Sound Bonsai the Newsletter of the Puget Sound Bonsai Association

Sound Bonsai the newsletter of the Puget Sound Bonsai Association

October 2020 In this issue: Lifetime Membership awarded to John Muth October Virtual Club Meeting November Meeting Announcement PSBA Treasurer's Update Free Mirai Livestream and Membership discount (limited time offer) Now Is The Time October 2020 Annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Bonsai Club Association October 15th Register for the Zoom Seminar with Bjorn Bjorholm Missing the Point - Re-potting Bonsai

Lifetime Membership Awarded to John Muth of Bonsai Northwest

In recognition of his tremendous service to the bonsai community, his mentorship and his support of our PSBA, the Board unanimously voted to award John Muth a Lifetime Membership.

In a small ceremony on October 11th, President Tony Fajarillo presented John Muth with a plaque commemorating his service to our community

John will be at Bonsai Northwest during his usual store hours until his retirement and closing on November 8th. You might want to stop by to congratulate John and wish him well.

October Virtual Club Meeting

Vice President Ladd Smith is pleased to announce our second virtual club meeting

Monday October 26th at 6:00 PM via Zoom

We are happy to announce our next virtual PSBA meeting. Our speaker will be Jonas Dupuich of Bonsai Tonight https://bonsaitonight.com/

Jonas Dupuich runs a Northern California bonsai nursery where he teaches and writes about bonsai. He is the author of The Little Book of Bonsai and the Bonsai Tonight blog, a twice-weekly publication featuring how-to articles and photographs of bonsai around the world. His trees have been selected for display in local and regional exhibits, including the US National Bonsai Exhibition. Jonas grows a variety of different species and specializes in developing black pine bonsai from seed. Learn more at bonsaitonight.com.

"The program, "10 Things I Wish I Knew as a Beginner," will cover the tips I wish I knew when I got started with bonsai. Using examples from my collection, I'll show successes and failures that demonstrate these tips in an effort to help you avoid the mistakes I've made over the years."

We urge all of you to join us. Those who attended our last meeting found it easy to connect. For those of you who will be connecting for the first time, we include these instructions from our last newsletter:

Here are some important notes: We are featuring the virtual meeting on Zoom. Many of you have probably already used Zoom or another meeting platform. If you have not used Zoom before, it is very simple. Follow these instructions: Please know that the meeting ID and password will be coming in a separate email. 1. Copy and paste this link into your internet browser: https://zoom.us/ 2. Once on the home screen, in the upper right corner, click on “Join A Meeting” 3. You will be prompted to enter a Meeting ID. Please enter this code. 4. Then you will be prompted to enter a password. Please enter this number. 5. If you log on early you may be in the Zoom waiting room or you may be directed to the Zoom meeting. 6. You may have to adjust you volume on your computer to hear the presentation. We will be in the Zoom room earlier with some music playing so you can adjust your sound. We will also be running the presentation livestream on YouTube and Facebook if these platforms are easier for you to attend. We will send additional instructions on how to link up to the livestreams.

We will send you the actual link to connect to the virtual meeting a day or two before October 26th.

Remember the start time is 6:00PM

See you Monday October 26th at 6:00 PM via Zoom

November Virtual Club Meeting

Vice President Ladd Smith wants to announce the speaker of our November virtual club meeting

Monday November 23rd at 6:00 PM via Zoom Save the date and time!

Our November virtual club meeting will feature guest artist Eric Schrader. Eric will be speaking on his "Root over Rock" techniques.

Eric Schrader is a bonsai artist, bonsai grower, photographer and teacher. Eric grew up in Boonville, California, among beautiful redwoods, oaks and buckeye trees; his interest in bonsai has led him to study the mountains of California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, and Utah searching for wild and wonderful trees. Eric believes that bonsai is an avenue for exploration of the natural world around us as much and an art form that captures the essence of trees. Visit his website: https://phutu.com/

Plan to join us for his interesting root over rock presentation.

PSBA Treasurer’s Update

- Dave Bollman - PSBA Treasurer

In this strange year, our club has not had the ordinary expenses that would be incurred during any normal year. The majority of our expenses go to guest artists, with the rental of the CUH meeting hall facility coming in second. This year, however, having only had one meeting at the CUH and only two guest artists so far, we have not had the normal expenses.

On a normal year, we would have expenses for the auction and pot luck also. Aside from membership dues, the auction is our primary fundraiser. This year, of course, we did not hold the auction. The auction typically brings in almost as much as membership dues, and on a good year, can surpass that amount.

In addition to those meeting and special event related expenses, we have monthly and yearly expenses that are not meeting dependent. We rent a storage unit for our meeting and show appliances. We pay for liability insurance on a monthly basis. We also pay for web hosting services, website calendar service, website domain name registration and a membership to the American Bonsai Society. These expenses come to a little less than $3000 per year.

Because our expenses were reduced due to our inability to meet physically, the board of directors has voted to discount the cost of renewal dues for current members by 50%. So, for members who renewed for 2020 or joined new this year, renewal dues will be $20 for an individual member and $25 for a couple membership when the renewal is paid before January 1 2021.

If you feel that the discount is unnecessary or want to donate the additional amount, we will also accept the full membership amount.

As usual, dues renewal payments may be made by credit card at our webstore at https://puget-sound-bonsai.square.site/ or paid by check mailed to:

Puget Sound Bonsai Association PO Box 15437 Seattle, WA 98115-0437

Thank you, be safe, and have a wonderful fall season.

Dave Bollman PSBA Treasurer

Free Mirai Livestream For a limited time only

Free Bonsai Mirai Livestream: Display Fundamentals - Maria Walton

Hello PSBA members! I am pleased to announce that the generous folks at Bonsai Mirai have given us limited time access to one of their recent amazing livestreams, Display Fundamentals. Ryan Neil takes apart and puts back together several displays, while breaking down the “whats” and “whys” of what each of the components do in a display, how they interplay with one another, as well as the wide array of possibilities within these elements that have the potential to explore and elevate the aesthetic quality of our bonsai displays. He also explores the traditional versus non-traditional approaches to display in an enlightening and non- judgemental way that I believe everyone can appreciate.

Also, any members who are not already members of Mirai Live, and who would like to join, will receive a 20% discount on new memberships as another little gift to our club from Ryan. This promo code will be active during the same timeframe as the video.

You will find all of the details you need to access the video below. It will be available to you from Oct. 17th-24th to watch as many times as you like. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and that it proves useful to you in your bonsai practice.

Video presentation URL: https://vimeo.com/468253190 Password for the Video: PSBA20 (Password is case sensitive) Remember, the video link and password will not work until the 17th

Mirai tells us if you are inspired to try out a Mirai Live membership after viewing, you may use the following promo code at checkout to get 20% off for new users only. The 20% off is a one-time billing discount, so if you use it for a monthly subscription, 20% off will be applied only for the first month. If you sign up for an annual plan, you will have 20% off for their whole first year.

Mirai Membership 20% off Promo Code: PSBA20 (promocode is case sensitive)

Now Is the Time October 2020

- Maria Walton

Hello PSBA members. I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful fall weather and some much needed relief from the smoke that seems to be an annual event now that reminds us of a simple fact that, as bonsai practitioners we know very well through developing good relationships — sometimes hard-earned, with our trees, that if you go to war with nature, you will lose every time.

It’s hard to look back on the past year and not consider the power of cause and effect as it applies to our relationship with nature. I can personally say that I have lost a few regrettable battles. But, I suppose that is how we learn, and hopefully that process translates to the larger scope of humanity as a whole and we can emerge on the other side of these multiple crises that now face our world with a new understanding of ourselves as an integral, connected piece of the natural world, rather than an adversary with it.

Fall presents us with a wonderful opportunity to explore and improve our relationships with our trees, and by extension, the natural world. Inside of that, its a good moment to acknowledge the significant power that we have during the fall season, to control the destiny of our trees. However, as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” In other words, this is the time of year when we have the opportunity to determine the course of growth and development for our trees not only in the spring, but for the entire year. The effects of our actions and operations on our trees in the coming seasons must be a consideration if we hope to help our trees achieve their full aesthetic potential and remain not only healthy, but thriving, for years to come. One could think of it as “sustainable”, or maybe even “sound” bonsai.

Now is the definitely the time to do that major restyling, or patiently anticipated first styling on those trees that you’ve been giving the side- eye for the past year or two, or that you’ve been staring at and styling and restyling in your mind’s eye for who knows how long. The heavy vascular growth during fall makes any “mistakes,” or large wounds that might be made, heal much more readily than any other time of year. However, it’s important to bear in mind that heavy operations done during the course of fall will affect the cold hardiness of a tree, not just in the coming months, but could have much more long-term effects depending on how much the operation affects the trees ability to produce robust foliage in the spring, which affects the tree’s ability to produce sugars and starches throughout the summer and to perpetuate the cycle into the fall when the whole process begins again.

But regardless of which operations you choose to perform, whether it be partial defoliation, heavy, moderate, or light fertilization, pruning before leaf-drop, pruning after leaf-drop, if you should happen to decide to repot in the fall because you have had success with this, each of these techniques should be executed with a full understanding of the physiology being manipulated and the causality at play, and with clear intention of eliciting a particular response as a result of the execution of a particular action. At this level, the creative potential becomes seemingly endless, and as long as we have a clear understanding of the physiological and horticultural limitations, the sky’s the limit aesthetically speaking. It’s a simple matter of understanding the capacity and limitations of your medium, and mastering the techniques, and the creative potential contained therein is unlocked.

I hope everyone has a blast making beautiful trees this autumn. I’ll be making a return to the epicenter of North American Bonsai evolution right now— Bonsai Mirai, for fall classes next week. So until next month, stay safe and as always, happy bonsai!

Annual Meeting of the Pacific Northwest Bonsai Club Association

October 15, 2020 at 7:00PM

The PNBCA is an association of all the bonsai clubs in the Pacific Northwest. Our club, the PSBA, is a member club of this association. We are told they are primarily concerned with coordinating our regional bonsai shows and meetings as well as supporting local clubs like ours. This is the announcement of their annual meeting and election of officers. You may wish to connect to the meeting on Zoom to learn what they do.

Hello all, I know this is short notice, but I have just received the meeting information. Please forward the following zoom information to your membership. We will be holding the annual PNBCA general meeting on Thursday. This is your club's opportunity to chat with the officers and vote on the new board members. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Topic: PNBCA AGM Meeting Time: Oct 15, 2020 07:00 PM Vancouver Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83522332846?pwd=MHpPVHVYQk9RaUJNa2 J2NVpJMWp3Zz09 Meeting ID: 835 2233 2846 Passcode: 514412

John L. Conn [email protected]

We are reposting this announcement of this seminar. As we were adding the finishing touches to our newsletter, Bruce received an email notifying him he was moved off the waitlist and is registered for the seminar. The sponsors have increased the number of possible attendees!

This seminar is in just a few days. Please hurry to register.

A Zoom Seminar with Bjorn Bjorholm

A FREE PNBCA EVENT

Pacific Northwest Bonsai Association (PNBCA) has been in existence for 31 years, with a mandate to further the art of bonsai by providing education to bonsai enthusiasts by supporting bonsai events held by member clubs. With recent extenuating circumstances, your executive board has decided to host four PNBCA sponsored online classes to all members of the association free of charge. PNBCA includes bonsai clubs and societies from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. More about PNBCA

New four part series

The four online classes will take place November, 2020 – 2021. Each of the four sessions will feature an internationally renowned bonsai professional and the topic will coincide with the season. The first class is scheduled for November 19, 2020.

PNBCA is delighted to announce the first presenter, Bjorn L Bjorholm

Bjorn is a bonsai professional and instructor who spent six years as an apprentice under Master Keiichi Fujikawa, at Kouka-en bonsai nursery in Osaka, Japan before receiving certification as a bonsai professional by the Nippon Bonsai Association. His tenure as an apprentice at Kouka-en was followed by three years as artist-in-residence at the same location, making him the first foreign-born working bonsai professional in Japan. During his time in Japan, Bjorn’s works were featured in the Kokufu-ten, Sakufu-ten, and Taikan-ten exhibitions, among many others.

EISEI-EN BONSAI GARDEN

Bjorn’s bonsai nursery, Eisei-en is the premier bonsai garden and school of the Eastern US. Tucked away in the outskirts of Nashville, TN, the garden is more than just a provider of fine quality bonsai art; it is a testament to the beauty of nature and of humanity’s inextricable link to it. The brainchild of Bjorn and his wife Nanxi Chen, Eisei-en is the culmination of nearly a decade of focused, intensive study of bonsai art, culture and aesthetics in Japan.

In addition to his international work and intensive bonsai school https://bjornbjorholm.com/school/ , Bjorn produces excellent online courses https://www.bonsaiempire.com/courses and also offers a very popular bonsai blog https://bjornbjorholm.com/blog/ .

Event details

Topic: Deciduous Trees, Spring through Fall Teacher: Bjorn L Bjorholm Date: Thursday, November 19, 2020 Time: 7:00 pm – 9:00 p.m. PST Cost: $0.00 (Sponsored by PNBCA) Location: Zoom meeting – in the comfort of your home. (A class link will be sent to all participants the day before the event)

New to Zoom? No worries. We will forward an easy to follow tutorial on how to use Zoom. You will need a computer with a camera or a smartphone.

Please register! They are trying to accommodate those of us who were on the wait list. Give it a shot.

In an attempt to keep our promise to provide you with some articles that are controversial and thought provoking, we offer this food for thought. Has anyone ever brought home a new tree and immediately begun to re- pot it?

Missing The Point – Re-potting Bonsai

5/20/2020

Graham Potter is a bonsai artist, blogger and the owner of Kaizen Bonsai https://www.kaizenbonsai.com/ in the UK. This article is reposted from his blog with permission.

by KaizenBonsai

When you make that first fateful move and obtain a ‘Bonsai tree’ you take the first step on a journey that just might last the rest of your life. It matters little that your first plant is most likely not bonsai at all. Mine was a sycamore seedling I lifted out of leaf litter in the woods on a dog walk and planted in a plastic plant pot. It could be a cheap poor quality ‘bonsai’ you buy in a garden centre, something you are given as a gift or inherit. The quality is perceived and matters little in our ignorant state of the time. To be clear I did not know what a bonsai tree even was (it's a partly redundant phrase anyway) and had never even heard the phrase. I had never seen a bonsai tree in any form but I always loved trees and figured it would be nice to own a little one.

Some time later I bought a house that came with a ‘Koi pond’, another redundant phrase seeing as koi pretty much live in any pond. Having been an avid fish keeper since winning a goldfish for tossing a ping-pong ball into a bowl at the traveling fare back in the early seventies my new pond was welcome. You don’t spend much time around koi keeping before running into bonsai trees. Most are normally accompanied by shockingly naff attempts at Japanese gardening. Chinese pagodas, concrete Buddahs, deer scarers and so much tawdry, kitsch and tragic gimcrack it’s hard to know wether one should shit or go blind.

So, from the point I knew what a ‘Bonsai Tree’ was it all started to get a bit pear shaped. Ask anybody what ‘bonsai’ means and you will be regaled with the trite platitude about trees in trays / pots etc’. The emphasis is almost entirely on the pot. Surely it’s the ‘tree’ bit we need to focus on? However for the few of us that managed to cut through all the crap and actually get our arms around this thing the word itself is irrelevant. It may have taken me thirty years of dedicated work but I now know I don’t have ‘bonsai trees’ in fact I just have TREES. Plain simple little trees that I keep in various pots (most of which are NOT shallow, or dishes or even ceramic). That thirty years was full and busy! The crazy things I have done have impacted upon everyone close to me for most of their lives, caused me to quit my job, sell everything I ever loved and put me in hospital with life itself hanging by a thread.

I don’t suggest for a minute that, in order to be good at bonsai, everyone must do the same. However this IS a long journey fraught with danger and perils. You would assume that in this ‘Information age’ learning to grow trees and keep them small would be easy. After all just look at the volume of content out there. I always had a passion for learning new things and today what could be simpler. I recently learned to TIG weld, sure I need to practice and work at it but after about an hour I knew what I needed to buy and once it arrived I knew how to set everything up and within minutes I was sticking bits of scrap metal together.

I previously taught myself how to operate a manual metal turning lathe. Another project required knowing how to work with Marmorino (lime plaster). I learned to spray two pack paint, build a sandblaster and repair our cooker. I mastered the arcane electrical systems of British motorcycles and found out how to apply/repair the patina on my pre war truck. There is not a week goes by that I don’t have to learn something new and these days it’s all at my finger tips. What you are staring at now has incredible potential for life enhancement. Of course a modicum of intelligence and common sense are required in order to use this powerful tool. Sadly for lots of people it just leaves them looking like a tool swinging in the breeze.

Just using the word ‘bonsai’ implies that our little trees are something special, something apart or removed from their wild and unfettered relatives. Right there it all went tragically wrong and we didn’t even get to the second word. As soon as the ‘B’ word is applied to a plant folk of lesser experience totally loose their minds and all sense of reality. The word bonsai is a little magnet that attracts so many myths, hearsay, conjecture and in my working class parlance, bullshit that, in the hands of the uninitiated 90% of these little plants are entirely doomed to die a sad and lingering death. Let’s focus on the TREE bit folks!

As a trained horticulturalist and life long gardener and grower it became obvious to me very quickly that a bonsai tree was just a plant in a pot like any other. The interest and unusual appearance is created by some rudimentary shaping and the tree is kept small only by pruning. Returned to the ground any bonsai tree will quickly return to it’s natural state. Like any potted plant with limited resources at it’s disposal a bonsai tree relies upon it’s owner for it’s essential needs. These needs are simple, light, air and water. It really is SO simple that, after thirty years doing this, I am increasingly perplexed and disillusioned at why folk are struggling with such a simple thing. One guess is that so many folk have become entirely removed from nature, the rhythm of the seasons and all the wonders of life outside.

I would suggest the word bonsai ought to indicate the process of making a small tree. The successful result we can just call a tree. That saves a lot of people a lot of confusion. A fabricator might build you some nice iron gates but if you called them a fabrication, and not gates, some people might be confused because the word has several connotations. The word gates is quite specific as is the word tree. In the minds of the un-initiated bonsai is the same.

So, here’s the thing. What’s the big deal with re-potting? 99% of the questions I receive concern re-potting. Before someone buys a tree they want to know when to re-pot. After they buy a tree they want to know when to re-pot. I see people re-potting new trees they just got, re-potting out of season in fact, looks to me like the bonsai community, and I use the term lightly, is totally and utterly obsessed with re-potting to the exclusion of all else.

As a motor-head please allow me a motoring analogy. The last time you bought a car, once you got it home what was the first thing you did? I am betting it was not to go outside and remove the engine right?* Assuming you are the kind of person that could actually do that successfully I would guess that before you did you would check how it ran. Most folk buying a motor would buy a fairly decent one that would do a good job. Some folk like me would seek out the opposite because we like a project but that’s an entirely different thing.

So why on God’s green earth would you buy a bonsai tree and instantly assume it needs to be re-potted? Most bonsai trees are killed by over- work. In my estimation the number of bonsai trees sold in the UK that survive a ten year period are a single figure percentage. A lot of those die because they are literally pruned to death, weakened as a result. A lot die because of inappropriate horticultural care, like keeping them indoors or in other inappropriate situations. A few are poisoned with fertilisers and other snake oil concoctions. But, the lions share are killed by re-potting.

You would assume this is the exclusive domain of the novice who, on a good day I could excuse for their inexperienced fumblings and daft questions. We all have to kill a few trees, that’s the price of an education. But, sadly this issue seems to afflict even some of those with decades of experience. In that case it’s rare that trees actually end up dead but inappropriate re-potting is responsible for a lot of beautiful old bonsai trees being turned into raw material as they end up with juvenile vigour and loose their maturity.

I assume folk must read that a bonsai tree needs a free draining soil. Most bonsai trees you buy do not have a free draining soil, at least not in the estimation of many folk who are most likely not experienced enough to make that judgement. Trouble is, if you put a tree into a free draining soil mix how long will that last? Even the most open growing medium will close down after a while simply because it’s pore spaces are filled with pesky root. So you buy a tree and when you water it does not drop right out the bottom of the pot, it must need re-potting right? Perhaps a responsible person has spent several years making sure your new tree has a good strong and vibrant root system. Not always the case but mostly so. Going out and throwing that work away on an ignorant mis- understanding is criminal. A bonsai tree, just re-potted in the right way, allows water to drop through the soil pretty quickly. However after a year or two that’s not going to be the case simply because the pot is filling with root, as it should be. So, then it takes a little longer to thoroughly wet the rootball when you water. On the other hand it can remain quite wet if it’s raining so then what? I have explained this so many times i just want to go chop my own head off. I have made videos and written dozens of times and explained it in demo’s and a thousand telephone conversations.

Bonsai trees go through phases of development. Initially we are looking for explosive rampant growth in order to build a powerful trunk. Subsequently we have to build primary branching, secondary branching and finally mature ramification. It is NOT possible to move onto any one of these phases before the proceeding step is complete. Each stage has it’s own technique too and using the wrong one won’t work. Anyone ever seen a trunk double in size where a tree is planted in a bonsai pot (in the UK)? Not in less than forty years you have not. In order to grow a big trunk you need a lot of growth. In nature a big tree carries a LOT of branching and foliage. I wrote about that at length here Upside Down Bonsai

That last phase of bonsai development is not understood by many folk. Remember when you were young you had boundless energy and strength to do most anything. Later on in life that started to fade but then you were a little smarter and so managed to compensate and do more with less. That is how we mature a bonsai tree. The whole process and point of ‘bonsai’ is to bring a tree to maturity in order to create a miniature characterization of the venerable old soldiers that touch our souls. In the early stages we have to tolerate boundless explosive growth but the WHOLE object of the exercise is to bring a tree to a mature and stable place of balance exactly as happens in the trees wild natural home.

Trees in nature follow this path. When young they grow away like weeds exploding in every direction. Later on they become larger, heavy and tall. After decades they will begin to bump up against the law of scarcity. Limited resources in the form of water, sunlight and nutrients coupled with the effects of weather and competition mean that growth has to slow and mature. Rather than making huge straight and soft vulnerable new growth, a tree will begin to create a more robust, long lived and ultimately efficient fine ramification that is very good at what it does and looks beautiful to our eyes.

The law of scarcity or the scarcity principle has two sides, one being that all resources are limited, the other side is that demand is infinite. Limited resources are one half of the fundamental problem of scarcity that has plagued humanity since the beginning of time. The other half of the scarcity problem is unlimited wants and needs. The phrase limited resources means that the quantities of productive resources available are finite. That is what creates those beautiful old and mature trees that inspired us to go out and develop the whole idea of bonsai in the first place. Trees mature once they reach a point at which the resources available to them are no longer sufficient to fuel their infinite demand for increase. At that point a more careful and measured use of those resources means a stable and mature growth pattern that allows for the best return for energy expended.

The problem with bonsai is that most folk are obsessed with re-potting to the point where a tree never manages to mature. Free draining soil, hard pruning, excess fertilisers, too much water and inappropriate positioning will keep a tree young, possibly vigorous and trying it’s best to expand rapidly. That coupled with the owners immaturity, lack of patience and inexperience mean a tree can never truly mature and actually become bonsai. All clever wiring and pruning do is make a tree ‘look’ like bonsai. Actual bonsai is a mature and harmoniously balanced tree that is at one with nature and it’s surroundings and has reached perfect equilibrium based on the law of scarcity. I would call the process of achieving that state ‘bonsai'. The successful net result I would call a TREE.

This all feeds into so much of what goes on in bonsai, most of which is entirely unnatural and ultimately harmful to trees. How many times have you seen a discussion about how to reduce leaf or needle size. A mature and balanced bonsai tree will not have overly large leaves. If it’s mature it will have good dense ramification and a stable root system which interprets as nicely formed leaves. If you are trying to make bonsai from an Indian bean tree (Catalpa) this won’t work but the endeavour was doomed from the start.

If your pine tree grows big needles it’s because it needs them at this stage in it’s life. Inducing stress by doing something dastardly is not going to help, in fact it’s likely to severely upset your tree and retard it’s progress. Young pines have big needles. To get small needles you have to mature the tree and that takes a long time assuming you know what you are doing which many folk do not. Kids have excess energy. Gagging them and stapling them to a wall by their clothes may well arrest the annoying and excessive motions about the house for a while but it will not actually turn them into your venerable grandad. As soon as they get free again it’ s probably going to be worse than before.

Real bonsai technique is the art of marshalling natural forces that bear upon a tree to bring it to maturity. As in nature so in bonsai. It’s a finely balanced art form. Mastering this is a lifetimes work. Constant obsession with repotting bonsai, free draining soil, obsessive fertilising, unrestrained pruning and unnatural meddling is feckin' stupid, don’t do it. Learn your horticulture folks! G.