The Art of Bonsai

      I have been sitting here for half an hour with this thing in front of me, and I have yet to make a cut. It's unlike me, or at least unlike whom I used to be. I always made quick decisions, right or wrong. I never shied away from it. That's who I used to be, and maybe I was a little too proud of that trait. A little forethought might have served me better at times.
     Forethought hasn't helped me here, though. Not today. The art of bonsai—art, skill, however you want to think of it—is largely about planning. You decide how you want the tree to look. You plan for its shape and you choose how lush you want the foliage to be, within the parameters of the species of course, which you pick for its particular characteristics. You choose the pot, most often a shallow one for perspective. It gives the semblance of height to a tree that you are purposely keeping from growing tall. There is so much to consider...things that you don't think about when you give in to the impulse to start a bonsai.
     This one is an Ash Juniper. I picked it because it is considered to be one of the easiest, and because it thrives in this climate. I gave myself that break after I decided to walk away from the bonsai nursery without buying anything. If I was going to do this, then it would be from scratch. This tree would be what I wanted it to be. If you buy one that has already been started, you can change it only so much. It will already have a front. You have to choose one side early in the process to serve as the front of the tree. It should be the side that shows the most trunk. That aged-looking trunk is an important part of the illusion.
     So I made the to start with my own small sapling and mold it in my image. Or rather, to turn it into what I wanted it to be. I found a four inch specimen in the woods and dug it up, replanting it into a temporary pot which is deeper than the bonsai pot. That allows it to grow unimpeded and reach the desired height more quickly. Then you turn off the juice. You trim the roots and plant it in the shallow pot, where there is room for only a little soil. That way, the tree depends on you for everything. You have to water it often since there is not much dirt to hold in the moisture, and you have to feed it for the same reason.
     Again I start to make a cut, and again I stop. Maybe I should just defoliate today. That's a fairly simple process with juniper.
     I was shaping this tree even before I moved it into the shallow pot, using copper wire to bend the trunk or limbs. Juniper lends itself well to dramatic bends and twists. You just wrap the wire around and around, bending it at the desired angle. I was trying for a particular look with this tree. I knew what I wanted. Shortly after digging it from the ground I had returned to the nursery and purchased a dark blue pot. It was four inches tall and twelve long. Also, I had bought the tools that I would need—several sizes of pruning shears and pliers, along with a couple of saws. I found a rock with a hole in it, big enough to take up most of the pot, little more than an inch thick on one end, but closer to four on the other. It had a two inch diameter hole in the thinner end where I could plant the tree, and this was also a way of making it easy. I wanted it to look as if it was growing out of a rock. A true Bonsai grower would have found a rock with a depression that would hold just a little bit of dirt. They would wire the tree to the rock and wait for it to grow roots that penetrated the rock. And it would need constant watering, probably more than once a day at times due to the small amount of soil. Doing it my way seemed acceptable to me, to give it the appearance of growing out of the rock but with less maintenance. My life is still busy at times, though not the way it used to be.
     This method did force me into revising my plan more than once. The nebari is the spread of roots that is visible above the soil. For a proper nebari, I needed to have the roots grow over the rock as well as straight down. The tree needed that width, or flair at the root base. It helps to give the appearance of a tree that has survived for a long time, and that has struggled but persevered. And it is that proportion, wide at the roots with a trunk that narrows as it goes up, that truly makes it seem real. I mean, as it would look if it was normal sized. I didn't realize that initially, and the first time I put the tree into its permanent pot I just planted it right into that hole. There was no reason for the roots to grow over the rocks. I decided to trim the roots earlier than I otherwise would have so that I could re-pot the tree a little differently. Trimming the roots is an important part of creating bonsai. It's a regular part of the maintenance and an important part of keeping the tree small. You knock as much of the dirt away from the roots as you can without damaging them. Even though you are going to purposely damage them with the shears, you want the roots that you keep to remain healthy. Then you trim them and start with fresh soil. When I re-potted, I put less soil beneath the rock so that it would sit deeper in the pot. Then I was able to bring the soil over the top of the rock on the small end.
     A year later it was time to trim the roots again. After knocking away the dirt I could see that my plan was working, but just barely. The tree was putting out roots above the rock, but they were small and thin, not yet spreading out much. It was too soon to know if they were really enhancing the nebari. I realized I would have to cover them again when I put the bonsai back into its pot. Everything happens so slowly with this art. It requires a world of patience, which is not my strongest trait. And I have reached an age where you never know how much time you have left. That makes patience harder to come by. So I found a way to “speed it up,” which is a relative term with Bonsai. There are different methods, actually. One is called air-layering, and that is the one I should probably choose. The other method, which is the one I am actually considering, involves wrapping a tourniquet around the tree's base, right where you want the new roots to grow. Since I am struggling with indecision, I decide to keep on with my current method for another year. I'm afraid that in air-layering I might harm the tree, and that using a tourniquet will leave a scar. Both fears are irrational, for the most part. These methods have been used for centuries. But nowhere have I found anyone willing to put a number on the success rate.
     Funny that I should want so much to know the odds, considering that I've become afraid to gamble on most things.
     I turn the tree again, making sure that I am familiar with it from all views, all angles. I see much that is right about this bonsai, and wonder how much of it is due to me and how much of it just nature. All living things have such a tenacious desire to live, to grow, and to thrive.
     But as I continue to examine it, I see other things. That nebari, for example. The roots are healthy and sustaining the tree. That should be all that I care about, but I wonder what I should have done differently from the beginning to help them be what they should be. I also see the limb that never would quite bend the way I wanted it to. It kept growing up instead of out, no matter how I wired it. No one else would ever know that it was a failure on my part. It looks perfectly normal and functions just as it should, but I can't help but wonder about the rebellious nature of this tree...growing up when I didn't want it to.
     As so often happens when I perform this task, my thoughts turn to you. I think about the day you were born, the instant that you were delivered. I remember that overwhelming feeling of love that washed over me, followed by that moment of panic when I realized that I was truly responsible for a life, that it was up to me to nurture and to provide for someone who would depend entirely on me. I was ready for it in the sense that I had always wanted it, this chance to be a father. But it some ways I was not ready. I hadn't yet found my own way in the world. I didn't know who I really was or what I was going to do.
     Again, I think about doing what I started out to do here. There are branches forming that I know need to come off. I am almost ready to begin pruning when my eye is drawn to two marks on the trunk. They are old scars, of little consequence, really. I made those cuts before I had the proper tool. There is a pruning shear with a slightly convex blade that cuts a little deeper into the trunk and helps to prevent scarring. I should have bought it from the beginning, but money, as always, was a consideration. Most people would never notice these blemishes, unless they were also Bonsai enthusiasts.
     I tend to dwell too much on my mistakes. I always have. It can cripple you if you allow it to.
     But it wasn't crippling me that I was worried about. I just didn't want to do it to you. I wanted to give you everything you needed to grow as big and as strong as you possibly could. With this tree, I had to make it dependent on me for everything. But you started out that way and I had to eventually get you free of that dependence. It wasn't easy to do. There is something so heady about that unconditional love and complete need of a child for a parent. I had been loved before, but I had never been needed so totally. I remember that time when I was the most important thing in the world to you, when you hardly needed anyone but me. That time is short-lived, and I wish I had been able to enjoy it more. Like so many parents, I was too busy to live in the moment. And too busy, I'm afraid, to give you what you needed...my time. I tried to give you lots of love and hoped that it would be enough, but sometimes there is no substitute for time—for that unselfish, undivided attention that kids need.
     I see you now and I am happy with what you've become, with who you are. I realized long ago that the most I could really hope for was to give you a life that was somewhat better than mine. Sometimes that's all we can manage. But you have grown into more than just a better version of me. You found yourself, found a life that will be good for you and your family.
     I want to take pride in that, but I think it has more to do with you than with me. I worry about whether I really helped you at all. Did I prune too deeply at times? Did I water your soul when it was running dry? Did I let your roots grow deep enough to hold you to the ground during the inevitable storms? Sometimes when I look back I am haunted by the mistakes, and I can't see your tree through that bitter forest.
     It shouldn't matter. What's important is the end result, and that I gave you enough so that you can give your kids a better life than you had. Sometimes it’s the most a parent can hope for.