The journey of Phat Bastard

2022

 Unloading this phat bastard facilitated the use of a wheelbarrow to move it around, just the weight of the fat roots sticking out of the can weighed 20 pounds. Ed Clark grows his material much differently than he used to. Lots of his large stock like this was grown in the ground. All the way in the ground, no can. This becomes a problem when selling time comes around, especially in early summer when people are looking for new material, and the grower did not remove the right things from the ground and transfer them to a can to sell. Second problem is the grower now also loses his growing phase cause now it's in a cramped can and can no longer stretch out and grow. The answer is growing in large cans allowing the roots to escape into the ground. This allows the plant to take full advantage of the earth and being easily severed away from the ground allowing the sale. If not sold, growing is not lost due to the whole growing year lost before it could be planted back in the earth.

This material was not short on branches. It was loaded.

Hard to imagine what I saw in it ehh...

My initial cuts take place. I already had a shape in mind when I saw it in the ground. It had massive taper and the top looked like it could melt into a pretty good apex with careful pruning.

2023

The tree went thru its repotting in the Spring. Branches grew like crazy. I did not get any shots of the base of the tree upon removal from the nursery can, but it had to be cut off with a sawzall. This large cream glazed oval was purchased from Japan and has been used since planted in it 2023

Wondering what the plastic canvas is for? Me too. Nah... It's my hairbrained scheme for pulling down branches without wiring them directly leaving wire scars when they get missed.

The plastic canvas just guides the branches on a downward trajectory without wiring each branch. Once the branch has set I can begin the wire process. Notice how large the leaves are. This is due to the tree growing rank for years. The internodes were large having far fewer leaves. They have to be large when there are 75 percent fewer leaves. Over the next few years, the leaves have dramatically reduced.

This is at the end of the season. The leaves are already half as large, and the apex is starting to grow well.

The tree at this point is 15 inches tall with a 7 inch base.

2024

Spring and the tree looks pretty good. That huge trunk coming out of the soil in that big pot is pretty imposing.

By Fall of 2024 the tree had grown many branches and the temptation to cut back is tempting. I allowed them to elongate to about 18 inches before I cut them to get some girth on the branch as the eye moves up.

2025

Spring 2025 and the new leaves have reduced again. Now they are about the size of a nickel. Nice size for a trident leaf, especially on a tree this large.

Still 2025 but this time I took pics of the repot. This is the tree out of the pot and the roots cut back.

The larger roots that were high on the trunk were cut off. I trimmed a little more of the root mass back. This year I have watched many videos from Bonsai Q. Very good channel and top-quality work. Every once and a while they screw up and they all laugh and I like that. Keeping it real, we all screw up. What I notice on that channel is that whenever they work on a trident maple and there is repotting involved, the roots are taken back to about a 1/4 inch long from the trunk. This is very scary, but the plants always seem to respond, and the next video shows the plants the next year with a full crop of leaves like nothing ever happened to it. I didn't take it to 1/4 inch, but I am taking them back much harder that I have in years past. Time will tell if I am Kanta or not?

Now this new pot is 4 inches in length shorter than the previous boat. This pot is 17 inches in length versus 21 for the other. It was good for growing the tree and setting the structure. Now I can concentrate on building better branching.

The tree is still 7 inches across at the soil line. 

The tape says 21 inches tall, but I stuck the tape in with no soil and so if I subtract for the soil the tree is about 18 inches tall. Three inches taller than two years ago.

The new pot is just shy of 17 inches across. The old pot was a full 21 across and about 4 inches tall, but still about the same inner depth as the new pot.

 A lot more soil than this pot can hold. I can tell because when I was done it weighed half as much to carry back to the bench than it did when I carried it to the bench. This new pot is 3 inches tall.

About the pot. The pot is an exhibition grade Yamaaki pot from Japan. I purchased it thru a Japanese auction site. The description stated that it had been used in a prestigious Japanese Exhibit. Since it has no documentation to that fact, I can only take their word for that. Who knows which "Japanese exhibit". 

In the pictures below, I have shown the chop from Yamaaki, for Toshio Kataoka, son of founder Akiji Kataoka.  So far, I have seen that and can find that everywhere on the net.

What follows is the nail inscribed signature. The first two lines next to the chop (stamp) are everywhere on the net. This signifies that this pot was pressed by the master. Other third generation Yamaaki pots with only a stamp can be pressed by apprentices within the factory. Pressed, meaning the clay slabs are pressed into a plaster mold. On this one, the flower motif is in the mold and clay is pressed into it to capture the design. On my pot there are three signature lines. I have seen this before from Japan on pots built for special occasions, like prestigious exhibits and things like that. Maybe it captures a date, or the exhibit, or location. This particular pot was fired in 1989 according to the auction notes.

Here is a similar pot signature from Micheal Ryan Bell's official chop resource. Just the two signature lines.

This is a cut corner rectangle I found on the web with the same design pressed into it.

Here is the bottom of same pot with two signature lines.

This is one more pot from the net with a very clear signature, but just the two lines. Now I am really curious as to what the third signature line says. I have not seen one on the internet, and this after looking at what seemed like two hundred pots at many different locations, from collections to selling on eBay or auctions. 

Here is a shot of the tree planted in the new container with the old larger container for comparison. Quite a difference

2026

The beauty shot for 26 since I am finishing the text on New Years Eve.  The new smaller pot captures the sumo quality in the composition very well, I think.

I was able, after looking at another hundred photos of Yamaaki pots, to find this one with the triple signature on the bottom. It just so happened that this pot was on a web site that also had some information on the signatures on the bottom of the pot.

Shosen-yaki (常山焼) primarily refers to a style of high-quality, traditional Japanese ceramic bonsai pots, often made in the famous Tokoname region, known for classic shapes, rich colors (like brown), and the signature "Shosen-yaki" stamp, usually from makers like Yamaki (Yamaki-Zo), used by serious collectors for their aesthetic appeal and suitability for bonsai display. It's a mark of craftsmanship, not a type of food or grill (despite the similar-sounding yaki meaning 'grilled'), but specifically for fine pottery used in the art of bonsai.

Key Characteristics:

Craftsmanship: Authentic, often handcrafted in Japan.

Material: High-quality ceramic or clay.

Appearance: Traditional designs, unglazed or glazed, often with a distinctive rim or band.

Color: Common colors include rich browns, purples, or natural clay tones.

Marking: Features the signature "Shosen-yaki" or "Shosen-yaki Yamaki-Zo" stamp.

Use: Specifically for displaying bonsai trees, appealing to enthusiasts and collectors.

A cloudy day at Kyudo En

 It started out cloudy and then the clouds broke and it was a marvelous day. Warmer than usual and the sunshine was a welcome relief. Today was Kyudo En workshop day. Had a banger turnout, about 21 people showed up today. Today's topic was branch selection and apex building. The selection of trees was good and discussion lively. If you haven't been to Kyudo En for a workshop, it's a lot of fun. The lunch today provided by Lisa was poblano soup, judging by how the pot looked after she brought it out, I can say it was a smash because the pot was literally empty.

While I was very busy with "talking" which I do too easily, I never stopped to take a picture. What I did do is fill my Tokonoma with a display. Today it had a maple tree. It was a repot for this season and I took it out of the Kakuzan pot and put it into a green low sided rectangle pot by Shuho. While I liked the Kakuzan pot, I felt it was just a little too tall sided. The Shuho shows better with the tree, being shallower.

The accent tree lost in the photo is a very small Mame Satsuki azalea.

Some photos of the tree thru its life from first purchase to last year and the array of pots it's been thru the years. The first pho here shows the tree at Kims Bonsai in Phelan CA. The nursery has since closed. It was a landmark for 40 years. Year - 2000

This is its first potting. That first branch is so pathetic.

The repot is into a pot made by my son in high school. This is about 1993.

The tree finally got an upgrade in a pot by Jim Barrett.

I wanted a pot that would work well with orange and blue is that color. So, I searched for a blue pot and found this one at Kimura Nursery in Sylmar. I built the stand because I could find no stands large enough for the pot. This pot is the same dimension as the preceding one by Jim.

This the pot by Kakuzan. I purchased this pot from Garret Ryan. It was about the same dimension as the previous two but had much taller sides. Fall 2024

Night shot 2024

Unboxing the third load of pots from Japan.

 

Amazing Japanese artists, Copper Water Can

The oops Juniper 2025

 This small juniper was purchased for a specific purpose. The purpose was to use this in a Tanuki project. The trunk it was to be affixed to had some very sharp coil bends in it.  While wrapping the whip into the groove, I was able to wire the whip as I went. All went well until at the very top I had to get the top third of the whip thru part of the coil. This amounted to bending the whip pretty hard ...and snap! Right in half it went. It broke just at the point on the trunk where I had removed all the foliage to facilitate getting the whip in the groove with no branches.

Oh well move on to something else with the thing. In looking at the whip, I found that it looked rather cool and might make a pretty good stand-alone tree. People use procumbens for beginner bonsai classes for a reason. You got to be a pretty bad artist to not get "something" out of a one-gallon shrub.

I made my dead wood first. I always begin with what I'm not going to use and decide if I can make jin out of it. If I can I also determine if it fits the design and will it add something to the design or detract. If they detract, they are kept very short and close to the trunk, if they fit the design and can help tell a story, I can leave them a little longer.

At this point I have started the wire. Now I don't know about you, but I wire trees. I mean wire trees, every little branch, even on big trees. People always tell me, "Man I wish I could make trees like you do, I mean you always get a good tree out of nothing." Well, that is achieved with wire. If you do bonsai, and you ain't doing styling till a tree is 100% wired, then you are just lazy. All bonsai should be wired. Even the trees in Gafu, Kokufu, Shuga, Taikan, and Omiya shows are wired. You can see it in the multitude of videos on you tube. When I say lazy, I don't mean you are a lazy person, I just mean you are rather lazy in your thinking on what bonsai is all about. It is about art, and you can't make art till "you" have control of the tree. That can only be achieved thru the judicious use of wire on "every" twig. People do clip and grow, and that is the tree being in control, not the artist. Thru clip and grow one can achieve an outline, but there is no artistry in that.

OK, I've said my peace. Thank you for listening.

Once I had the tree wired, I had to figure out how I was going to get the root ball from a one-gallon nursery container into a 4"x3"x1.25" pot. That's not much of a pot. 

So, I started cutting...and cutting.

Make sure you cut away all the roots that grow above the bole of the tree. The bole is the transition zone between the part above and below the dirt. Soil line if you will. Nursery plants are always planted deep in a nursery container because they are mass produced and care is not taken in how they are planted; there is no root pruning or decisions made. Just pull it out of one container and plant it up in the next size up mashing in a big wad of potting soil. Sometimes the tree will be planted two or three inches deeper than it needs to be.

Typically, these junipers are propagated by cuttings. Of course, the cutting gets started too deep, then it up pots for a few years and then we get this one big root which was the original cutting and now it looks like a tap root. Now people that propagate tell me that cuttings don't have a tap root because they are not started from seed. You only get a tap root due to genetics of the seed sending down a tap root to anchor the seedling. So, if that's the case, what do we call the long root on the cutting that is pushed into the soil three plus inches, ensuring it stays anchored and not blow over in the wind, and gets in my way when I decide to repot and have to cut it off like a tap root. I still call it a tap root, because it served the same purpose as God grown trees.

OK I said my peace again. Thanks for listening.

So now I get the beauty shot. Nice basketweave Bigei pot and it fits perfectly.

The tree finished out at just a smidge over four inches from the soil.