How Bonsai Works

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 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 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,

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 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 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.

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? 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 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, 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, 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, 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 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 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 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, 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, 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, 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 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

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. 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 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

a break first, Yeah, let's do that. Okay, okay, Josh, 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 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

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 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 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 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,

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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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

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, 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 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

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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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

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 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,

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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.

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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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 care and shaping, which is where the money is. So 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 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 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 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 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

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, 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

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

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 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. 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 praise like Scooter did, we're always down with that. You can tweak to us y s Podcast. You can post cool stuff on Facebook that com slash stuff you should know. You can find us on Instagram at s y s K podcast for real. You can send us an email

to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. It's always join us out our home on the Web. Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It How Stuff Works dot com