant bonsai long term one must be a gardener first and foremost. You’ll never show if you can’t grow. It’s impossible to create a bonsai tree from a plant that is not growing vigorously no matter how skilful one might be with the wire. Thankfully over the last 40 odd years I have honed my gardening skills somewhat. Within the constraints of the British climate I can grow most anything these days.

The great thing about collections is the discovery of interesting and unusual varieties and bonsai that sometimes have an interesting or long history. I have some very odd plants in my garden and even though they may not be classical beauties I love them. Often the original owners don’t know what they are. 2022 I bought what I was told (and thought) was a massive cascade juniper with strange coarse foliage. This had been in the hands of a gentleman since the 1970s. Nobody who visited could place it but just last week, after it had been here a couple of years I suddenly realised it was cupressus, as in a variety of Italian cypress. Sometimes I’m really slow.

Not all collections are tired, some are simply amazing. I recently acquired a pair of absolutely stunning Japanese larch, collected in the highlands over 40 years ago along with some old collected Scottys. Most of you hopefully saw the old twin trunk larch growing out of a rock I potted recently and there are a whole host of other amazing old bits here that hopefully I can introduce ya’ll to as time goes on.

Unlike some parts of the world, bonsai is a fairly recent introduction to our country. Bonsai may pop up around the periphery of British history prior to the 1970s but these were little more than glimpses of oriental culture and curiosity. Back when I started bonsai there were a few books and Colin Lewis had not long since begun publishing Bonsai Magazine here. A far cry from today indeed. There were few professional bonsai artists working in GB back then and a bonsai show was typically a niche event hosted by a fledgling bonsai club within the confines of a larger horticultural event….with very limited exceptions.

Let me interject with something i’m pretty sure I have recounted here before about Mr Doubleday. He was the first person that I met in the bonsai world and inspired me to take up my life’s work. A third generation nurseryman who produced roses from his little nursery on Walnut Hill, deepest Norfolk. He lived in a caravan without electricity, wore tweed, a brown felt hat and hobnail boots and had hands like ancient gnarled branches. His father had seen bonsai in the far east during the war and decades lated Mr D was still practicing the art. Andrew had trees he and his father cultivated together from the end of the 1940’s. I still have a couple of those trees but I can be sure nobody but a couple of local old hacks and I might know him. Mr D would be well up in his nineties by now assuming he’s still about but a little of his work lives on here.

The Trees Apprentice

In my experience bonsai clubs typically frowned upon “check book bonsai”. My own local club banned showing any tree one had simply purchased. Hoping to encourage home grown talent though with limited learning opportunities i’m not sure how that was supposed to work. That’s all a little bit off IMHO.

As I have said many times, when buying a bonsai tree or raw material all one is doing is shortening the timeframe involved. Now if you buy something nice it’s not right to go and claim credit for the work that went into producing it but one can be happy with the pride of ownership. If after several years one has significantly improved your charge then a degree of credit can legitimately be claimed. I often wondered what my club hoped to do with those rules. In the end it largely discouraged good bonsai and ensured mediocrity and might go some way to explain how membership fell from 70/80 in the early 2000s to a typical attendance these days in single figures but I digress.

With very few notable exceptions there were few ‘names‘ producing great bonsai back in the day. In time some  trees did get here from Japan but mostly finding something special was akin to a blind squirrel looking for nuts, one had to get lucky. And so, we have very few trees from the dark ages* that one might perhaps call heritage bonsai or some such. In the past I have owned some famous bonsai like the yew that launched Kevin Willson’s bonsai career commonly known as ‘The Upright’, I also owned ‘The Bow’ and stupidly sold both. Now I am older I think differently but then I am not broke like I was back then which makes all the difference. I sold both these for practically no money because I failed to realise perhaps just what I had even though both were a little tired at the time.

So, whilst big names with big impressive trees were somewhat scarce in blighty back in the day there was an absolute army of enthusiasts and hobbyists alike scouring every corner to find good bonsai material. Thankfully some of those guys persevered over many decades and as it turned out, produced some pretty good, dare I say Great British Bonsai. Lucky SOB that I am a few are residing upon my benches as I sit here. Some need help but others are special and unique and need a little respect for being simply amazing even if they don’t conform to what some folk think a bonsai should be or look like.

It’s no secret I am a total car crash when it comes to dealing with people. My social skills are by and large non existent. Just a couple of days ago I took Catherine grocery shopping (first time in years) and got a right bollocking simply for getting something out of a chiller cabinet in the wrong (and inconsiderate) way. It’s a long story I would rather not go into. I am utterly hopeless, clueless and entirely feckless with absolutely NO understanding of how these things work. By and large I prefer my own company and work hard at avoiding social contact because I am so bad at it my head hurts. I don’t hate people I just don’t get how it all works and so usually end up with my foot in my mouth. I have tried very hard but Catherine says I ‘just don’t get it’. Apparently i’m too ‘task orientated‘ whatever that is.

So with other folk not exactly big on my radar I find it a little strange to be thinking about the people who’s work I now have entrusted to me. I have been thinking a lot about what little bonsai legacy we have in GB and how to both raise awareness and respect for the old bonsai we do have. Do we have a moral, social or ethical responsibility to keep the history of our trees and the memory of their creators in our sights? I am finding this new dimension to bonsai I never had before but is that just because i’m getting on a bit or getting soppy in my old age? Should we treat these old bonsai with deference and give respect to their former owners? Or perhaps we forget all that touchy feely crap and just bulldoze over our forbears in the interest of self-aggrandisement.

For once I don’t have an answer but, dear reader, I would like to know your CAREFULLY CONSIDERED thoughts.

I would also like to see any OLD (50 years +) Great British Bonsai trees you might have in your care and hear their stories. I would also be interested in the possibility of purchasing some of those trees if possible. Either way please email me stories and pictures to – [email protected].

By way of introduction to one of these old bonsai I have put together this little repotting video of a scots pine that came to reside here last summer. Grown from seed around the end of the late 1970’s I think this is going to be a special tree once I get it back on track. Here you can see the first step in that restoration/refinement process. My No1 rule is always roots first.

Looking forward to hearing everyone’s thought on Great British Bonsai

Enjoy.

Graham.

* By which I mean prior to the late 1970s.

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It’s Time To Relax a Little

Bonsai takes time and lots of it.

A great deal of water has passed under the bridge of life since I purchased my first bonsai, a serissa, to stand on the side of my little koi pond. On occasions I ruminate over all that time passed, about thirty five years I guess. The trees that came and went, the stupid ideas I grew out of, the bonsai I made, the trees I killed, the people I have met, journeys undertaken, the friends I made and some I have sadly lost. I have reached an age where I have more to look back upon than I have going forward. I have aged parents, grand-babies, everything is paid for and so I guess life is good so long as I focus on the positives which is hard for me.

I got a slow start in life. I remember my school teachers telling my parents ‘Graham is sharp as a whip but he just will not apply himself‘. Every school report noted ‘Can do better!’ ‘Must try harder‘ or some such. I unofficially left school at 15, I figured out how to register my attendance then bunk off for the remainder of the day. Nobody noticed I was missing. I just turned up for woodwork and test days, the rest of the time I was AWOL. Nobody at school, except my woodwork teacher, managed to get through to me exactly what i was doing there. I just could not see the point.

When I officially left school at 16 I had nothing to do and nowhere to go. I didn’t know how to get a job or even what jobs there were to do. I did a bit of part time (floor) cleaning at a store and spent my time (more than three years) applying to be a postie because it looked like an easy job to me. On my own, walking the streets, poking mail into doors, how hard can that be? They never even wrote me back….or maybe the letter got lost 😉

So, age 17 I spent my last £150 savings and put it into a part share of an old printing press. I spent a year learning to work the beast and the rest is history, I spent 21 years full time in the printing trade. Eventually that got in the way of my bonsai and so the stark choice was to stay put in a cushty job with decent pay and good security or launch myself into thin air. Against all advice and with every nerve screaming at me to stop I walked out of my job into nothing. Long story short, thanks to all the lovely people in the bonsai community I did not loose everything, we didn’t starve, we’re still here. Thank you all so much, my little family is eternally grateful.

Don’t…….DON’T, for a moment think it was easy. At times the pressure and stress was so great I thought I was going to have a stroke or something and I know about that having been hospitalised for life threatening problems related to work stress. At times I have been close to running my bike into a tree. Just living in GB today, trying to make a living makes me feel that way. But now I am older I find myself focusing more on what’s right than what’s wrong.

Sure there is a lot wrong in society today and as we get older that seems much more threatening than when we were younger but, on the other hand there’s a lot to be thankful for. My glass may well have been half empty for most of my time here but at least it wasn’t empty right?

I have written many times about the value of spending quiet time with our trees. Back in the day I would often be found out in my garden at 2am. Over the past few years I got out of that habit because basically all I was doing was stacking up trees to sell, over 1500 trees were going through my hands annually and everything was for sale. Eventually I just lost my way in it all. Today, thankfully, things have changed for the better. I now no longer sell trees, or at least not many and thanks to the efforts of my close friends, not least of all Kevin W I am back doing bonsai and rediscovering what I lost.

These days I can be found out in my garden at first light, expresso in one hand and a small cigar in the other just looking, listening and feeling. The peace and quiet can be magical, nature is so expressive and engrossing if we can shut up long enough to hear. I’m sure this is news to no one but the things I am seeing and hearing are simply amazing. I have been insanely busy 24/7 for so many years but now I begin to realise a great deal of that pressure was self inflicted. Don’t worry, i’m not about to do something daft like take a vacation, after all everything I want in the world is right here at home but I do see a chance to stop and smell the roses.

This very (cold) morning I was outside at 5am accoutrement in hand and noticed this monster elm. I bought this in Southern Italy back in 2018. Back then it was in a massive tub nearly four feet wide. The previous owner had roughed it out and it arrived in my garden as can be seen in the image below.

Thankfully I never offered it for sale. Since then all I did was sort out the roots and pot it. Each summer I run over it with scissors a couple of times. My intention being to create enough material to justify a winter styling session. Largely I just ignore the old thing but maybe that’s not so bad right?

My regular readers will be aware I have been gathering up a lot of very old British bonsai over the last year or so. Doing so has significantly changed my mind about a great deal of the ‘bonsai’ I was doing. Having so many trees that have been bonsai for many decades, many of which were created in ways different to those we take for granted today has left me questioning a lot of the things we “do“.

I have a very exacting standard and a high bar for what I personally consider to be ‘bonsai’. However, recently I have begun to realise the magic we seek is something that comes from a mixture of nature and time rather than just our skill, we need both on our side. For many years I have been of the opinion that a lot of bonsai we do should in fact not be ‘done‘ at all. I’m now beginning to realise we have to find the balance between making bonsai and letting ‘bonsai’ happen. This elm is a great illustration of that principle. Very often trees that are just left alone with the minimum of interference can develop into very special bonsai trees.

In the early days I was led to believe we could ‘age‘ a tree but that’s utter bollocks. Time ages a tree and on occasions something very special and unexpected can turn up seemingly by magic.

Going back to my more recent posts here, our particular lack of bonsai heritage and old British bonsai trees can’t help. For a start finding an old tree that’s been left to the passage of time is hard, most are either beyond help or deceased. The big issue is achieving the balance between doing enough to keep a tree happy and healthy but not doing so much that we spoil the enchantment passing time has left. Time can give bonsai a cloak of magic that we simply cannot make but we sure as hell can wreck.

This big old elm is very far from what I had intended to do and it’s far from being bonsai but I thought it was a good example of what can happen with the minimal amount of interference from me. It appears we often put too much pressure on ourselves for a multitude of reasons. Pressure can be a good thing but just as easily it can be destructive. I have put immense pressure on myself, my family and my bonsai for far too long to the detriment of all. Time to live life at a trees pace not our own, after all a decade to a tree is nothing.

Sadly that seems to be the story of our time and we are all the worse for it. Do more, get more, be more, go further, take it to the next level etc’ be dammed! I can’t believe I am saying this but perhaps it’s time to relax a little, take the pressure off and give our trees a break. You never know they just might teach us all something valuable right?

Graham.

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Juniper Pruning Video Available Now

Apologies for the recent silence but I have been working on this Juniper pruning video for weeks now. But then the weather here has been atrocious and going outside has been largely unadvisable so it all worked out.

This beautiful juniper came to live earlier in the year. A tree with history created by Harry Nicholl who might be a name familiar to those who were around bonsai back in the nineties or those living north of the border.

Harry’s juniper was not exactly like anything I have had before and so a slightly different approach was called for. I was very keen to only enhance what the trees creator had passed to me because I respect his 30 or 40 odd years of effort and work.

With a tree like this there can be a tendency to rubbish what was done before, storm in and turn the thing on it’s head, put one’s ‘stamp‘ on it or ‘take it to another level’ (God forbid). However doing that is not about the bonsai, that’s all about folk trying to look good or earn.

I know that in general folk believe science and technology will save us and provide the progress our species so desperately needs. How’s that going? Personally i tend to think most of the answers we need are not in the future but in the past. I include bonsai within that, most of what we need to know is to be found behind us. That’s not to say we shouldn’t keep our noses firmly pressed against the windscreen (windshield) of progress, I just think we should spend a greater proportion of our time learning and mastering the basics and paying respect to those who came before prior to blasting off all over the place like some ‘Johnny come lately’. I may have been guilty of that in the past, please forgive me!

There is all the difference in the world between knowing ‘about’ something and actually knowing that thing as an instinctive part of our being. For example, after 45 years riding motorcycles I can accomplish some pretty amazing feats on two wheels*. However were I to square up to a master like Guy Martin I would appear to be a complete and utter fool.

I like to keep in mind those who came before, who mastered skills and aced life. Knowing what they know, what do they think of me or what i’m doing?

I have grandkids now and they seem kind of dumb sometimes but when you are 1 or 4 what do you know? It’s for old scrotes like me to clear the way, support, protect and make their growing up and learning the best it can possibly be. I know they will think grandads a dumbass with all his silly little trees but long after I am gone and they are my age those memories of playing amongst the trees or mixing soil in the greenhouse will be absolute gold to them just as the memories of my own grandparents are to me now.

There are some very skilled people in British bonsai, they may not be all over social media or travelling the world but many have a deep understanding of bonsai that can only be gained by decades of experience. Most youngsters cannot possibly hope to know what us old buggers do, simply because we have put in the hours and lived the years. Like we had any choice…….

Let’s make things a little better by paying our respects to those who laid the path for us when we were young and dumb!

G.

* Relative to being an ageing old fart.

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Graham Potter’s Big Weekend.

First up let me apologise for the lack of posts recently. Summer’s a funny time here for many reasons and this one has been unusually funny (not) for all the wrong reasons. My trees started off the year raring to go and by end of February buds were breaking left and right. Then by the time we got to May (which is our most significant period of activity in the growing of bonsai here on the east coast) the temperatures were colder than February and we didn’t see blue sky for weeks whilst enduring biting northeasterly winds right off the cold North sea that tore the skin off anything daft enough to assume it was actually time to start growing. It was actually mid-June before we experienced a warm day here…..honestly.

In 35+ years of growing bonsai this summer has been the absolute worst I can remember. I have a big magnolia outside my window and it flowers faithfully every April. This year the wind tore it to shreds and now here we are in September and it’s covered in flowers. The wisteria growing up the back garden wall flowered in August whilst Satsuki azaleas were flowering in April. The last month has been alternatively hot with vicious drying winds one day and cold the next and no rain for weeks. Catherine had the heating on at the beginning of the month.

As a result all my carefully laid plans for the season have gone to shit…. much like the rest of the country but don’t get me started on that. However some trees have responded very positively to low temperatures and very little sun. I have rarely seen so much growth on my junipers. Larch also have been simply outstanding. Most high mountain species have been really good, maples have been average but most others have been lacklustre at best. It’s been necessary to change a lot of the care regimen we use for our bonsai this year in order to help the struggling pants do what little they could.

I am often asked what’s my favourite species for bonsai? That’s an easy one….. scots pine. Were I limited to one species or one tree that’s what it would be. Nothing in life is more reliable than a scots pine and if that’s all that were in my collection I would still be a happy man.

Regular visitors here will remember the little pine I worked with Kevin Willson last year. In case you missed it see….

Graham & Kevin Willson’s First Bonsai Creation Collaboration

We worked this old scots last October for the first time. Apart from my TLC and a serious re-pot in 2019 nothing was done in a styling context. It’s my conviction that success in bonsai is all about patient preparation and here is the proof.

A Bonsai Wrestling Match

This coming weekend I have been asked by Peter Chan to exhibit a tree at Herons Bonsai. Something of a milestone for me as I remember visiting Peter’s nursery the thick end of 40 years ago as a spotty clueless youth with my pockets turned out. To be asked to join a stellar cast of other talented bonsai folk from around the UK in presenting a few decent trees for me is a bit special.

I was invited to Herons last year. I knew I had arrived when at 2am after a long evening of excess I was to be found in the kitchen of Peter’s guest house drinking strong coffee whilst Kevin made hot buttered toast for us both. Funny the things that you remember!

So I am not too sure what’s going on this weekend but I will be there with me ol’ scots. I’m sure if you contact Herons they will fill you in with the details. Kevin and I got together and gave the tree a little polish recently and I have to say, despite the weather and some ham fisted work on my part the tree is looking pretty good, especially considering this is ‘first work’. It’s entirely likely this tree is several hundred years old but has the strength and vigour of a seedling. If only I could say the same! Now, where’s my Hawaiian shirt 🙂

G.

 

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The Summer That Was (not) & Upcoming Bonsai Projects

It NEVER ceases to amaze me how you lovely folk are (generally) so impressed with with my silly little blog. I was humbled during my recent visit to Peter Chan’s to receive so many comments on how my dear readers just love to peruse my ranting bullshit.

This all started about 1998/9 when I took on the newsletter at our local bonsai club. Back then I didn’t know shit about shit as far as bonsai was concerned but, having got my little Bondi blue Imac hooked up to the interweb via a telephone modem I figured I could do my research and compile enough, what we now call ‘content’ to fill a page or two every month.

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Another Bonsai Video!

As it happens I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting on three imports. We’ve goods coming from Japan, China and Eu and so I have had opportunity to complete yet ANOTHER bonsai video.

 

Just before you go off to see that let me get this off my plate….

Trigger warning! Don’t read the following if you are a Trigger, you may be offended. My apologies to any RM or PF employees.

For one reason or another these imports are all being delayed, nothing ever seems to happen on schedule any more. For instance….  Just getting a parcel delivered by……so called PARCELFORCE (always sounds like the name of some shit superhero to me) is a task.

Just last week I had to take a half day out and do a fifty mile round trip to pick up a parcel they were incapable of delivering. Just to make matters worse I also got a flat tyre which cost me a ton to replace. I couldn’t park within a half mile either. When I eventually got to the counter the guy glibly threw my way “You could have done this online you know, would have saved a trip.”🤬

Just to fill in the blanks Catherine (she’s expert at this stuff) had, to that point, spent more than 12 business hours trying to resolve their incompetence. Businesses charge clerical work at £30-40 an hour so that sucks. I then lost a whole morning and aforesaid tyre alongside another score for diesel. I won’t tell you what I said to the meathead behind the counter. To be fair I think I woke him from a nap.

Now I remember (as I understand it) when so called “Parcelforce” didn’t exist, we used to call it Royal Mail* before some bright spark decided to split the parcels operation from letter post (1986). No doubt there were some handsome rewards for the creation of this new wonder of the modern age. However, following a spectacular ‘oversight’ someone failed to consider falling mail volumes and how the world was changing. That and some other factors led to Royal Mail letters division basically going broke because their remit is almost impossible to fulfil profitably without the parcels business, especially as bulk trunking services were also contracted out to third parties leaving the poor old RM with the so called ‘last mile‘. What we might colloquially call the shitty end of the stick.

Again as I understand it the gov’ has a legal obligation to ensure a daily postal service to every home. However they don’t want to pay for it but the money we pay barely covers operating costs (which of course are too way to high). The business had it’s hands tied by that same gov’ because people like the idea of cheap stamps leaving the RM incapable of controlling either it’s charges or to some degree it’s costs. And so the two are now merging again, as it turns out, with typical British incompetence.

Parcels are profitable, letters are not so here’s an idea…..why don’t Royal Mail do both…………………………………… as they used to. Like my mum used to say ‘Put it back where you found it!‘ The whole story stinks to high heaven IMHO.

The reason my parcels (there are 30 of them in total) vanished is because both companies are using different systems which do not communicate, nor do the people and there is no person to person contact in the system and nobody to call or mail. Catherine spent FOUR hours on hold calling these f***wits only to be told you can “do this online” WHICH YOU FUCKING WELL CAN’T!

Add to that customs randomly taking items out of the system for weeks at a time and failing to make contact. The whole system then seems to rely upon a little card dropping through our door. There was one for each box, only about 7 turned up, the rest were either never sent or lost. If the parcels were not claimed they are dumped (i’ve over a grand in each parcel). So far i am £980 out of pocket (we’re not finished yet) directly and then I have to add all of my own costs. Thankfully Catherine is brilliant, she knows how to get this shit done even if the folk doing it don’t.

The above account is accurate for my part, my knowledge of the actual events historical and otherwise is limited. Pissy comments will be ignored. I am quite simply beyond giving a Scheiße any more. Thank you for hearing me out lovely readers.

Now, i’m off to lay in a quite dark place. Enjoy the movie 😄

Graham.

*1516: Sir Brian Tuke is appointed the first Master of the Posts by Henry VIII, establishing the initial postal system for royal use. 1784: The name “Royal Mail” is officially given to the service during a period of increased use of mail coaches across the country. 

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As we round out another year i’m sitting here in the gloaming of a late December afternoon staring at an empty text box and a flashing cursor. At this precise moment I have nothing to say though, i doubt that will last long. A little Rambling Flummery & Tidings of Comfort and Joy are therefore in order.

My last post in October was, for me, quite a positive one which many folk seem to appreciate. Following the year I have had it’s best I keep it that way, focus on the positives because the negative side of the scale is getting a little heavy of late.

I could easily ‘loose my shit’ over what’s going on in the world but I have come to the realisation that does me no good at all. I can easily rant and rave until I pass out, Kev’ and I regularly do just that over an afternoon phone call. It’s that old idiom, we’re just ‘blowing off steam’ which Google defines as…

“blowing off steam”  is a common idiom meaning to release strong emotions like anger or frustration, often through physical activity or energetic expression, preventing them from building up to an explosion, much like steam from a boiler. 

I have had a few of those moments this last year, times when I felt like doing a Mr Creosote. Running a small business is no longer the wonderful enjoyable and rewarding task it once was. It seems we are being assaulted on every front. Tasks that were once very simple have become tortuous, fiendishly complicated and invariably expensive. There have been moments this year when I have literally banged my head on the desk and cried in frustration.

From the day I was born my old dad instilled in me the importance of being honest, polite and above all else conscientious. For me, doing the best I can is more important than any profit, gain or acknowledgement. Doing the best I can at whatever I turn my hand to is more important to me than breathing. I am not remotely interested in being the best, having the best or the most. I have never given a thought to being the most popular or involved. The world of clicks, likes and subscribers fills me with abject horror. I was born into a world where folk kept themselves to themselves and as my lovely long gone Nan always said ‘mind your own business‘. She would be horrified to see me putting this drivel out there for some of the world to read. I don’t like it one bit either but here we are.

Way back when I started to uncover the world of bonsai and realise what was involved I made the conscious decision to do the best work I could. I have not had the opportunities some folk might have but all I really want to do is MY best and only I know when that’s happened. When it has I will probably vanish without warning. However, that’s unlikely to happen any time soon looking at some of the shite I turned out this year.

One of the very important things I learned about bonsai right at the outset was the importance of good, appropriate and skilled work. Good work consistently applied over a lifetime is what makes great bonsai. Walking around a top European exhibition back in the late 1990s with the great David Prescott I learned the difference between those big flashy impressive and popular bonsai that always steal the show and those oft’ over looked quiet little wonders produced by dedicated virtually unknown masters of our art. Even if we only have the most simple and basic materials to work with the patient, precise and skilled application of good technique over extended periods of time will always produce a tree of superior quality. Artistic merit is another thing altogether but that’s for another day.

Even though I have been guilty of putting it out there myself this modern need to dramatically transform the most unlikely scruffy and impossible material into an exhibition bonsai in an afternoon is little more than ‘Pub bonsai’. A bit of a lark, a bit of showboating and a lot of ego are the primary requirements and the result is largely entertainment. It’s better than it used to be thankfully and it is a buzz but as I have always said, the end of a demo’ is just the beginning.

My old mate Blacky always said “bullshit baffles brains”. I doubt that was original with him but wherever it originated, it’s still largely true. Folk look, but many do not see. ‘Pearls before swine’ was the summation of a demonstration I heard recently. We try so hard to give away our knowledge but so often I would say it just goes in one ear and out the other. Understanding how to apply the correct technique, combine different techniques and time that all correctly whilst adjusting for factors like weather and doing it with a flexible ten year plan consistently is all that’s required to turn the most mundane plant into a a notable bonsai tree. Falling asleep in the front row will NOT get you there, trust me!

Those of us with too many decades of bonsai under our belt have the privilege of being able to see more clearly. I am SOOOO glad social media was not available to me back when I was a feckless know all, cocky little shit. I have a massive box full of paper photographs of so much of my early work. I was so impressed with myself back then when everything was new. The good part about that is YOU will never get to see any of it. I feel for folk in that position today, knowing a bit (but not a lot) and having to put it all out there. I’m looking at it and quietly cringing. The internet has opened this all up for all to see and there are thankfully some incredibly talented individuals but for every one of those there seem to be about a million numpties posting roadkill and that’s all I have to say ’bout that.

Here at Kaizen Bonsai every year pretty much begins the same way. We take a couple weeks break for Christmas and new year because it’s the only time we ever get to not work. When we return in January there are literally hundreds of orders to get moving and by the time that’s done what we call soil season is upon us.

I’m not going to go into just how hard soil season is but we move literally tons’ of goods every single day until the end of April. There’s not a minute to take a breath. Thankfully each year it gets bigger but a lot harder. Reading it back that sounds bad but my point is we REALLY, REALLY appreciate and need your support. I desperately want to do the best job I can but that’s getting harder and harder thanks to outside interference but i’ll literally die before I stop working. Your orders make an old man and his ol’ lady very happy. You are keeping us both fit and active and I know for a fact Richard and Sarah appreciate the roof ya’ll put over their heads.

This year, right in the middle of the chaos of springtime I was, metaphorically speaking, hit by a truck. Entirely out of the blue and without a hint of warning I was faced with one of the hardest choices a modern man might face. My beautiful little dog of eight years suddenly and without warning lost his sight and a week later we had to have him put down. We got thoroughly rogered by thieving vets and so by the end of the week I had a massive hole in my pocket running to several thousand sheets and a dead dog in a cardboard box. Simply savage, brutal and an experience that has left me both heart broken and scarred. I normally shrug this stuff off, I seem to have suffered quite a few losses and setbacks of weight over the years but this one broke a part off me and threw it in the road. Even the arrival of little Baxter has not helped heal the wound. Guess i’ll just have to suck it up buttercup.

My summer went well all things being equal. The weather was good and the bikes were rolling, or at least some where. Often the weather was just too hot to be out riding but on those days I was busy watering anyway. Vintage Harley Davidson motorcycles (with the exception of a ’45’) are, at their very best, fragile and prone to sentimentality, delicate flowers. As a result one is now not working and needs tearing apart for the third time in five years and a couple others have been turned out into the cold world of commerce. However the net result was I got to buy a couple of stonking new rides but this is a bonsai blog so i’ll not get started on bikes.

At the end of August late one balmy afternoon and entirely unexpected we had rapidly darkening skies not unlike an eclipse before an absolute hooley blew through. Ten minutes later it was warm and sunny again whilst we stood there in three inches of water with icy hail floating in it wondering what the hell just happened.

Well, what happened was this little shit storm opened up the roof of my fabled poly-tunnel like one of those cheap shirts the Hulk always wore. An eighteen foot split right at the ridge. It was bound to happen but for a few years now I have been nursing an aging sheet attempting to squeeze every last day from it. I absolutely knew this was coming, i was dreading it but here I was staring at the sky where once there was a roof. Now this is important to me because the poly-tunnel is also my workshop. Having a workshop is much more important to me than having a telly, a phone or even a meal. In fact if I could live in a van and turn my house into a workshop i would, in a heartbeat but Catherine won’t have it and so I’m relegated to my tunnel.

As it happens I’m a bit lucky because I have four workshops. The garage is where bike work takes place, it’s got a lathe, compressors and chests of tools all suited to engineering work. I have a shed where dirty shitty work gets done. In there are welders, blast cleaning paraphernalia, fabrication equipment, pillar drills, chests of tools, paint spraying kit and a dozen little two stroke motors attached to all sorts of gardening kit (I have a big garden with lots of big hedges and trees). There’s another workshop for business where Richard and I (but mostly Richard) sort out all the stuff you order and finally there’s a bit of my poly-tunnel which gets used for everything from bonsai work to restoring/storing motorcycles, carpentry, painting and almost anything can happen in there. Most of the time it’s dry, well lit and spacious.

Way back in 2008 when I moved here I needed a workshop in a hurry, I had nothing else at the time. After just a few weeks my tunnel was in place. A massive task that required weeks of preparation and endless graft from my, then much fitter, hard working Dad and any other folk that happened to be nearby. Whilst the tunnel was constructed to last everything else was a bit rushed and temporary. My benches were cobbled together mostly out of piled up blocks topped with either old oak railway sleepers or decking.

As is the way with many small nursery businesses working long hard hours for small returns we just wore everything out and cluttered up the whole place, so fast forward seventeen years and i’m staring at the gaping harbinger of a massive task. I found a little crew who were going to come and refurbish the tunnel but there’s about a million tons of crap piled in their way. All my benches have sunk and there’s not a level pot in the place. It had been very embarrassing for a while and the only way to put it right was to completely rethink the whole place and start again.

Now I no longer need a producing nursery I decided to make a very practical and useful spot that would be nice to spend time in and also be very practical for how I work. I was also keen not be facing this dilemma again the next time I needed a new sheet so everything has been built around that consideration. Rather than spend five weeks breaking my back humping filthy heavy crap out the way, next time preparation for new cover day will take no more than a long afternoon. Also everything has been built properly even down to all stainless steel fasteners so stuff comes apart should I need it too.

If you do not have the pleasure of tunnel ownership it helps to understand the environment inside. A poly-tunnel is little more than a cold frame with bad ventilation. In summer the temperature can easily hit 60 Celcius (140f) and at other times it can freeze for days on end. The winter leaves a still and very damp atmosphere that will not fully dry out for about half the year. The temperature can easily swing 40 degrees in an hour. Materials that get used inside a poly-tunnel has a hard life. For instance a good few years ago I installed jigsaw style rubber flooring in the workshop. It’s now eight inches smaller than when I laid it.

Wood and metal do well in a tunnel environment but anything plastic will quickly fall apart. Wood must not be allowed to remain wet for long periods, warm summer temperatures can turn a tanalised deck board into sponge in eighteen months. So regarding choice of materials, experience has left me much wiser. By the time I was cleared away and the new sheet fitted I had so many piles of transient materials I looked like a bankrupt builders yard.

The project is still ongoing but I have posted some images below for anyone sad enough to be interested. I will be finished by spring which, seeing as I have done full days on this since September including weekends just goes to show I was either right to be concerned about what lay before me when that hole opened up or i’m just a fucking tired hands who needs to get his finger out.

My main run of benches sits right in front of my tunnel and it ALL had to be shifted. That included about half a ton of blocks and two dozen oak railway sleepers. Turns out these are impossible to get rid of these days so I used some of them to make a floor. The new benches are sitting on concrete foundations over 3′ into the ground, perfectly level and super easy to maintain and importantly…. move. I now understand why so many Japanese working nurseries use simple planks and plastic crates for benching. It might not be commensurate with some folks sense of bonsai aesthetics but it’s very practical. My tunnel sits on a hill and there’s just under a meter drop end to end. This time around I tried to incorporate that feature as best I could.

The reason for doing all this is because it’s high time I started seeing folk again. Since all that Covid malarkey I have been very happy to hide away on my own. To be honest that’s not been the best idea and so from next spring I will be getting busy with workshops again. I will be making more videos and hopefully be welcoming anyone who would like to visit what I can now, finally after too many years call my very OWN bonsai garden. In fact garden sounds a bit grand, it’s not Omiya but I have a big spacious garden with a shit load of old bonsai in it so i’m going with that. If at any time in the year you would like to visit just for the hell of it just get in touch. PLEASE DON’T JUST TURN UP!

Workshops are going to be a small personal affair. Whilst I am happy to do one to one sessions these will be a bit expensive. I will be hosting small groups of three or maybe four by mutual agreement. These will run from 10am to 6pm and be a mix of Friday and Saturday dates. If you would like to receive details and dates do get in touch. Drop me a line – [email protected]

One high point was the arrival of grand-baby number three. Little Elias was born in August, the first boy in my corner of the family since I came along way back when. Well done to Sarah who’s turned into a fantastic mum to her tribe. I’m told this is the last one. I’m fascinated to see how they are all going to cope as everyone gets bigger inside their tiny house. I’m mean that way 😉

So now you have the skinny on all that and so, in other news I have now finished listing our new shipment of Bonsai pots. There is another shipment arriving in January with by far the best high quality handmade pots I have ever been able to offer and I have new stock of a few old favourites still to come in. Have a good scroll through all those categories, we have a few absolute gems this year. I have also managed to get together a good range of very nice Extra Large Bonsai Pots Many of these are limited numbers so don’t hang about.

For next year we are now fully stocked with our whole range of soil products, fertiliser, wire and tools. In fact we have never held so much stock and thanks to a lot of grovelling and twisting arms most prices have remained stable. In fact most pots that we are restocking have actually seen a small drop in price thanks to some favourable exchange rates. Business continues to be intensely challenging entirely thanks to our atrocious ‘government’ attacking us in a way that, frankly, I never thought I would see. I’m not going into it all but if you run a little company or a strong side hustle you will know.

Be sure that as long as I draw breath Kaizen Bonsai will be here, fully stocked with everything you are likely to need direct from UK stock at fair prices which enable us to sustain our huge range of nearly 2000 items. If there’s something you need but don’t see just ask. If there are changes you think we should make drop us a line. Alternatively if it’s pissing and moaning that’s your thing be strong and suck it up buttercup!

Apologies for the lack of blog posts and other content this year. I have had a very tough few months since I lost my little Harley and with everything else going on I got into a very low place. A few visits to friends and some trips out to clubs and a couple of shows this year has lifted my demeanour no end. As always your continued support is absolutely invaluable, we feel so privileged to be supported by the bonsai community and for over 20 years now. God bless every one of you and we pray you have a happy Christmas followed by a safe, healthy and possibly even a prosperous new year.

Have a great Christmas everyone!

THANK YOU

Graham, Catherine, Richard, Sarah and the kids.

 

 

 

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