How Bonsai Works

For thousands of years people have been taking normal trees and forcing them into miniature. Learn all about the history and art of this strangely engrossing pastime.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know front House Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles W Chuck Bryant. I've decided to
talk about speed right now. Oh yeah, how's it going. Well?

(00:23):
You know there are some weirdos that listen to us
on double Speed. Well they just are like, hurry up
and get to the point. You're idiot, yea, because you know,
busy lives. They can't listen to forty minutes of contact straight.
It always it's funny to mean somebody tweets to us
or takes the time to write an email say like,
I love your your podcast, but I'm really displeased with

(00:44):
the tangents you go on. You seem to talk about
a lot of stuff that's unrelated. Can you stop doing that?
And um, I always think I don't think Seffy, you
should know this for you buddy. If you're if you're
being driven crazy by that, then well yeah, like we
would welcome you to stay. But the tangents are they're
part of the fabric of the show at this point.
There's the glue. Like it or not, I think the

(01:07):
whole thing would be decidedly less enjoyable if we were
just like vomiting facts, just business like, you know. Yeah,
or maybe after eight fifty shows, we should just completely
change how we do it. Yeah, there you go. That's
a great idea. Hey, before we get started, though, we
do want to thank Sam from gypsums Ma Lord. Oh yeah, yeah,

(01:29):
thank you. Sam. We mentioned the unique Liqueur Chicago brand
Liqueur on our PR show Live in Chicago because you
tried it like before the show. Yeah. Well, I've tried
it a few times and it's, uh, it's you know,
it's as John Hodgman said, it tastes like a pencil
shavings and heartbreak as his descriptor. But Sam heard us

(01:53):
talking about Crown Down Royal. It was like, wait a minute,
they talked about my Lord and I didn't send him
in anything. Yeah, attention all of their distillers in America
you can get in on this too. Yeah. If the
makers of Plymouth Gin or Leopold's Gin or Knob Creek
or Pappy Van Winkle St. George's, they're a great distillery

(02:15):
out of San Francisco. Yeah, Pappy van Winkle. Wow, we
that's the stuff that gets like hijacked and sold for
like dollars on the internet. So I'm just throwing it
out there. I'm picking it back up, bringing it back here,
throwing it again. We're happy to drink your booze and
talk about it at nauseam. Uh you know what else.

(02:35):
We're happy to talk about big boy bon yes, which
you I don't know if I was saying it wrong,
but right before we press record, you said it's not bonsai,
it's bonsai, and I was like, what's the It's not bonzai? Right?
That means heads up right right right? Bonsai? Right? Uh?

(02:57):
Is it basically means plant in tiny container? Yeah? Those
are the cute toy trees. Mr plastic It depends target
has some. They definitely have plastic ones. Yeah. If you
search BONDSA, it's one of the things that comes up immediately.
It's fake trees. I think it's called like nearly real

(03:18):
for nearly natural something like that, and uh, it does
not look nearly natural. It's like near beer. Do you
ever heard people called non alcoholic beer near beer. I
think it's kind of funny. I used to um, I
probably wouldn't tell his story. So with bonds, I, UM, chuck,
we're talking like you said the little toy trees, And yeah,

(03:39):
there's plenty of fake bonds I out there, but they're
just kind of it's the same thing as fake flowers.
You know. Well it sort of flies in the face
of what's special about bonsai, which is that it's a
living work of art. Right it does, And a lot
of people are like, well, that's just a weird, freakish
tree that you've been abusing for the last several decades.
Some people actually do criticize bonsai because it is Yeah,

(03:59):
it's it's like docking and dog's tail or. Um, it's
nothing like, but it depending on how you feel about plants,
it's it's the same thing. You're taking, it's something that's
natural and literally bending it to your will. So there's
an anti pruning movement going on around the world. Maybe
I don't know if I would go that far to
say it, but um, if you are invested in bonds Eye,

(04:21):
if you do appreciate bonds Eye, part of the whole
point of bonds Eye. As you are taking, you're creating
a tableau that is a a living depiction of nature
rather than a painting. You're creating a living version of
basically a painting well sculpture, living sculpture. Yeah, yeah, that's

(04:41):
even better, Like you can make it out of sculpe clay.
You could, but then you've you've totally missed the point
of bonding. Well they'd be fun too, but but it's
something different, right, So, um, we're going to talk about
how to how to bonds? Ie, I have to say, um,
is that a verb as well? It is? Now we're

(05:02):
gonna Jerry's is cracking up this episode? She's she's reading, Uh, oh,
what is the guy from Crack's name? Alfredy Newman's like
kind of oh yeah, he had like this yeah counterpart.
Yeah is that still around because they're sort of a
different thing than they. Yeah. Yeah, there's this great story

(05:24):
behind Cracked, Like Cracked was around for you know, decades,
and it just got less of languish. And I guess
some fan came along and was like, hey, I noticed,
like you're basically just waiting around for Crack to die.
Can I have a stab at it? Crack at it?
I specifically didn't say that, but yes, and um they're like, whatever, kid,

(05:45):
go ahead, and the guy basically resurrected Crack Cracked in
his basement brought it back from the dead and now
it's like huge, sold for boatload of money. Oh yeah,
good for them. I hope it went to that dude
who resurrected it. I do too, that's great. Um, I
don't remember how we got onto cracked. Jerry was laughing. Oh,

(06:06):
she was reading cracked. That's right. Um. So back to
bonds I, Like I said, we're gonna talk about how
to bonds I, which, like they said as a verb. Now, um,
but let's talk about the history of it first. Yeah.
Like uh, Like many things in the world, and especially
many things that you might associate with Japan, it started
earlier in China before it made its way to Japan,

(06:28):
and in China it was called well in Japan, did
you already say what the what it literally means? I
think you did. Yeah, it means plant in a tray, Yeah,
plant in a tray. In China it was punsi, which
means tray plant. Not too far off. And if you
go all the way back to the Tang dynasty, Um,
they there is evidence, you know, and tomb paintings that

(06:49):
they had these little little prune trees and shallow pots. Yeah,
it's just like part of the painting in the tomb.
It's not like featured, it's just part of it, kind
of depicting regular life. They're like, okay, well, at least
by seven oh six, um, see that there were people
doing bonzai in China through ponzai, right, Uh, it may

(07:12):
go back even further than that. There's a legend that
an emperor round about two oh six BC wanted his
entire empire China recreated a miniature in his backyard, and um,
they think they suspect that it's possible that that may
have given rise to pontai. That makes sense. They're like,
we gotta make tiny trees now because the emperor wants. Yeah.

(07:37):
But then either through trade or through gifts, exchanges of
state departments and stuff like that. Um, Japan does what
it always did, and it got its handed on something
and then took it to the nth degree and perfected
and made it. That's what Japan does. That's what they do. Uh.
There's an ancient Japanese scroll that I found not literally

(08:01):
in my backyard, and you're adding, uh, that I found
on the internet. Uh, And it says this is around
the Kamakura period, which was to thirt thirty three. Um,
and it says to appreciate and find pleasure and curiously
curved potted trees is to love deformity, which I thought
was interesting. And the article I read said it, you know,

(08:23):
we don't know whether it is positive or negative. Yeah,
I think it means positive. Maybe the writer was passive aggressive.
I thought it was a pretty interesting quote though. Oh
yeah for sure, because I mean, again, you're training trees
to to be little freaks of nature basically. Yeah. And um,
like a lot of other works of art at the time, Um,

(08:43):
it starts out with like monks and Buddhists, and then
eventually it becomes like part of the rich elite and
then eventually works its way to the to the common folk.
So by the I think the thirteenth fifteen, sixteenth century,
it was, it was, it was, it would become like

(09:04):
a pretty well established hobby in Japan. Um, I don't.
I got the impression that wasn't necessarily thought of as
an art form until the West saw it for the
first time. So in the seventeenth century, Japan was getting
really tired of Westerners trying to convert them to Christianity
and um, basically exploiting them in unfair trade practices. They said,

(09:25):
you know what Westerners get out, We are isolating ourselves,
were closing ourselves off the trade with the West except
for a few Dutch and Spaniards. Uh, and then the Chinese,
everybody else go away. And they stayed like that for
a couple hundred years. And um, I believe it was
Millard Fillmore who sent Matthew Perry Chandler bing over there

(09:45):
with the squadron of navy freighters and huge cannons and guns, saying,
you're gonna trade with us? He said, could you guys
be any cooler? You have all kinds of cool stuff,
that's my Chandler. So Japan opened up basically at the
barrel of America's guns. Yeah, we should do a show
on that. We talked about it enough. It's really interesting

(10:07):
the isolation this period, Like what was what went on there?
And then? Uh, A lot of bonds, a lot of
goldfish tending. Nice remember Mr Burns famous quote those sandal
wearing goldfish tenders. I don't remember that. That's good though.
But as far as coming to the West, there were

(10:27):
a couple of big fairs where it kind of exploded.
The Paris World Exhibition of eighteen seventy eight in the
London exhibition of nineteen o nine, where uh, you know,
of course people in the West just probably flipped for it. Yeah,
because it's so cool. Yeah, it is like, oh man,
researching this, I just every time I would come across

(10:49):
a new term for like a style or something, I
go look it up and I end up spending half
an hour just looking at bonds Eye pictures. You know.
It's really engrossing. Yeah. I was gonna be like, all right,
I'm doing this, but I'm gonna wait for what old age,
so like three or four years from now. Yeah, I
think I'm going to get into it. Yeah. I think

(11:10):
it's just for me. I've got too much going on
right now to do. But it's gonna be a great
retirement past time for me. I could just I could
see myself really like spending days and days. I can
see it's caring for these little guys because I like,
oh yeah, and I like, uh like tiny things and miniatures. Oh,
you're gonna love Bond's Eye. Yeah, like the little tiny

(11:33):
Tabasco bottles that you get in room service and stuff
like that. Plus you're crazy for it. Your doll houses
that you've built on my doll houses. Yeah, I just
I don't know. I think you read Dobson play. Yeah. Um,
all right, well, I guess we should talk about some
of those styles and huh, well you want to take

(11:53):
a break first, Yeah, let's do that. Okay, okay, Josh,

(12:17):
you mentioned styles, and I did the same thing you did, Buddy.
I went and looked at pictures and I put little
marks next to my favorite ones, like earmarked what I'm
gonna try and emulate in the future. I'm very curious
if if we're going to do right, you start so
upright choken and it's the most formal traditional style where

(12:40):
it is basically it emulates a strong, healthy, upright growing tree. Yeah.
I love that we take this like ancient, amazing art
form and the most formal style we go right, Yeah,
but I agree. Didn't delight me. And again, what you're
doing is emulating nature, but you're doing it in miniature.
And part of bonds Ie UM is using like tricks

(13:03):
of the eye, force perspective, that kind of stuff. And Um,
the upright the choken style UM does that by tapering
the trunk, so it's much wider at the bottom than
it is that that's the top to kind of give
you the idea that you're looking up towards a very
tall tree. Yeah, and we'll sprinkle in bits of the
uh sort of philosophical art behind it. But the idea

(13:26):
is that you you sort of imagine a scene in
your head and then you try and make it look
like that. Maybe it's something from your past, maybe it's
a great tree you saw one time on a vacation,
but just something that makes you feel good. Um, you're
usually not like, you know, let me just make some crazy,
weird looking thing because you know I'm drunk. I'm gonna

(13:46):
make the I'm gonna make that tree that was next
to the place where my friend got hit and killed
on his bike. Now it's all about harmony. Yes, that
would be the opposite of Bond's eye. Yes, that's right.
Uh So, moving into another style, which I did not
put a check Martin next to. But it's okay, mayogi,
I like this one. It's okay. It's a little like

(14:07):
the choken. Um it's the informal upright, Okay, so a
little more style maybe. Yeah. So the chocon is very formal,
very straight. Um, the mayogi is it's overall the shape
is upright, but it can like bend and twist to
get to that point. You see what I'm saying. It's neat. Yeah,

(14:28):
I think it's neat. I wouldn't mind doing a moyogi
at some point in the future, but it definitely won't
be the first one I try. All Right, it's it's
down the list of it. Uh the slanting shakan or
or fukanagashi fukagashi. Yeah, nice, it's that good. Um, these
are pretty cool. I have to say. That has the
leaning trunk at a forty five degree angle and the

(14:51):
branches follow the angle of the trunk. Yeah, they're they're
parallel to it, right, Yes, basically parallel essentially right, so
they're neat looking. And that trunk is slanted. Uh. In
in reference to the the pot, the lip the lip
of the pot, right, um, and we should say don't

(15:14):
we haven't said it. So we're talking mostly about the
trees and that's what gets the most attention. But um,
classically and at its heart, bonsai is a it's a balance,
it's a harmony between the plant and the pot. Like
when you're talking about it bonsai. The pot is included
in that it's very it's part of the sculpture itself. Almost, yeah, agreed. Uh.

(15:35):
And also with that slanting style. Um supposedly, even though
I saw many examples to the contrary. The first branch
is supposed to go opposite of the angle of the
trunk for to provide balance, right, I think that's in
the shotgun style. It goes opposite. Yeah, got yeah, alright, alright, chuck,

(15:57):
next cascade for really eat and you just lit up
like a Christmas tree. It's yours. So the semi cascade,
the Hanken guy is mine. That's the one I'm going
to try first. All right, Well, go ahead and describe it.
This so basically, and you need a deeper pot. So
most pots for um uh bonsai are shallow. Um this

(16:18):
you need like a pretty deep pot forward, because the
plant is basically mostly overhanging. It's outside and hanging down
from the pot. That's a full on cascade. And these
are meant to really emulate like a tree that's just
barely hanging on and like a rocky outcrop on a mountain. Interesting,
and so the cascade is full on like the basically

(16:40):
the whole plant has been below the lip of the pot.
The semi cascade is where right where the there's a
substantial amount of the plant is still in the pot,
but it's growing over and down the side something or
really off to the side and swept his semi cascade,

(17:02):
I think is another term for it. Yeah, now I'm
trying to apply psychology to why that's your favorite. It's
just the look of it. Just aesthetically speaking, I think
it's it's great. Next up we have the literati or
the bungen or bungeni bing bunging guy. Yeah, I think

(17:22):
that's way better. Probably one of those. So you think
I would ask my wife, sure we should just have
you me in here with like a ruler smacking knuckles. Nope. Um,
this is the one that's really uh focuses on perspective.
So the idea here here is that you're you're looking

(17:44):
uh from below to a tree that is above, like
if you're at the base of a mountain looking up.
Then you tailor the tree to make it look as
if And we should also mention that you should look
at eye level is traditionally where you're when you talk perspective.
You know, if you're standing four ft above it, right,
that's different you should look at bonsai eye level. Yeah,

(18:06):
that's why they're so frequently displayed at eye level. That's right.
And there's also it's probably worth mentioning here that there's
a definite front and a definite back to a bonsaie.
We'll get into that. Uh, this one is one of
my favorites. Broom. Yes, we are at the broom. So
this is this the one that you marked the hokey
duchy yes. Um. And you might look it up people

(18:29):
and say interesting, not the most flashy tree, but there's
something about it. Man. It has this like really full
kind of half dome with a just a single trunk
jutting up. Yeah, it's just beautiful to me. It's like
it takes the shape of like an idealized like maple
or oak tree. Yeah, you know, it reminded me of

(18:50):
a like a grand oak. Yeah. Well, yeah, I wouldn't
call you flashy. You've never been known to where like
I d bracelets or pinky rings or I don't know
what either one of those things are. Do you know
what a pinky ring is? Nope, yes you do. I
don't know what you're talking about. A pinky ring, A
man's pinky ring, I know what a man is. Okay,
well I'll tell you later. Uh So, next up is

(19:14):
my absolute favorite by far, the landscape. It's when you
create your little miniature scene. It's like a shadow box,
which I used to love doing those when I was
a kid. My my oldest sister was into this, um
years and years ago. Yeah. She would make more like
English gardens kind of in miniature that with like you

(19:36):
know what, like those gazing balls. She would make like,
well tiny one of those is the focal point of
the place. And yeah, so this is when you have
your little nature scene. You've got moss, you've got little rocks,
you may even have a water feature. And it's just
I just I don't know, man. Ever since I was
a kid, I love little things like that. So is
that the first one you're gonna try? Well, I think
I'll probably have to work up to that. Um, you're

(19:59):
not gonna just do water features right out of the gate, No,
but I might have built my own fountain once. It's
not that hard. You need to pump um. And this
actually China is still into um yeah, into bonsai, but
this is the stuff that they practice called pinging. Yeah,
very landscape oriented. Yeah, I might even put a little

(20:19):
like a camping sing little fire ring. Oh, that'd be
great with some little little guys with their acoustic guitars. Right,
and then Jason Vorhees is standing off to the side
just watching them. Maybe, um, root over or root on rock.
This is the one I thought was gonna be your favorite. Yeah,
so what's the deal here? Um? You you could definitely
combine this one with something like cascade or wind sweat.

(20:43):
It's where you train the roots of the um the
tree to grow around or on top of a rock.
It's pretty neat, so it looks like it is really
clinging to a mountain side. Yeah. And what they're trying
to do in a lot of these cases is give
the appear arrants of like an old tree, Uh, something
has been around for many years, um, when in fact

(21:07):
it maybe a tree that's like a year old, but
it looks like some ancient oak or something. Yeah. And
we'll talk about some of the techniques for doing that later,
but that is largely the It seems like the initial
point if you're you're trying to make it look like
an old tree, or you're creating a tree that you
intend to live for a few hundred years and get old,
you know. Yeah, and the oldest one they have in

(21:27):
d C like fo years old. That's even close. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that one's cool. You want to talk about that.
So there's a white pine at the National Banzai and
Penji Museum in d C, and it's almost four dred
years old. But also notably it survived a pretty big event,
the bombing of Urashima, and then it was given as

(21:51):
a gift from Japan to UM the US. Why. I
don't know. I guess they were like, you're don't ever
do that again, this thing to remind you, I think twice.
So there are many many older ones in that that
was what you're saying. Yeah, there's one in uh Museum
in Spain. It's a ficus that's like a thousand years old.
There's another one that's like a thousand. There's a couple

(22:13):
that are eight hundred years old. And the ideas that
many times these are passed within your family, correct, Yeah, yeah,
very frequently they'll be handed down as heirlooms. UM. Now,
some of the disparity between ages where they're like that
one doesn't really count. It may have been like a
thousand year old ficus that somebody found out in the
wild and collected and has been bonds eying for twenty years.

(22:36):
So this one, I have the impression um has been
bonds eyed and in the same family for like six
or seven generations, so it's been like tended to. So
it may have been kind of old when it was
when it was collected um, but it's been bonds eyed
for hundreds of years all right. To finish up, the
last category, which I think is pretty cool, multiform or

(22:59):
eca to or SoCon or kabudachi, and that is when
you have the illusion that you have more than one
tree but it's really just one tree. Yeah, that's it's
pretty cool. So it looks like, you know, it's generally
jutting out from the bottom obviously of the roots structure
up and it looks like a couple of trees. Yeah,
but it's a single tree. Some people cheat and put

(23:20):
some several trees in there. But well you can do that, right,
a little you're a little forest, I guess so. But
isn't that then really the landscape the psychi maybe? I think,
you know, what, are the Bonsai police gonna come knocking
on your door? Yeah, you don't want to mess with
those guys. You know you don't, they'll ignore you. All right,

(23:41):
let's talk a little bit about what kind of plants
you can use, because I did not know this. I
thought there was a special kind of tree that everybody
used to make a bonsai. Yeah, but in fact it's
it could be a tree that out in the wild
is thirty tall. I had no idea. I thought there

(24:01):
were little miniature trees. It just grew up to be
like a foot tall. Yeah, no, a lot. Apparently that's
like a common misconception. I saw that during research a
couple of times. Um. The whole key is you are
dwarfing a tree, and you're doing that by um, keeping
it in a small container and keeping its roots trimmed
back so that it comes to basically go against its

(24:23):
natural processes and just stays small in miniature. Um. But yeah,
basically any plant can be bonds eyed it is and Um,
what I didn't realize is that most bonds eye is
meant to be outdoors. Thought it was strictly indoor. Yeah,
and there are indoor varieties Like you can take indoor

(24:45):
plants or plants that do well indoors and make them
bonds eye, and it's becoming more of a thing. But
for the most part, if you're doing, especially something with
like a pine or a deciduous tree or a juniper,
those are outdoor plants, and your your bonds eye is
meant to stay outdoors, except you know, if you bring
it in and use it as a centerpiece or something
once in a while. Yeah, and for those trees, um,

(25:06):
it makes a point in here that they have a
natural yearly cycle that will be disrupted if you keep
it indoors, so um, you may have to overwinter it
to a certain degree, but you're also gonna want to
take these out in the winter some r um. But
it also says that it's not like a grown tree
that's covered mulch and like super deep rooted, So you

(25:27):
can't just leave it out all winter, no, and if
you do, you would want to leave it in like
a cold frame or a greenhouse or something like that
where it's gonna survive, or you could also protect it
with a bunch of mulch too you leave it outside.
But yeah, there's it does follow a lot of its
natural processes, right, So if you're doing like a fruiting
tree or a flowering tree, like as as long as

(25:50):
it's healthy and happy, Uh, it's going to bear fruit,
there's gonna be flowers. Um. Pretty cool. Yeah, it's very cool.
But you are simulating nature and that it's the roots
are being kept shallow and trimmed. So you have to
take that into consideration by protecting it from cold and
from making sure it has a lot of water too. Yeah,
we'll we'll get into the specifics of care here in

(26:12):
a minute. Um, But as you said, you can pretty
much use any tree. Ideally, what you want to use
is something some sort of tree or shrub that have
small leaves or needles and that can get super dense.
So you just have sort of more um, more material
to work with for your art form. How's that? I
think it's wonderful. And it all starts with roots, right, Yeah,

(26:36):
So when you're looking for a specimen, you can just
go to like your local nursery. Some people grow stuff
from seed. You can also take cuttings um and grow
them in like rooting hormone or something like that. If
you start from seed, that's like, that's neat, that's dedication.
And I will also say that if you start with
a kit that has a bonsai already sort of shaped

(26:57):
for you. That's and I'm not gonna knock it too
much because you might not have time and you might
still want to take care with it. That's a good point,
but I would recommend like to get your full experience
and maybe start with a cutting that you kind of
grow as your own little baby, right, or you can
go to like a nursery or something like that and
just say I would like to buy this plant and

(27:18):
I'm going to turn it into a bond's eye. That
definitely counts as well. So UM, A really good one
to start with that I found is um a juniper.
Most junipers they grow as groundcovers, so they stay fairly
low to the ground normally, so they do well being miniaturized.
They're also pretty hardy plants from what I understand, and

(27:41):
um they grow really well in any temperate climate, relatively
temperate climate. So you go to a nursery and you
you want to kind of go already with the style
in mind that you're going to go with, whether it's
broom or whether it's wind swept or semi cascade or whatever,
because then you'll you'll be able to kind of narrow

(28:02):
down the plant that you want to buy because it's
already gonna you're almost seeing it in there, like you
know how sculptors say that they like look at a
piece of marble and they're just chipping away what was
already in there all along. It's very similar with bonsai
as well. You go in, you find the plant that
kind of suits your needs a little bit, and then yeah,
you dig down and you want to find the first

(28:25):
roots that come off of this, off of the trunk,
and that's where that's what's called the crown, right, That's right,
And as long as those are pretty healthy looking and intact,
it's probably a pretty good bet that you can turn
that thing into a bonsai. That's right. And you should
remember too that, um, the more you want to alter
the tree, the probably younger and smaller it should be

(28:48):
to begin with, um, because you can only do so much.
You know. You can't take a tree that's like stick
straight and be like, all right now, I want it
to cascade all the way back down. I yeah, you
might be too, but it would take decades to get
it to grow like that. I would say you'd have
to be a bonsai master, Yeah, you would. In order
to do that again like Mr. Miyagi, But these exposed roots,

(29:10):
um it's gonna give the appearance if you want to
have that age look like it's an ancient tree. Maybe
ancient trees usually have these great, big roots that you
see sort of on top of the ground. So that's
a neat thing you can do with your bondsai um plus.
Also it's great when you dig down to the those
top roots that form the crown where the trunk ends

(29:30):
and the roots, the real roots begin. There's gonna be
plenty of fewer roots above that, and you're actually gonna
want to trim those away, but it gives the what
was once a pretty short plant suddenly has a trunk now,
and you're like, oh, okay, wow, I see where this
is coming from, starting to take shape just right out
of the gate. Yeah. And what you're doing what I mean,
we'll talk about pruning in a bit, but how you're

(29:51):
shaping this is with wire either with like aluminum or
copper wiring that you can leave on to bend the
tree to your will up to like a year. But
you want to be careful and not make it too
tight because it can actually cut into the tree, which
you don't want at all and um, so you keep
it on your wiring. And the idea is that again

(30:13):
with harmony, you don't want branches a mess of branches
obscuring one another. You want each branch to have have
sort of its own personality exactly. Yeah. So you want
to talk about how to how to start a bonds eyelet? Okay,
so you go in, you find your you find your
plan and by the way, um, well we're going to
kind of give you a step by step. But I

(30:33):
found a really good website called Bondsay for Beginners dot
com um and they have a really really good, really
well written even though there's lots of misspelled words, but
just it's really understandable. For the number four, it's like
f O R E no bonds I four beginners. Wow. Yeah,

(30:56):
I don't remember if it is the number four. I
don't think it is. Okay, just look it up and
if it's somebody from New Zealand writing, you found the
right one. Um. But they they they basically have a
great step by step of how to do it all. Right,
So you want to buy a tree. A good time
of the year to do this is to go in
the spring when the the growing cycle begins, uh, and

(31:18):
go to your nursery and uh, like you said, you
you're looking for whatever tree that fits your mind's eye
of what you eventually want. And it saysn't here to
start with your scene and work towards that. I think
I would be more inclined to sort of freeform a
little bit, you know, over the years, which I'm sure
is fine, right, gonna be the bad boy of the

(31:39):
bonds I world. Aren't you never know what I'm gonna
do next? Exhibitions wearing like a motorcycle jacket possibly. Uh
So the price is gonna vary depending on what kind
of tree you're getting. Um, and of course I looked
up to kits there. You know, they can be fifty
to a couple hundred bucks depending on the kind of tree.
And like how finished looking at is right? Or I

(31:59):
mean like it can you can go spend ten to
twenty on like a say, like a juniper and then
and there are plenty of bonsai tools that you can buy.
The Internet will be happy to take your money for that.
But you can also make do with other stuff like
florists wire. You can get the copper wire you need
from probably a hardware store piers. There's yeah, pliers, Uh, scissors,

(32:23):
scissors smaller the better, um scissors exactly um. And then
you're also gonna want like a root rake um, which
you can just bend a fork and bam, you got
a root rake boom. So you've got your plant or
where you're saying, it's a juniper, you're gonna dig down,
you're going to um, You're gonna basically take it out,

(32:46):
put it on the table in front of you. You
want a spray, bottle of water, and take a right
get started traditionally exactly you go and then you you
get started. Um. So you take the dirt off of
the top layer all the way down to the crown.
And again there's a bunch of feet of roots which
you want to trim from the trunk itself. And then

(33:07):
you you take a look at the roots like you
you scraped the dirt away, and you really look at
the roots structure, and you say, I gotta get rid
of a lot of this. Yeah. And you should already
have your your pot at this point, by the way,
because this is the first step is the uh potting right.
And I've seen people, usually especially beginners, make the mistake

(33:28):
when they're first creating a bond's eye that, Um, they
go real small with the pot. You're gonna go through
a couple of pots in the first few years. Um,
so they say, don't be afraid to use a big pot.
As a matter of fact, you should probably use a
bigger pot than you think you should for its first pots. Eventually,
three or four years down the road, you're going to
finally come to that that one pot that this thing

(33:49):
stays in for the rest of its life, and you're
gonna repot it every couple of years, but you're gonna
repot it in the same pot. Yeah, you're gonna be
a flea market and it's gonna just there's gonna be
a golden light shine around this one pot. And you're
gonna say that things twenty dollars and James Brown is
gonna be like, dude, you see the love, and then
you'll talk him down to fourteen dollars and then up

(34:11):
to seventeen, and then you'll meet at the middle of
fifteen and then you've got your pot. That'll be a
great day. Uh. All right, So you're at the roots,
I think. Yeah, So when you trim the roots away,
I was really surprised by this. You want to trim
about two thirds of the roots present on your plant
when you buy it. Yeah, it even says in here
that seems extreme, but don't fret. No, Um, And the

(34:33):
roots you really want to go after the bigger ones,
the more established ones. You want to leave some at
the top at that crown. But um, especially if you're
dealing with a tree and it has a tap root,
that root that goes like straight down, that's actually not
as much for watering as it is for stability, and
you don't need it in your tiny, little shallow pot.
So you want to get rid of roots like that. Yep,

(34:55):
you've got your pot. Um, you want to put a
little thin layer of gravel for draining. Um. Yeah, and
that's another big thing. Your pot has to have drainage holes,
good ones. Yeah. Well you're the lawn watering expert. You
don't want a quarter quarter into water over it just
standing all right. So you've got your pot, you've got

(35:16):
your gravel down there. Um, you've trimmed your roots, and
you need your soil mixture. Yeah, this is a it's
a big one. And there are different um schools of
thought on what kind of soil it says in here,
um equal parts uh, sand, peat and loam. Yeah, that's
I guess that's like a general generic go to bonds eyes.

(35:38):
But you want soil specific to your tree. Like if
you have a juniper, that's gonna probably be different soil
than what like olive tree needs. And so you just
need to find out about the plant that your bonds
eyeing and find out what kind of soil it likes,
how much water it needs, what kind of nutrients it takes, um,
and what kind of sunlight it needs. Especially that's right,

(35:59):
it's a big one. So you stick that sucker in there.
You've got your trimmed roots, and you want to spread
them out really evenly. Um, you know, towards the edges
of the pot. Yeah, of the container, um, through like
just all throughout the container. You want the roots going down. Yeah,
And I don't think we mentioned you should run a
wire up through the drainage hole to support the tree. Initially, Yeah,

(36:19):
this is a big one, um, And this this wire,
this is it's going to support the tree. But also
if you're gonna bend the tree, so you're doing a
cascade or a semi cascade or anything like that exactly
you're gonna use that wire, um to, You're gonna go
train it around the trunk and then bend the wire
and it's gonna bend the poor plant with it, and

(36:41):
you're gonna leave it on there for like a month
or so at least, But you want to keep a
really close eye on it because the tree will start
to grow around it and it will be forever scarred.
And as far as bonds eye is concerned, you're just
ruined your plants. So you want to keep a close
eye on it. Um. You want to make it tight it.
You want to make it tight enough so that when

(37:01):
you bend it, it's going to bend the tree with it,
but not so tight that it bites into or damages
the tree. That's right, And um, yeah, you want to
keep a really close eye on it to make sure
the tree doesn't grow. And then when it's done after
a month, maybe longer, this article says up to a year.
But all right, I didn't see that anywhere else. Um,
you want to clip clip it away like you're not

(37:23):
gonna unwind it or else, You're probably just gonna break
your bonds up right, and hopefully your tree you won't
go and pop back into place, and if it does,
you just have to redo it again. Patients, my friend, patience,
that's right, they say in the article Patients is the
best tool that you can have in your arsenal Right. Um,
so you get the wire sticking up through the drain there,
that's right, And um, you're for as far as the

(37:44):
soil you want it to be. You want to tap
it and kind of you know, shake the pot around
to remove the air pockets, firm it around the base
of the tree. But you don't want it so packed
in that you know, the water's got to go through
and drain all the way through and out right, Well,
you want well draining. Well, one thing I saw was
three parts potting soil to one part like miniature gravel basically,

(38:06):
so the soil is gonna drain. Well, apparently you do
want it kind of packed because that that tree does
not have stability with its roots, so it's going to
rely on the dirt more than it normally would. Yeah,
especially around the trunk um and then but yeah, you
want to shake it to get the air pockets out
for sure, that's right. Um. A lot of people also

(38:26):
put additional gravel on top to keep the dirt in
place when it's water like that. Yeah, and it looks
nice to agreed. Uh, So you don't want to do
that and then go throw it out in the full
sun all day long in July. What you want to
do is start it in a shady spot for about
a week and let it get used to be in
shorter rooted and then a weird new container, and let

(38:49):
it accept the fact that it's. Um, I know, I'm
gonna be small. This is gonna hurt. I'm gonna be small.
I'm never gonna be a big, big daddy. And once
it gets over that and accepts its fate, um, and
it says, you know what, I actually like this because
I'm gonna be a beautiful work of art and get
lots of care and attention. Now you can move me
into the sun a little bit at a time, a
couple of hours at a time, yeah, sir or ma'am,

(39:10):
thank you master, and um since yes, since ay and
then uh yeah, a couple of hours in the morning,
and then before you know it, you can have that
that bad boy out there. Like weathering all kinds of weather,
weathering the wet, normal weather, like it normally would Yeah. Um,
and your plants gonna tell you whether it's happy or

(39:32):
not happy. I think with buns I in particular, you're
gonna notice like every little change in your plant because
you're really concentrating on it and focusing on it, and
all the rest of your plans are gonna hate you. Yeah,
gonna be like remember me, your spider plants gonna be
like growing around your throat, just closing off your airway.
So watch out for your spider plant. Agreed. Um, And

(39:55):
I should say one more thing took when you first
pot your plant, Um, you the first watering, you should
basically take it in like a tray or a pan
or a bucket of water and submerge it to the
soil level and just let it sit there. Are you sure? Yeah?
All right, this is what I've seen. Don't like plunk
it in there, slowly submerge it in there, and that

(40:16):
water is going to make sure that every route gets
its water, and um, it's going to fill in any
air pockets that are in there. So it's really going
to basically solidify your soil and pack it in and
just get it ready very nice, pretty neat, right, super
neat should we take a break. All right, we're gonna
come back and talk a little bit more about BONDSAI

(40:37):
care and shaping, which is where the money is. So

(41:02):
check you got your bonds Eye. You are. You've moved
it back on into the sunlight. It's basically accepted its
fate as a smaller version of itself. You've named it
right right now? Yeah? Uh, Alan, mind's Roy. So Allan
and Roy, the Bonds Eye twins are hanging out outside

(41:24):
um when you first pot it. You can also prepare
the limbs to um where you're basically trimming the limbs
back one going. So remember there's one in the front.
There's a front and the back to it, right, Yeah,
which you should establish and stick to a right typically
with bonds I. In traditional bonds I, the first the
first um limb is about a third of the way

(41:48):
up from the dirt, uh, and it's going to jut
out to the right. Second one is going to jut
out the opposite direction. But it's not going to be
even with the other one. It's gonna be another about
third of the way up. You don't you don't ever,
You rarely want um limbs even with one another. It's
called a bar that's unsightly exactly. UM. So the next

(42:08):
one shuts out the opposite direction, and the third one
is about another third way up, and that juts out
towards the back, So it gives the impression of distance,
of perspective and bowing and growing out the back, balance
and harmony. UM. And you do this by you can
take that same wire, different lighter wire, depending on the

(42:28):
size of the limb, and bend them in the ways
that you want. But more often than not, you're going
to be creating these illusions or this this pattern by
trimming your bond's eye. And like you said, this is
where the money is. This is where when you think
of bonds eye, this is what I think of a
little Japanese people like trimming the limbs off of tiny plants. Yeah,
and it's UM again. You're you're striving to make it

(42:51):
look like something larger that you would find in nature. Sure,
you could get super weird and avant garde with your
form and your shape, but in general, traditionally, UM, you
wanted to take a form that you would find out
in the wild somewhere on a smaller scale. But that
that is the that's the UM effect. Of wind, of sun,

(43:16):
of weird weather, of poor soil, of just the weirder
looking the tree out in nature basically the harder the
heart of the life that's had and you're trying to
recreate that nurturing pretty kind of counterintuitive, but if you
just stop and think about what you're looking at in
nature that you're trying to emulate, you'll probably figure out

(43:37):
different ways to do it. And if you haven't figured
it out, somebody's probably been doing it for a thousand
years already, and you can go get yourself a book
or look on the internet to find a technique. Yeah. So,
like you said, with the wind, like the win the
real tree and real life that's on the mountaintop, the
wind is trying to kill it and it's leaning out
over the edge of the cliff like, oh man, my

(43:57):
days are numbered. Um, But you nurture that in your
own bonds eye and you emulate that, and it's um,
I don't know. I like the idea of it for
some reason. It's like a tribute almost. Yeah, it's an
homage to that tree that's hanging on by a route. Yeah,
when it comes to light, Um, you want to rotate
it around you don't want it getting the same it's

(44:19):
the same side exposure to sunlight every single day. You
want to you want to rotate it around. You want
to keep an eye out for bugs and insects, Yeah,
for sure. And again you're paying attention to your bonds
any more than your other plants, so you're gonna notice,
like if it suddenly has an insect infestation. Yeah, a
little larva uh what they called spittlebugs black or red
dots of mites. Uh says you can brush these away. Um.

(44:42):
I imagine you could smash them with a framing hammer
if you wanted. After you brush them off. Um, But
a bit in the Japanese bondsi tradition, you're you're probably
brushing them away a little paint brush, right like you
go and go hit the spider plant. Hey, tiers are
okay man, they eat the little bugs for you. The

(45:03):
spider plant, I mean the spider plant. Yeah. Yeah, Well
you gotta watch out for that thing. It's trying to
kill you and your whole family exactly. So that's where
you need to funnel your spittlebugs. Watering is another big
one too. You depending on how hot it is outside,
you may end up needing to water your bonds eye
like two times a day, which means if you're into
bonds eye, you probably don't leave your house very much.

(45:26):
You most likely want to bonds or water your bonds
eye every day, depending on again the plant, but most
bonds I need watering every single day and twice on
hot days. Yeah, And what you don't want is um
you know, as you're paying attention to it, you don't
want to a soggy, boggy base. That's a really bad sign.
That means you probably didn't put down enough gravel on

(45:48):
the bottom, or your soil mix doesn't have enough gravel
or whatever mixed in to make it drain quickly. Because
it's tough to over water a well draining potted plant
of any type, including SI, you're probably gonna be doing
more pruning early on in the life of the bondsai.
And once it has that general shape that you like,

(46:08):
that's when you're doing uh, you know, just the subtle
changes that probably mean a lot to you. Um. But
other friends that come over at you know, happy hour,
they'll just say, hey, nice tree, there's yeah, you got
a ice, And they don't realize that. They don't realize

(46:29):
all the subtle little you know, you might clip away one,
you know, a half of an inch of a branch.
To you that that makes it just perfect that other
people would probably not even notice. That's why it's your
bonds eye. That's right, Josh, That's why I was thinking
about it, like like giving the gift of a bond's
eye to somebody. Yeah, that you've tended to for years

(46:50):
and years and years. That's that's a significant gift. Yeah,
it's like and here's my my daughter. Yeah, you know right,
well not really, but you know what I mean, Marry
this plant, don't you marry it? You're also gonna keep
up with the fertilizer. Again, like this is so this
is almost such a generic overview in some places that

(47:11):
I feel bad even saying it. But just go find
out what the plant that you're raising needs. Normally do that,
but again you have to bear in mind that it's
slightly different because you're you're keeping it in miniature. It
doesn't have its normal roots system. It needs more water
than usual, and um, it's probably because you're watering it

(47:32):
so much. The nutrients in the soil are gonna leach
out much more quickly, so you need to fertilize it
more than you would just if you were growing it
normally in a container. Right, So since you're fertilizing something
more usually the rule of thumb, as you want to
you want to fertilize something weekly weekly, so w E
A K L Y weekly um, and and that way

(47:54):
you're constantly replenishing the nutrients in the soil. But you're
not gonna like burn or scorch theos with like a
chemical burn over feeding it. Yeah, and again you pointed
out earlier, but I think it bears in mind repeating.
The key is repotting and trimming those roots every couple
of years. And like you said, once you find the
pot at the flea market that you fell in love
with and can keep it in that pot forever, as

(48:16):
long as it's you know, the one you want to
stay with him, you can do what you want, but
um or give it as a gift, or give it
as a gift. But as you uh, as you keep
trimming these roots back, it's gonna stay that size. If
you forget about it. If you're a hoarder and you
and you and you're drunk and you pass out for
ten years, you're gonna wake up with a twelve ft

(48:37):
oak tree in your living room. That's the story of
Peppy van Winkle, Is that? Yeah? I guess that is true,
isn't it, Because yeah, you're basically once it becomes established
to the shape you want it, you're just basically pruning
it back here they're keeping it trimmed. And then when
you repotted every couple of years, like the whole point
is to keep the root system in check. Huh. So

(48:59):
if you didn't do that, yeah, it would just probably
it would what it would do because yeah, no water,
there would be so many roots in a pot that
doesn't fit them. I'd probably look cool would be growing
over it. And that's some that's basic stuff that we've
been talking about. But there is a lot of advanced
things you can do too, and one of those is
like again, training it to grow over rocks. So like

(49:22):
when you potted the bonds eye, you would want a
bonsaie with really long roots, um so that you could
when you when you're potting it, you would actually place
it on a rock and then why are the roots
in place to let them start to establish in the pots?
Just things like that. There's something called um gin which
is basically this is really neil. But you saw it.
Did you see a lot of bonds I that had

(49:42):
like dead wood exposed. Okay, so gin is where at
the top of the trunk or at the ends of limbs,
deadwood is exposed to just really play up how old
this thing is supposed to be or actually is. Um
there's something called shari, which is deadwood on the trunk
a low. And then there's something called sabamiki, and that's

(50:04):
like you actually get in there and peel away the
the bark, drill into the trunk and carve holes into it,
carved like a gap into it to create the illusion
that it was scarred from like a lightning strike. And
you you've got to be really careful doing that because
you can very easily kill your bonsaie. But if you

(50:24):
do it right, it'll grow back and scar around it
and you'll have a pretty interesting looking tree. So that's
not recommended for beginners, I would not think so. I
think you'd kill a lot of plants doing that that way.
So and and again, people have been trying this stuff
for a couple of thousand years now, so there's a
lot of different stuff you can do. In a lot
of different resources out there. Yeah, go to your local

(50:47):
japan town and say teach me. And you know what,
if the movie uh A Kid Lost in Translation is true,
then if you're a pretty American girl, you and wander
into any Japanese ceremony and they will just accept you
with open arms. Yeah that's why they're known for. Yeah. Yeah,

(51:07):
probably so right to a certain degree. Sure you're not
a jerk? Well, yeah, like what does she walk into?
Was her origami or was that bonsa? I don't know,
I don't remember. Was it a wedding? No, Scarlett Joe
Hanson walking out there, these Japanese women doing some either
bonsai or origami or something. They were like, oh, well,
you know, come on in and let me show you

(51:28):
our ancient ways. Yeah, I don't remember that part. Yeah
that was neat. I like that movie a lot too,
Wasn't isn't the legend around it that Bill Murray's actually
playing himself like it's based on an experience, Sofia Coppola had, Yeah,
I bet it's not too far off, and so like
uh Giovanni Ribisi is um, Spike Jones sparely, Joe Hansen

(51:51):
is um Sofia Coppola. Um, uh Anna Faris is Cameron Diaz.
One dude is justin Timberlake, and so like this actually
supposedly happened. But then it's everyone says, well, who's Bill
Murray playing? Allegedly Bill Murray is playing himself. That makes sense.
I mean, we'll never know what he whispers at the end, either,
which I love. That was a great movie. I forgot

(52:12):
about that one. Make it Santry time. She's a part
of my hundred percent club, Sofia. The directors who have
made nothing but great movies. I think I've only seen
that and the Vergson Suicide's great movie. What else does
she made? She did Um the Blame Ring recently. Never
thought really good. Don't be turned off by the title, Yeah,

(52:35):
because I have been um. And she did the one
with Stephen Dorff. Oh, I can't remember where he's the actor,
just sort of hold up in the Chateau Marmont before
with his daughter now before Sunrise before Tomorrow. Nope. And
she did the one the let the meat Cake, Uh,
Marie Antoinette movie with Kirsten Dunns. It was fantastic. I

(52:58):
never saw that one either. They're all great I think
she's top notch. I'll check him out. Uh. If you
want to know more about Bonsai or Sofia Coppola, you
can type those words in the search part house to
works dot com. And since I said that it's time
for listening out, yes, I'm gonna call this uh tornado
miss already. That thing just came out today. And you

(53:22):
know what, I hope everyone's all right because there are
tornadoes like kind of all over the place. The yeah,
I heard Oklahoma's Canadas. Hey, guys love the show. You
mentioned tornado miss episode that I bet you would get
an email from a civil engineer, and here I am.
I just wanted to share an interesting fact about designing
wind resistant buildings. I remember the day of the two
thousand and eight downtown Atlanta tornado you mentioned because it

(53:44):
was actually the last day of classes at Georgia Tech
before I went out, before I went home to Florida
for spring break. Ironically, I just learned in one of
my classes that one reason most skyscrapers are not the
same basic shape from top to bottom is to alleviate
pressure from wind. In the same class, for fessor had
mentioned that one of the absolute worst structural designs where
skyscraper is a perfect cylinder, which is what our Peachtree

(54:07):
Plaza is that had the windows up for so long.
It's a cylinder. The wind whips all around, it ends
up hitting the entire face of the building as a
giant wall of forts, rather than hitting the building at
different places over time. Not ideal for a glass tube
of the building. Anyway, I thought you guys would find
that interesting. You are the best thing to come out
of Athens in my Georgia tech opinion. Oh wow, I

(54:29):
see where that was going. Keep up the good work.
And that is from Scooter Sheldon. Thanks a lot, Scooter,
Scooter Salvin. I don't know about the best thing to
come out of Athens. Uh, just a couple of bands
and beers and coffees and football players. Scooters take all right,
Thank you, Scooter. If you want to give us high

(54:52):
praise like Scooter did, we're always down with that. You
can tweak to us y s Podcast. You can post
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(55:18):
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