A Bonsai Side Quest

The push and pull of spring work is in full swing for Jarryd and Hugh in their gardens. Using watering and fertilising as the throttle, and pinching and pruning to put on the breaks. They also discuss intentional bark pealing on some Australian species, growth management directing refinement, and the success of the advancements of Australian bonsai. 

After a long hiatus of what was supposed to be a weekly podcast… Hugh and Jarryd return! Appreciating a rainy spring and entering the growth season, they cover garden updates. Hugh recaps the Canberra Club show and good timed catching up with Grant Bowie and Sam Thompson. The guys share nostalgia for the late AusBonsai market and share news and excitement for both the upcoming 2025 AABC Convention in Canberra and the 2025 Bonsai Open. They reflect on how bonsai shows, much like trees, take time to develop and mature, and how the maturation process improves any subject - tree or bonsai show alike. 

Support Australian Bonsai events with us!

Link to register to the AABC National Bonsai Convention - Canberra 2025 (early bird rego ends 31/10/24) https://www.canberrabonsai.club/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=139:2025-aabc-bonsai-convention-3&catid=87&Itemid=2374

In this episode Hugh, Jarryd, and Ryan Neil of Bonsai Mirai catchup together to discuss everything bonsai. They each explore how they represent their native landscape through bonsai and discuss the deep, often challenging journey of finding meaning through this art form. With insights into the evolving culture of bonsai in Australia, this conversation offers a rich dive into bonsai culture in Australia currently. This is a thoughtful and engaging discussion with these three passionate bonsai professionals from different sides of the world. 

This podcast episode is a collaboration with Asymmetry by Bonsai Mirai. 

After a little hiatus, Hugh shares his big news - Treemakers is moving to a permanent location! With a recent visit from Jarryd, the boys began breaking ground on the new garden, building out a future space for the expansion of Australian bonsai. Exhausted by repotting season and the simultaneous big move, the two share excitement, but also physical drain from this demanding season.

In this episode, our guest Annie Huang tells us about Budlife, a seasonal magazine which focuses on the culture and communities surrounding plants. An eloquent and fascinating person, Annie shares her story and the origins of her publication and how it relates to bonsai. A side-quest of an episode itself, Annie interviews both Hugh and Jarryd on the origins of the podcast, and the plans and purpose of its future. They discuss the definition of bonsai as art, engaging in social media as bonsai practitioners, and how we present bonsai in formal settings. More often than not, in a metaphor or painting, bonsai is trying to keep the canvas on the easel more than actually painting. 

You you can find out about Budlife magazine on instagram at @budlifemagazine and via their website at www.budlifemagazine.com

As Hugh returns from New Zealand, the boys catch up on their recent going-ons and the shift in seasonal work. With the vast array of native New Zealand species on Hugh's mind, the two chat about New Zealands "wildling" collecting, and local species opportunities from the island neighbour. Hybridisation and grafting opportunities in Nothfagus gunnii come to mind as they discuss the viability of this allusive species. Now in the midst of repotting, the two look towards the vast array of projects to get underway. As the clock ticks, the time narrows for spring work as deciduous trees already begin to push their first flush. 

Unpruned beards and unpruned tree roots await Hugh and Jarryd in their gardens while they push through the craze of winter and the beginning of the repotting season. In this episode, the discussion of sustainability is raised around technique, design of the tree and the long term handling of roots. They discuss there experience in determining when, and more importantly when not to do, while catering to species specifics and the development of each tree. The two share the triumph of watching trees evolve into refinement, and the balance of sustainably taking care of their human selves while tending to their trees. 

With the quickly impending springtime, Hugh and Jarryd share the work they have been cramming into the season. With the bustle of client work, the time for personal projects gets tucked into contemplative midnight dates in the freezing Winter weather. Further growing their artist's statements, they weigh up what it would mean to operate on a more focused line of work, returning to an emphasis on local trees and aesthetics. In understanding the lifetime it takes to create a body of work, they discuss the need for an intergenerational duty of care for trees both old and new. 

In this guest episode, Will Fletcher sits down with Jarryd and Hugh to share his long history of working with Tasmanian native trees for bonsai. As a major contributor to Australian bonsai, Will's nurseries Plants of Tasmania and later Island Bonsai, broke ground in determining which local tree species are reliable staples for bonsai cultivation. 

This week, we are in real-time as Jarryd and Hugh share life updates before Jarryd heads off the grid for an extended boating expedition. They talk about working landscape trees, approaching gardening through the lens of a bonsai education, and drawing out the design process. They share their experiences of how to teach beginners and some inside thoughts on running a collection versus a garden that vends. Lastly, they wrap it up with Hugh’s recent visit to Brisbane for the AABC National Bonsai Convention. 

Finishing their action-packed reflection on the month of April, Hugh and Jarryd pick back up after the Bonsai Open and the tree sale hosted at TreeMakers with field-grown trees from Jarryd's adolescence. They then dive deep into their annual epic autumn hike to see the changing colour of the Fagus somewhere in the wilderness of Tassie. Filled with side quests and rambles a plenty, the two praise their time in nature honouring some of Australia's most ancient trees despite all the strife and hardship of snow, rain, and cold. 

Jarryd and Hugh interview Australian bonsai legend Ric Roberts, who is now 88 and likely practicing bonsai for over 60 years. Ric shares stories from his long practice since the 1960s and his role in the ever-evolving bonsai culture in the Sydney region. Ric is now creating a garden on the Central Coast called Unryu-En. Here he is building a space to share and preserve the legacy of his collection. Supporter Jason Pomfret also joins in as he helps to usher in the new era of Ric's work through Unryu-En.

At Jarryd's house in Tasmania, Jarryd and Hugh are no longer in the podcast recording time machine - we are all caught up to the present day with reflections on the recent Bonsai Open in the Central Coast! 

After sharing a haunted American hotel experience, Jarryd and Hugh drift into conversations about tree tourism in the US, New Zealand, and Chile. Coming to the end of the hot summer, they reflect on a work-life balance... that is more asymmetrical than symmetric. They share a beckoning to nature through camping, campfires, and the idea of genetic memory from ancestry being tied to geography. 

As Jarryd and Hugh end the growth season in late January 2024, they talk about geographic flora boundaries and the vast physical differences between Southern and Northern hemisphere species affecting the approach to bonsai worldwide. Digging into native Australian species, broadleaf-evergreen physiology is explored, and the validity of shrubs in the bonsai form.  

It's December 31 of 2023 and Hugh and Jarryd reflect on their year and share future aspirations for their bonsai, hikes, garden design, and overall business approach as two professional bonsai practitioners. As with any art form that becomes employment, they struggle with the fine line between delivering their art, but also the commodifying and consumer end of the work. Coffee and beer usher in the new year! 

In this throwback episode recorded in late 2023, Hugh and Jarryd share the exhaustion of the growth ramping up in the early summer season. They talk growth management of pines and eucalyptus, and the simultaneous battle against grass and weed growth. They also share some of their favorite tree personalities, tanuki dreams, and the trials of dreaded bark borers.

Hugh and Jarryd stumble through the wonders of podcast technical difficulties recording from their respective homes in the Blue Mountains and Tasmania. They chat about collected pine aftercare, the signs of a tree's declining health post-collection, South African akadama's advantages and disadvantages, and growth patterns after repotting. 

Visiting one another in the Blue Mountains, Jarryd and Hugh reflag on the inspiring native lower canopy for kusamono design, breaking norms and misconceptions about the art form. They then delve into some history of yamadori collecting of native species in Australia, in particular Ficus . Visiting trees in nature naturally brings them to sharing stories of tree climbing and the thrill of the unknown while sticking your hands into nooks to continue the climb. Lastly, they share some stories of the most indstructible ficuses they have met, and how this effects the choice trees of practice for Asutralian bonsai practitioners.