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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about Bond Side. Now, Rob,

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Speaker 1: I hope you don't mind if I share a bit

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Speaker 1: of trivia about you with the listeners. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you've ever made clear on this show before, but

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Speaker 1: you are a very caring plant keeper. You've for a

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Speaker 1: long time at work had a wonderful little flower on

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Speaker 1: your desk, and often, like if you're out of town,

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Speaker 1: you would ask me to drop an ice cube on it,

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Speaker 1: which I think I always remembered to do whenever you

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Speaker 1: asked me. Um. But but yeah, I appreciate the care

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Speaker 1: and tenderness you show for the plant kingdom. Well, Um,

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Speaker 1: I appreciate that, Joe. I guess you could also say

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Speaker 1: I just I managed not to kill an orchid, uh

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Speaker 1: that that I was charged with. Um, it was my

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Speaker 1: my father in law's orchid. And yeah, I say so.

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Speaker 1: I lived on my desk get work there and it

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Speaker 1: would have an ice cube every now and then to

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Speaker 1: keep it hydrated. And I would ask you or sometimes

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Speaker 1: the uh Scott who's sat next to me to to

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Speaker 1: do it. Um, and uh, yeah, I managed not to

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Speaker 1: kill it. And there is something kind of satisfying about

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Speaker 1: having this kind of like long term relationship with a plant.

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Speaker 1: This this nurturing, you know, even if it's very slight

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Speaker 1: nurturing and not like a you know, not a real

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Speaker 1: high maintenance plant. Um. You know, it seems like a

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Speaker 1: pretty sturdy species that I had grown there. Uh and

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Speaker 1: now it's growing in my bathroom, um, since I'm not

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Speaker 1: in the office anymore. But yeah, it's it is very,

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Speaker 1: very satisfying to to be involved in a in a

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Speaker 1: nurturing relationship with a plant like that, just as it

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Speaker 1: is so frustrating and and potentially depressing to have the

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Speaker 1: opposite relationship relationship with the plant. You know, I think

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Speaker 1: we've all had that as well, where like, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: I cannot keep this thing alive, this plant just wants

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Speaker 1: to die or I am just horrible at it. Now.

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Speaker 1: One thing you may not have considered, and I apologize

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Speaker 1: if this is an overly intimate thought, but whenever you

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Speaker 1: have a plant growing in a bathroom, and we have

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Speaker 1: plants growing in our bathrooms, you have to assume that

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Speaker 1: they are making their cells as they continue to photosynthesize

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Speaker 1: from the lights over the sinc they are making their

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Speaker 1: cells out of some percentage of carbon that comes out

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Speaker 1: of your like toilet emissions and so forth, probably, right,

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Speaker 1: I guess. So, I mean that's I mean, that's I

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Speaker 1: guess it's good. Right, You're you're exposing them to to

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Speaker 1: more of the natural world even though they're an indoor plant. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I never thought about that before. Um well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: so if it's mainly carbon dioxide, I assume it's probably

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Speaker 1: more what you're breathing out, but I don't know. Farts

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Speaker 1: probably have some CO two content, right, I guess. But

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Speaker 1: then again, if it's if it's farts the plants want,

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Speaker 1: then they really want a fully packed office environment again, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean there's I can't possibly offer it

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Speaker 1: the the you know, the kind of hum it was

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Speaker 1: probably accustomed to. Well, so I'm excited to talk about

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Speaker 1: Bond said today. I have never myself taking care of

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Speaker 1: a bonsai tree. I have, uh, I have tried to.

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Speaker 1: I guess, I don't know if this was this would count.

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Speaker 1: I have tried to take care of a sort of

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Speaker 1: potted tree of sorts. I don't know if would actually

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Speaker 1: count as bonsai, but I failed. I just I killed it.

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Speaker 1: And that's why I'm partially envious of of the dedicated

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Speaker 1: and regular care that you always showed to your orchid. Well,

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Speaker 1: I would say that, you know, well, whatever however you

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Speaker 1: classify that care, bonds I is certainly on it on

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Speaker 1: an entirely different level. It is up on the top

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Speaker 1: of the mountain. We're talking about the pinnacle of of

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Speaker 1: caring for a plant, and uh, yeah, this is this

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Speaker 1: is one. This is an episode I've wanted to do

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Speaker 1: for a while. I think my experience with bonds I

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Speaker 1: have never owned a bonds Ie or cared for a

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Speaker 1: bonds Ie, but my experience with him with him is

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Speaker 1: probably similar to a lot of people's out there. My

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Speaker 1: first exposure was almost certainly watching the Karate Kid as

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Speaker 1: a child, uh, and seeing that, oh, Mr Miyagi has

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Speaker 1: has bonsai plants. Those are neat uh. And then maybe

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Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe they popped up on a reading

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Speaker 1: rainbow or something at some point I don't recall. But

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Speaker 1: then much much later, uh, I you know, I was

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Speaker 1: I was traveling and I was visiting, but believe one

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Speaker 1: place in San Francisco, in another place in San Diego

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Speaker 1: where I got to see a multitude of bonsai plants

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Speaker 1: with you know, identification information as well as age. And

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Speaker 1: it was just really amazing to behold these things, these

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Speaker 1: these ancient trees that that you feel should be gigantic,

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Speaker 1: but they are in miniature and they are alive, and

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Speaker 1: they are just meticulously cared for and crafted. Uh. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's this there's this kind of magical aura to them

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Speaker 1: and this and this age, this kind of condensed age,

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Speaker 1: you know. Um, so they're they're really special to just behold.

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Speaker 1: And then when you read a little bit about caring

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Speaker 1: for them, yeah, it also uh that just adds to

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Speaker 1: your level of appreciation when you read about the culture

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Speaker 1: involved in it. And uh and so yeah, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to do an episode on this for a while, and

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Speaker 1: then I've kind of forgotten about it. I think we

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Speaker 1: pitched it as part of a deal with a UM,

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Speaker 1: a Japanese automobile company that we're gonna advertise with us,

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Speaker 1: and and then that didn't happen. I forgot about it.

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Speaker 1: But then I ended up watching Cobra Kai on Netflix,

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Speaker 1: which also has the bonsai trees in it, and uh

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Speaker 1: and I was reminded, Oh, yeah, we we should do

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Speaker 1: a bonsai episode. Got bonds I bouncing around in the brain. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so maybe you can answer a question that I'm sure

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Speaker 1: a lot of people are wondering. What is it? What

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Speaker 1: makes the strict definition of a bonsai tree? What makes

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Speaker 1: a bonsai tree different than any potted plant? Well, um,

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Speaker 1: based on my understanding of it, I would say that

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Speaker 1: the big thing to do is you sort of have

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Speaker 1: to back up and think about it not just as

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Speaker 1: caring for a tree and growing for a tree and

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Speaker 1: nurturing a tree, but it's also just it's also steeped

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Speaker 1: in just like the basics of art and design, you know,

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Speaker 1: because arn't in design, you know, very often sit around

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Speaker 1: the manipulation of the natural world or natural resources to

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Speaker 1: some form that is esthetically pleasing and perhaps even philosophical

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Speaker 1: or theologically engaging as well. You know, we take stone

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Speaker 1: and we craft into the likeness of a human or

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Speaker 1: some sort of humanoid figure of myth or legend. Trees

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Speaker 1: are cut down in hun and then the raw material

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Speaker 1: is carved into all manner of forms and functions. But

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Speaker 1: as for the control of living plants that brings us,

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Speaker 1: of course to agriculture and cultivation. Um and and human

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Speaker 1: works are pretty grand in this realm as well. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you look at what we we have done for generations

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Speaker 1: and generations with agriculture and cultivation. But the Bond Japanese

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Speaker 1: Bonds Eye tree, it is the pinnacle of plant cultivation.

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Speaker 1: Uh And and I think that Brad Dunning described this

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Speaker 1: exceptionally well for the New York Times back in two

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Speaker 1: thousand two. Uh they wrote, quote, but it's more than

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Speaker 1: just an issue of control, simple for it simply for

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Speaker 1: the sake of control. As nature spins wildly downward, there

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Speaker 1: is an example of man controlling, conquering, nurturing, and respecting

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Speaker 1: nature on an extremely uh reverential level. By constantly thwarting

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Speaker 1: the growth of new saplings, the bonsai gardener, through pinching, cutting,

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Speaker 1: and splitting new growth, forces the tree's branches to strain

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Speaker 1: in any direction to succeed. With additional help from restraining wires,

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Speaker 1: the tree is manipulated into prematurely aged shape over time,

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Speaker 1: sometimes a lot of time. Prize specimens can be several

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Speaker 1: hundred years old, so bonsai is not just a potted plant.

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Speaker 1: But it's a tree that's grown in a confined environment

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Speaker 1: with this spirit of artistic shaping. Yes, yeah, and uh

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Speaker 1: and and along and you know, certain traditional like you

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Speaker 1: get into like what kind of pot is used, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: And then of also know what species is used. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, as as is often the case with with

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Speaker 1: this particularly you know Japanese artistry, there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of very particular details in the cultivation. And you know

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Speaker 1: it comes down to things like what are their traditional

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Speaker 1: shears that one should use, what are the best shears? Uh,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Um. Another thing that's interesting about

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Speaker 1: bonsai trees to me, and I think this comes through

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Speaker 1: through all this pruning and shaping and everything, is that, um,

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Speaker 1: a bonsai tree does not just look like a sapling

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Speaker 1: or like a young tree. There is a particular style

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Speaker 1: of miniaturization that comes about through the long sustained care

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Speaker 1: of this this small plant, which is that it is

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Speaker 1: a tiny version of a tree that looks like a

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Speaker 1: shrunken adult version of the same tree rather than just

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Speaker 1: a sapling or young growth. Does that make sense? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and exactly that they're like this ancient dwarf and uh

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Speaker 1: and it and it a lot of the reasons that

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Speaker 1: this is attractive to us, I feel like they almost

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Speaker 1: deny or that they defy rather um, you know, easy explanation.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's something obviously about the world at large

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Speaker 1: made small that we're always fascinated. And you know we

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Speaker 1: love miniatures, be it, you know, miniature miniature soldiers, miniature tanks,

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Speaker 1: miniature cities, maps, etcetera. Uh. And in fact, one of

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Speaker 1: the the the origin stories for the Bonsai trees that

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Speaker 1: will touch on has to do with that, like the

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Speaker 1: idea of like make make the world at large small

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Speaker 1: enough for me to behold it. Uh. But then also

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Speaker 1: there is something too about like the ancient made small

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Speaker 1: like it it reminds me of so many myths of

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Speaker 1: like tiny little old men, you know, that have some

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Speaker 1: sort of magical powers, you know, little folks. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: there's something of the of the fairy world, you know

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Speaker 1: in that that you know, non culturally distinct manner to

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Speaker 1: the Bonds eye tree. Now. Um, there are of course

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Speaker 1: true bonds eyes created in accordance with the Japanese tradition. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there are various tears that follow that fall below

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Speaker 1: the standard, with one of the most notorious being the

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Speaker 1: sort of bonds Ie that sometimes is sold at malls,

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Speaker 1: grocery stores, and street fairs. And these, according to Stephen

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Speaker 1: Or in New York Times, Garden Q and a Into

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Speaker 1: thousand nine are a curse upon the name of bonds I. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These are typically young rooted juniper tree cuttings in a

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Speaker 1: decorative pot. Uh. So not true bonds eyes will get

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Speaker 1: into what true bonds I really consists of in a bit,

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Speaker 1: but people will buy these. They think they have a

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Speaker 1: bond's eye. It looks neat, they bring it home, and

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Speaker 1: then they're devastated when it dies in a few months.

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Speaker 1: So not a not an ancient dwarf tree or something

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Speaker 1: that will become an ancient dwarf tree, but just a

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Speaker 1: short lived trick. And this made me think of Cobra

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Speaker 1: Kai actually because in the TV show, um Ralph Maccio's character, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know from the first film is now a car

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Speaker 1: dealer and he has a car dealership and part of

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Speaker 1: his whole gimmick in the show is when you buy

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Speaker 1: a car, you also get this little bonds I plant

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Speaker 1: that he prepares, and I guess it's supposed to you know,

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Speaker 1: he's he's very meticulous character and he's all into the tradition.

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Speaker 1: So I guess it's supposed to be the case that

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Speaker 1: these are legitimate Bonsai trees that he's handing out to customers.

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Speaker 1: But it makes me wonder. I mean, yeah, I sell

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Speaker 1: nice cars, but I wonder it does the cynical side

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Speaker 1: of me um leaning into sort of these sort of

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Speaker 1: the cynical notes to that character in that show is like,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if these are just the cheap roadside bonds

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Speaker 1: eyes that he's handing out. You know, that would be

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Speaker 1: very car dealery. But you can always blame user error, right,

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Speaker 1: You can always just say, like, must not have taken

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Speaker 1: care of it, right, Yeah, better bring it back into

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Speaker 1: the shop. Well, apply that undercoating the true coat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna want that true code on your bond's eye. Yeah. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's a fun show. Um well yeah, let's well, let's

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Speaker 1: keep going talking about bonds eyes. Then, So, at the

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Speaker 1: heart of the bonds I practice is just pure artistic

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Speaker 1: manipulation of a tree's growth. Trees, as you've probably noticed,

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Speaker 1: everyone grow in accordance to their genes, but also in

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Speaker 1: accordance to their surroundings. So this means the dictates of

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Speaker 1: water soil, and sun, various other limiting factors in their

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Speaker 1: immediate surroundings as well, such as other trees, human structures,

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Speaker 1: power lines. Uh. You know, as I think we all

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Speaker 1: can attest to, you can you can see some pretty

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Speaker 1: wonky trees out in the world, out in the forest

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Speaker 1: in urban environments, you know, where they do the best

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Speaker 1: they can with the with the constraints that are there.

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Speaker 1: Um And indeed they can produce natural examples of what

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Speaker 1: you can at least roughly classify as a bonsai tree.

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Speaker 1: For instance, if you were to travel down to a

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Speaker 1: place called Tate's Hell and uh, Tate's Hell State Forest

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Speaker 1: near Tallahassee, Florida, and I have to say I have

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Speaker 1: driven through it. I can't say I've actually visited, but

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Speaker 1: I did drive through it. Uh. There there is a

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Speaker 1: forest apparently of miniature cypress trees hundreds of years old,

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Speaker 1: covering acres and none more than fifteen feet tall, which, granted,

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Speaker 1: that's far bigger than what you might think of as

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Speaker 1: a bonsai tree a true bonsai tree, um. But bear

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Speaker 1: in mind that cypress trees of this variety and age

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Speaker 1: can reach heights of a hundred and fifty feet yes

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Speaker 1: old cypress trees can can be towering, and so there

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Speaker 1: are special conditions at work that keep this ancient forest

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Speaker 1: as short as it is. I was reading that most

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Speaker 1: of these trees are between um like six and fifteen

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Speaker 1: feet at maturity. I think a lot of them around

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Speaker 1: ten feet or so. Uh, and that it's very strange looking.

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Speaker 1: I found one picture that's like an aerial shot of

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Speaker 1: this dwarf cypress forest that is surrounded by many other trees.

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Speaker 1: I think the story goes that at some point there

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Speaker 1: was a company that was harvesting a lot of the

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Speaker 1: trees from the area. I think maybe for logging or

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Speaker 1: maybe to clear land for something, but um. But when

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Speaker 1: they reached the dwarf cypress forest, they realized that that

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Speaker 1: they that this was something unusual and worth preserving. So

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Speaker 1: they they stopped a lot of their their shaping of

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Speaker 1: the land at the edge of this thing. And it

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Speaker 1: did end up getting preserved when the state bought it

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Speaker 1: and turned it into a state forest. But a sidebar

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Speaker 1: on Tate's Hell, because I had to know what was

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Speaker 1: up with that name, and I looked into it, and

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Speaker 1: I actually was rewarded with some very excellent Florida swamp

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Speaker 1: ump lore, alright, let's have it. Well. So I was

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Speaker 1: reading about it in this book called Florida Lore by

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Speaker 1: Karen Schnuir Neil, published in and she points out, first

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Speaker 1: of all, there is a song by the old Florida

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Speaker 1: folk singer Will McLean about tates Hell and it it

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Speaker 1: tells the same story as the legend that I'm about

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Speaker 1: to explain. But it's also one of those old style

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Speaker 1: folk songs that starts with the section that is not singing,

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Speaker 1: but it's kind of rapping. I don't know exactly what

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Speaker 1: you call it, like fast rhythmic rhyming talking before the

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Speaker 1: tune kicks in, where he says, like, listen, good people

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Speaker 1: to a story I'll tell of a great swamp in

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Speaker 1: Florida place called Tate's Hell. Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of

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Speaker 1: like the pre folk song ramble. Sometimes I guess it rhymes,

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Speaker 1: oftentimes it does not. But you hear it from from

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Speaker 1: a number of practitioners of the craft. I know Phil

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Speaker 1: Elks would do it a lot. You know, he's kind

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Speaker 1: of working out. He's like, all right, I listening this tune,

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Speaker 1: and I got a little and sometimes it's even like

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Speaker 1: a bit it's almost like a little comedy bit and

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Speaker 1: I guess I guess yeah, yeah, and I guess that's

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Speaker 1: what Uh. Oh, what's their name? Is kind of leaned

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Speaker 1: into this a lot and their act. Uh the famous

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Speaker 1: folk comedy duo. Oh, I can't think of their names offhand. Um,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know who one of them is, Bob,

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Speaker 1: one of them has a beard, soft spoken Garfunkel and notes, no,

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Speaker 1: it's not Garfunkle notes that I think they probably have

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Speaker 1: like more of a modern version of this, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's not the Flight of the Concords. Those are the

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Speaker 1: two folk comedy duos I know. These are the one

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Speaker 1: They were on TV all the time. Um oh, man

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Speaker 1: um Smothers Brothers, the Smothers Brothers. I don't know why

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Speaker 1: I was, I was trying to that. Yeah. Well, Will

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Speaker 1: McClean tells us that Tate's Hell is a place where

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Speaker 1: the bull gators beller and the panthers squall. Now this

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Speaker 1: is a place that should be shunned by all, and

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Speaker 1: so the legend goes like this, But this is the

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Speaker 1: version that I was reading in the book by Um

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Speaker 1: by Neil, not by nothing Will McLean's song, though they're similar,

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Speaker 1: the legend goes that in the year eighteen seventy five,

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Speaker 1: there was a homesteader named CB Tate who had staked

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Speaker 1: a claim for a ranch in the Panhandle of Florida,

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Speaker 1: and that's where Tate's hell is. It's up in the Panhandle.

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Speaker 1: It's uh, I think it's near Wacola Springs, isn't it um? Perhaps?

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Speaker 1: I mean, certainly, I've been to Wacola or Waccla. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure exactly what the preferred pronunciation there is. Uh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've been there, but I guess I don't remember how

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Speaker 1: I even came through tate Stale. It was just we

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Speaker 1: were on the way to somewhere else and we had

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Speaker 1: to pass through it. Well, it's near a place that

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Speaker 1: is now called Sumatra, Florida. It's an unincorporated community about

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Speaker 1: thirty miles from the city of Carabelle. And the context

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Speaker 1: for this is that there was the Homestead Act of

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, which meant that settlers could get a

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Speaker 1: grant of supposedly free land from the government if they

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Speaker 1: would agree to stay there and develop it for five years.

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Speaker 1: And CB Tate is one of these homesteaders. So he's

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Speaker 1: got a he's got a ranch or a farm that

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Speaker 1: he's trying to run, and one morning he discovers that

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Speaker 1: a panther has mauled several of his cows. So he

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Speaker 1: sets off in the forest with his hunting dogs and

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Speaker 1: the implements of death, as Will McLean says, an old

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Speaker 1: long tom shotgun and a sharp barlow knife. That panther

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Speaker 1: would sure have the chase of his life, and so

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Speaker 1: Tates dogs. They get the scent on the panther and

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Speaker 1: they take off after it, but Tate himself falls behind

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Speaker 1: and he gets separated from his hunting dogs. Unfortunately, as

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Speaker 1: we've discussed in the podcast last October, when there is

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Speaker 1: no visible landmark to navigate by, it's surprisingly easy to

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Speaker 1: get lost in the woods, and that appears to be

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Speaker 1: what happens here. He's wandering in the swampy forest and

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Speaker 1: he gets lost, and at some point he gets bitten

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Speaker 1: by a snake and he loses his gun, and to

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Speaker 1: read from Karen schnurneil here quote, for seven days and

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Speaker 1: nights he roamed the ancient trees in ominous swampland, more

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Speaker 1: often than not, dazed with hunger and heat, forced to

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Speaker 1: live on nothing but roots and muddy water. To make

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Speaker 1: matters worse, the mosquitoes swarmed around him until every inch

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Speaker 1: of his body was bitten. That's worse than the snake

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Speaker 1: bite to me. Yeah. Uh. And the story says that

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Speaker 1: over the course of the week that he was lost,

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Speaker 1: his hair turned white. But then after seven days, just

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Speaker 1: when he was convinced he was going to die, Tate

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Speaker 1: ran into a couple of a couple of hunters from

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Speaker 1: Carabelle and they asked him who are you and where

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Speaker 1: do you come from? And he says, my name is

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Speaker 1: CB Tate and I come from Hell. Probably not exactly true,

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Speaker 1: but it is a good story. But anyway, if the

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Speaker 1: story were true, it's possible that many of the cypress

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Speaker 1: trees that are still no more than ten or fifteen

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Speaker 1: feet tall today in the cypress forest of Tate's Hell

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Speaker 1: would have been there to watch CB Tate get snake bit,

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Speaker 1: you know, a middle of the bull gator bellers. Because again,

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Speaker 1: a lot of these these trees are are quite old there,

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Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of years old, even though they're still

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Speaker 1: so small. And I was reading a post about the

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Speaker 1: dwarf cypress forest on the blog of a local conservation

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Speaker 1: organization called the Appalachicola River Keeper and the author of

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Speaker 1: this blog post writes that quote, these dwarf pond cypress

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Speaker 1: trees may have become stunted due to a hard layer

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Speaker 1: of clay that prevents roots from growing deeper, similar to

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Speaker 1: planting a tree in a bond said pot. So that's

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Speaker 1: one possibility. Another they go on. Also, the soil is

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Speaker 1: low and nutrients, as evidenced by the carnivorous plants in

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Speaker 1: the area. You can also find dwarf cypress trees near

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Speaker 1: the picture plant bogs north of Sumatra, so there may

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Speaker 1: be some correlation. Now, remember we've discussed carnivorous plants on

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Speaker 1: the show before. The reason that carnivorous plants eat insects,

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Speaker 1: or at least most carnivorous plants, I would assume all Uh,

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Speaker 1: the reason they eat insects is not the same as

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Speaker 1: the main reason that we would eat plants or animals.

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Speaker 1: You know, we need to eat things to get you know,

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Speaker 1: protein and energy. Plants photosynthesized sunlight to get the energy

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Speaker 1: they need to live. So carnivorous plants eat for specific

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Speaker 1: nutrients that are lacking in barren and often swamp soil.

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Speaker 1: What other plants would get from the soil around them.

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Speaker 1: Carnivorous plants get from insects, and in human terms, when

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Speaker 1: plants eat an insect there, it's not like devouring a

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Speaker 1: loaf of bread. It's like they're taking their vitamins. So,

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Speaker 1: according to this source, at least that same type of

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Speaker 1: nutrient poor soil could be one thing preventing the cypress

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Speaker 1: trees from growing taller. Or it could be a hard

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Speaker 1: layer of sediment that blocks root growth, which in turn

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Speaker 1: shapes the body of the tree as a whole, which

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Speaker 1: is very much what happens when you plant a tree

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Speaker 1: in a pot. And this also ties into something else

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Speaker 1: interesting that I was reading that that I guess I'll

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Speaker 1: come back to in a few minutes. But yeah, so

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Speaker 1: bonsai trees are there. Their growth is constrained by several factors,

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Speaker 1: but one of the main ones being the pot that

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Speaker 1: they're confined to helps shape the not just where the

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Speaker 1: roots go, but the the overall shape of the tree

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Speaker 1: as a whole. That's interry. Yeah, that, and that ties

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Speaker 1: directly into what we're talking out with the with the

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Speaker 1: Bond's eye. Um. Now, I will say that as far

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Speaker 1: as Tate's helle goes, I do remember how I wound

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Speaker 1: up there. I was midway upon the journey of our life,

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Speaker 1: and I found myself within a forest dart uh for

404
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,400
Speaker 1: the far straightforward pathway had been lost. Uh oh and

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Speaker 1: what and you ran into three beasts, one of which

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Speaker 1: was a panther yep, yep. Maybe another was a bull

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00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 1: gator yep. And then Virgil jumped out and there was

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Speaker 1: a big action scene. He defeated them, and then we Yeah,

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Speaker 1: then we went into Tate's hell, a floridian Virgil though

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Speaker 1: poppy Satan Lepi. Yeah alright, so yeah, back back to

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Speaker 1: bonds eyes here, bonds eye proper. So yeah. Indeed, some

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Speaker 1: of the models for Bonsai trees are actually trees found

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Speaker 1: growing in the natural environment, uh, particularly growing over water

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Speaker 1: or on the sides of mountains, you know, in the

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00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:56,240
Speaker 1: rocky crags, you know, forced by their inform environment into

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Speaker 1: dwarf forms like we're talking about here. So again, the

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00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: bonds Ie treatment is trying to do is doing what

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Speaker 1: nature does in constraining the growth of a tree, but

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Speaker 1: then taking it to the next level, you know, involving

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Speaker 1: just absolute artistic manipulation of the form. Bonds I means

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Speaker 1: roughly tree in a pot in Japanese. Specifically, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about plants grown in shallow containers and via the exact

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Speaker 1: tenets of bonsai pruning and training. So it's it's worth

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Speaker 1: stressing that a bondsay, is not genetically a dwarfed plant,

425
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 1: nor is it kept small through some sort of regiment

426
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: of torture or anything like that. No, it's these physical

427
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: constraints we've been talking about, which as shown in one

428
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 1: possible explanation of the dwarf cypress in in the swamp.

429
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,639
Speaker 1: There that that can happen in nature, But it happens,

430
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,399
Speaker 1: like you're saying, on cliff faces and other times, when

431
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 1: the physical forces around a plant shape its growth. Though,

432
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:55,440
Speaker 1: I do want to say, while bonsai trees are not

433
00:22:55,440 --> 00:23:00,280
Speaker 1: not generally genetically dwarfed plants, the subject of actual nettic

434
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: dwarf plant strains actually has a massive impact on the

435
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 1: recent history of the world. This is something that is

436
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 1: a fact that's actually little appreciated by many people considering

437
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,680
Speaker 1: how consequential it has been in the world, and something

438
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:17,240
Speaker 1: that goes beyond the art and esthetics of plant keeping.

439
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: Dwarf plants and what are sometimes known as semi dwarf

440
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: plants have played a shockingly powerful role in the economics

441
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: and practicalities of food crops over the last I guess

442
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: like sixty seventy years, so uh dwarf for semi dwarf

443
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:37,119
Speaker 1: strains of crop plants like wheat and rice especially have

444
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:39,680
Speaker 1: very much changed the world. And if you want to

445
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:43,360
Speaker 1: learn more about this, you can look up the Green Revolution. Basically,

446
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: this refers to a suite of new technologies and techniques

447
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: and agriculture, especially new dwarf strains of staple crops like

448
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 1: wheat and rice that we're developed and deployed throughout the

449
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and sixties, and of course new agricultural techniques

450
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,000
Speaker 1: and transgener plants and things like that. We have lots

451
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,360
Speaker 1: of modern critics, but all of those criticisms considered, it

452
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 1: is widely acknowledged that the green Revolution played an unprecedented

453
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: role in decreasing world hunger and has probably saved at

454
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: least a billion human lives. Now, you might immediately wonder why,

455
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: like why would physically smaller strains of crop plants like

456
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 1: wheat and rice actually make a difference. How could they?

457
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:28,120
Speaker 1: How could smaller plants help save millions or billions? Of lives. Well,

458
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: one paper I was looking at in the journal Plant

459
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: Physiology had a good short summary of this in its

460
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: background section. This was by Annie A. Elias at All.

461
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: It was published in twelve and so they note that

462
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 1: semi dwarf is um in plants results in a few things,

463
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: one of the which is decreased lodging. Lodging is a

464
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: term in agriculture where tall crop plants like wheat stalks

465
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: can bend over at the base. You've probably actually seen

466
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: this before in wheat fields, where they just sort of

467
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: like fold over into the ground, making the grain difficult

468
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,919
Speaker 1: to harve ist and the shorter stalks do this far less,

469
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: but there's also just an increased yield of grain and

470
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: improved harvest index. The harvest index is the percent of

471
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: the above ground biomass represented by the harvestable part of

472
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 1: the plant. In other words, like what percentage of the

473
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: part of the plant that's above ground is actually grain

474
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 1: and not just you know, unusable stalk or husk. But

475
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: in addition to these enormously consequential changes in strains of

476
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: cereal crops, the authors point out that semi dwarf is

477
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: um has big benefits in fruit tree production. So you know,

478
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 1: tree trees that produce fruits like apples or peaches can

479
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: have semi dwarf varieties that are that are very useful

480
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 1: to farmers. In certain cases, they might bear fruit earlier

481
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: in the season, have higher yields of fruit. Um be

482
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: easier to harvest because the fruit is just like closer

483
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 1: to the grounds, so it's easier to pick um. But

484
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: of course, semi dwarf species play a big role in

485
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: pure aesthetics. To quote, semi dwarf would species are also

486
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: extensively used in ornamental horticulture, where they allow more compact

487
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 1: forms to be fit into small areas around homes and

488
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: on streets to reduce the need for pruning to avoid

489
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: interference with structures and transmission lines. I've never considered that before. Yeah,

490
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: I mean you do hear about your problems with with

491
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: roots interfering with structures and plumbing and so forth. Makes sense.

492
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: I am intimately familiar with that, as is anybody else

493
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: out there who has ever had to replace a sewer

494
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 1: line that was being penetrated by the roots of an

495
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: ornamental plant. It's real, folks, The anguish is profound when

496
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: when your toilets won't flush. But anyway, this paper in particular,

497
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 1: that was just stuff that it talks about in its

498
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:50,399
Speaker 1: background section. The actual point of this paper is making

499
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: the case for using semi dwarf strains of trees in forestry. Uh.

500
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 1: The author's right quote. Although against the current orthodoxy of

501
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: forest tree breeding where height growth is emphasized, so you know,

502
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: usually you want trees to be tall, they say that

503
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 1: semi dwarf is um might also have benefits for wood

504
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,959
Speaker 1: and biomass production. Such trees could be useful if they

505
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: were less prone to wind throw due to their shorter,

506
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: stockier forms, and expected greater allocation to roots. Reduced stature

507
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 1: could also result in less bending and slanting of trunks

508
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 1: in the face of wind and gravity on hill slopes,

509
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: and thus reduced the extent of reaction would formation, which

510
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: degrades the performance and value of solid wood and pulp products.

511
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: Reduced height and increased allocation of growth to roots might

512
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: enhance stress tolerance, soil nutrient uptake, bioremediation, and carbon sequestration. UM.

513
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:43,959
Speaker 1: So again, this was published in twelve. I'm not sure

514
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: how their argument about the use of dwarf strains in

515
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: forestry holds up. Since then. But it's a really interesting

516
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,439
Speaker 1: idea to appreciate how much of a difference in the

517
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: world has just been made by not just new agricultural

518
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: techniques and irrigation and things like, but just the introduction

519
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: of smaller plants. It's literally changed human civilization, uh and elsewhere.

520
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: Just as one note, I read about some dwarf crops

521
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: strains potentially being developed for use in space flight, which

522
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 1: I thought was pretty funny. You can see, so it's interesting. Yeah,

523
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 1: I remember getting into this. I don't know they were,

524
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: well you would classify as a dwarf plant. But I

525
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 1: remember in our episode about tomatoes, we touched on tomato

526
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 1: varieties that have been developed potentially for use in a

527
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: low gravity environment. Yeah. Yeah, so it could be similar

528
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: things here. I imagine, not trees for forestry, but you know,

529
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: food bearing plants I would assume. But but to bring

530
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: things back to bons I again, as you emphasized earlier

531
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: with Bonsai, were generally talking about trees that are tiny

532
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: by way of nurture, not nature. Right there, These are

533
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: not genetically dwarf strains. There are, there are constraints imposed

534
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 1: upon them by their their human cultivators, uh, that keep

535
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: them in this tiny shape. And one thing that's really

536
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: interesting about plants is that it's striking how much nurture

537
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 1: can look like nature when it comes to the plant kingdom.

538
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: And this brings me to one last thing I wanted

539
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: to talk about briefly. It was a really interesting essay

540
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: I was reading. Uh published an Eon magazine. It was

541
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: called Rooted from October twenty nineteen, and it's about the

542
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: concept of how trees embody history, that that time is

543
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: really shown through a tree. And UH it was written

544
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: by Dahlia Nasser, who is a lecturer and philosophy at

545
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 1: the University of Sydney, and by Margaret M. Barber, who

546
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: is a professor of plant physiology at the at the

547
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: University of Sydney. And so I just want to read

548
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: a quote from their their article here. While all living

549
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 1: beings carry their past with them into their present and

550
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: future selves, trees embody their history in a way that

551
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: is far more explicit and with greater detail and visibility

552
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: than any other being. The history of any particular tree

553
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: is not hidden in an interior part, nor is it

554
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: found in only one of its parts. As such, trees

555
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: call attention to the historicity of life, demanding that we

556
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: think of life not as static and machine like, but

557
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: as a dynamic context sensitive and plastic trees are not

558
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,959
Speaker 1: only embodied recorders of their history, but also shape shifters

559
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: whose structure transforms in relation to their environment. Put simply,

560
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: trees express their context in their physical form. Trees of

561
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: the same species can look significantly different depending on their

562
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: growth environment, and even within an individual tree, the leaves

563
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: at the shady bottom of the canopy are anatomically different,

564
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: meaning larger and thinner from those at the top smaller

565
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: and thicker. When densely planted, trees grow long, straight trunks

566
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: and small canopies, but when planted in a grass field

567
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 1: that grow shorter stems and broad crowns. The crown of

568
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 1: a solitary oak spreads out in all directions, eventually achieving

569
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: a dome shape, while an oak growing in a forest

570
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: develops a small crown and its growth is patterned on

571
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: the growth of surrounding trees. Or think of a bond

572
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: saide tree in contrast to its full size sibling. Trees

573
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: are so adaptive to their surroundings that a human equivalent

574
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: to tree plasticity would be certain people growing large webbed

575
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: feet like diving flippers simply because they swim a lot.

576
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: And they go on to point out other examples of

577
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 1: this that, uh this actually would tie back into the

578
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: dwarf cypress example from Tate's Hell that the soil quality,

579
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: for example, can shape a tree. And uh so all

580
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: these different features of the natural environment come through in

581
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: the shape and form and physiology of a tree that

582
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: could start genetically identical but end up looking so far

583
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 1: apart they would be unrecognizable. Well, I really love that

584
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: the idea of the especially the way time is wound

585
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: up in a tree, because that does seem to be

586
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: a huge part of of Bonsai tree tradition. Because these

587
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 1: are things that that very often outlive the individual who

588
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: is caring for them. You know. It's it's a thing

589
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: that has to be passed on. It is that they're

590
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: sometimes described as being like children, you know. Um. And

591
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this, especially when I watched a

592
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: Great Big Story video about Bonsai shares. Great Big Story

593
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: is sadly defunct now, but they before they went out,

594
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: they made a whole bunch of videos about various various

595
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: cultural things and practices, and a number of these relate

596
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: to Japanese cultural um things and topics. But there's one

597
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: titled making thirty five thousand dollar Bonsai scissors that I

598
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: recommend checking out, and it's about this, uh, this guy

599
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: who is the the Saska brand of of Bonsaie scissors,

600
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: which I think are the only additional bondsaie scissors uh

601
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: that are still created in um in Japan. And you

602
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: can look them up. Look look this uh this guy

603
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: up online. It's it's like s a s u k

604
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 1: e um Bonsai shears or look up the video and

605
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 1: it's it's really insightful. But in this particular video you

606
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: have this this older Japanese man talking about the crafting

607
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: of the scissors and how long it takes, you know,

608
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: like you'll get in, someone will put in a request.

609
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 1: You'll be like, okay, I need I need a half

610
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: a year or so to uh to figure out what

611
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: kind of shears to make for you, you know, and

612
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: then he's making it for somebody who is a Bond's

613
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 1: eye practition or somebody who's deeply immersed in the culture.

614
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: And you get the sense of human being sort of

615
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: living to a certain extent too as to as to

616
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: whatever extent is possible for a human being to live

617
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: on the time scale of the trees they care for,

618
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, and it's really really kind of beautiful

619
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: and does get into, I guess, the the meditative aspects

620
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 1: all of bonsai tree care. I like the idea that

621
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: a lot of these sasuke shears they've kind of, like,

622
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 1: at least the ones I was looking at online, often

623
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: have like these long roping kind of handles instead of

624
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: just the normal functional sort of like grippy handles of

625
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: garden shears you'd buy it lows. Yeah, and the long

626
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: looping handles actually make it look like it's kind of

627
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 1: made out of plant growth, you know, it's like the

628
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: their roots in your fingers. Yeah. Yeah, they're very they're

629
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,800
Speaker 1: beautiful to behold. Uh. You have these big looping handles,

630
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: and and of course part of it too, I'm to understand,

631
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: is that you want very precise, very sharp shears because

632
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: the cleaner cut that you get, the healthier it is

633
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: for the organism. Oh yeah, that makes sense. You want

634
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: to you wanna like sheer very cleanly instead of crushing, right. Yeah,

635
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: And so that's one of the reasons you tend to

636
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: see if not cheers like this, then at least some

637
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 1: other fancy variety of shears. You know, you're not just

638
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: getting in there with your old rusty garden pruners and

639
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: chopping away. You know, you want something very precise. Uh.

640
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: And then also I think it's one of those situations

641
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: where the tools are part of the practice, you know. Um.

642
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: But as far as the organism goes, various tree species

643
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: can be bonds eye trees. But there are essentially two

644
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: broad categories here, um, indoor and outdoor. Though uh this

645
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 1: was in the writing of of Or, who did that

646
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: piece for New York Times which I mentioned earlier, I

647
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: will point out that I have seen other people sort

648
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 1: of shy away from the idea of indoor bonds I,

649
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: and it seemed to imply that true bonds I are

650
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:30,919
Speaker 1: are all outdoor bonds I. So I'm not sure where

651
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,879
Speaker 1: to land on that. But Or at any rate says okay.

652
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 1: First of all, you have outdoor bonds I that do

653
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: best in temperate regions, featuring species such as pine cedar, ginko,

654
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 1: Japanese maple horn beam, and juniper. And they often require

655
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: a cool, dormant period like a you know, winter period,

656
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 1: and species like the juniper will require overwintering, often in

657
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: a greenhouse or a sunroom. And then if you're dealing

658
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 1: with indoor bonds I. According to Or, these are typically

659
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: tropical and subtropical plant play such as uh Ficus, U

660
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:07,879
Speaker 1: meing via Um potocarpus, and dwarf jade. And Or writes

661
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,439
Speaker 1: that these require something similar to normal indoor houseplant care,

662
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: but they also require you know, of course all the

663
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: various aspects of BONDSAI, uh pruning, etcetera. But also they

664
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: require more watering due to those shallow pots. Well, so

665
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: we've discussed how the shallow pots can help shell shape

666
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: the body of the tree. But obviously another major feature

667
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: is what comes in with the pruning itself. So like,

668
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:36,239
Speaker 1: what is the process of this ongoing care? Okay, so

669
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 1: some of these will be obvious to folks who engage

670
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 1: in any level of like treat care and outdoor stuff,

671
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: but but other stuff is more specific to bonds. Eye. So,

672
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:46,760
Speaker 1: first of all, trimming is the removal of outer branch tips,

673
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:51,720
Speaker 1: while pruning is the specific removal of individual branches, stems,

674
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: or even parts of the trunk. On top of that,

675
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: you have things like wiring and clamping, and this is

676
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: a way to physically guide the growth and shape of

677
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 1: the tree via physical constraints. On top of this, grafting

678
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: is also used. Um as are that you can also

679
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: do a certain amount of defoliation, you know, the removal

680
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 1: of of leaves and then deadwood bonds eye techniques involved

681
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: the creation, shaping, and preservation of dead wood on a

682
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: living bond's eye tree to enhance this sense of age.

683
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I I so, I've seen bonsai trees like this,

684
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: I think. And there's a very particular aesthetic that is

685
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: that actually exists in the natural world, not just in

686
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: in human horticulture that that is mimicking that I find

687
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,439
Speaker 1: very beautiful. I think a lot of other people do too,

688
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: and I wonder why exactly it is. But it's the uh,

689
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:45,360
Speaker 1: it's the aesthetic you see in the natural growth of

690
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: bristle cone pine trees, where they often have the appearance

691
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: of a live tree growing on or within this ancient warped,

692
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: twirling piece of dead wood. Do you know what I'm

693
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: talking about? Y? Yeah, I think I know what you're

694
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: talking about. Can picture in my head? Yeah, there is

695
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: something just intrinsically attractive about it. I don't know, it's

696
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: it doesn't apply to um animals, like the idea of

697
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: like a human coming up dressed in bones generally not

698
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 1: as attractive. But uh, but but this is this is

699
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,239
Speaker 1: Bristol cone pines, by the way. Are they're particularly known,

700
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: I think for for achieving tremendous ages, Like they get

701
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 1: really really old. There are some of the oldest living organisms,

702
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 1: and they really do look like it because again, yeah,

703
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: you can see like um, there will be parts of

704
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: a tree that are producing foliage, so there's still green,

705
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:41,760
Speaker 1: they're still growing, you know, they're still producing new growth seasonally,

706
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: I guess. But down below that it will just be

707
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: what looks like a ten million year old skeleton that's

708
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: got these like lollipop twirls of color in it or

709
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: like a sorry, like a peppermint twist type of color,

710
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: and the branches or these snaking witch fingers without any leaves. Uh.

711
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 1: It's very very cool. So if you're not familiar with

712
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 1: bristle cone pines, look them up. Now. Another thing I

713
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: want to drive home about the bonds eyes again, the

714
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: the upkeep and care of a bonds I are are

715
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 1: in their their own way, like a delicate art form.

716
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 1: I was reading a piece in the New York Times

717
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 1: by Makiko in a way and Daniel Victor. Um. Apparently

718
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: New York Times is just prime reporting uh source for

719
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: Bonsai Uh. But they were This was an article about

720
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: a story that was making the rounds at the time

721
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: in UM. This was bonds I are like our children,

722
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: couple pleads for return of stolen trees. Uh. And this

723
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: one had to do with a four drild bonds E

724
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: that had been stolen that was worth an estimated ninety dollars.

725
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: The theft was again covered by a number of different

726
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 1: news sources at the time Bonds I can fetch a

727
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: hefty price on the black market. Sadly, I didn't run

728
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: across any reporting about this tree being recovered. I mean

729
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 1: maybe it did, and they just didn't make a snazzy

730
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: new story for most sources. UM. But one of the

731
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 1: things that they pointed out is that like if you

732
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: were to steal hat and um high value bonds I

733
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 1: treat like this. Yeah, if you didn't know how to

734
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:19,839
Speaker 1: care for it, uh, if you didn't know the particular

735
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: things you needed to do, it could die within a week,

736
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: you know. So there's a there's a delicacy to these UM.

737
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: These organisms as well, but I'm also interested in the

738
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: statement of these people saying that the bonds are like

739
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 1: our children, because it I mean, you can totally see

740
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: how that would be the case, that it's not just

741
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: like somebody stole any other high value item within a home.

742
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, an expensive painting or something.

743
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: It is in some ways like a child. I mean

744
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: obviously nothing, you know, and it doesn't have a brain

745
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: or anything, but it does require care. Well, I like

746
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 1: the idea of comparing it to something like a painting,

747
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 1: because yeah, painting certainly requires a certain amount of care

748
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 1: and any key an occasional occasionally restoration. But there is

749
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: and but there is I guess when it comes to

750
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:06,399
Speaker 1: like the bonds eye tree and the painting, like, yeah,

751
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 1: there's probably a tipping point with the painting if it's

752
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 1: degraded and it's not cared for, you know, a point

753
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,359
Speaker 1: past which it cannot be brought back in a meaningful way.

754
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: But with a Bond's eye tree, like, there's definitely that point,

755
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: you know, like there's no there's no gray area, there's

756
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 1: a point where the tree is no longer alive and

757
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: will not live again. And um, yeah, and it's Ultimately,

758
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:29,400
Speaker 1: it is a living thing. It is a It is

759
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 1: a thing that is cared for, that is nurtured, and

760
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: you see it growing and you know that you have

761
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: a role in its growth. Well, I wonder how did

762
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: all this get started? Like who first had the idea

763
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:44,879
Speaker 1: to grow tiny versions of adult shaped trees in pots? Yeah?

764
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: That the history is pretty fascinating. So in a broader

765
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: sense and really broad sense, we can just say, Okay,

766
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: what how far back to ornamental gardens go? And it

767
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: seems like they date back at least as far as

768
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,760
Speaker 1: b C. In ancient Egypt because we see them depicted

769
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,839
Speaker 1: in tomb paintings from that period. Uh. There are also

770
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:08,399
Speaker 1: some interesting connections to Babylonian and air Vedic traditions. Uh.

771
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: So you know, it's probably one of those things that's

772
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: ultimately lost in history because it basically comes down to

773
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: all right, people people messing around with plants and people

774
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 1: creating ceramics. Uh. And I guess not just ceramics, but

775
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: also like you know, I guess you could make a

776
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: wooden pot as well, obviously, but people messing around with materials,

777
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 1: messing around with plants, and getting to the point where

778
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: they realize, oh, I can, I can put this in

779
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: a pot, I can take it with me. Uh, you know,

780
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: instead of just depending say on dried herbs, maybe I

781
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,400
Speaker 1: might try and bring this plant with me as I

782
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,359
Speaker 1: travel somewhere else, bring it alive and uh and do

783
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: something you know with it when I get there. I

784
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 1: would not be surprised if that was tied into ancient

785
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:48,399
Speaker 1: beliefs about herbal medicine. Yeah, good point, And I think

786
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: I think maybe that's where some of the air Vedic

787
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: traditions also come into play. But the immediate predecessor to

788
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:57,800
Speaker 1: the bondsai practice in Japan, it takes us to China

789
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: around the year one thousand CE. I've also seen a

790
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: date of seven hundred c e uh. So there may

791
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: be some disagreement about, you know, when exactly we're looking

792
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: at here, but uh, for instance, I was looking at

793
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: a source on this by Jack doth It often recognized

794
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: as a Western authority on Bonsai practices. He has a

795
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:20,359
Speaker 1: book titled Bonsai The Art of Living Sculpture, and he

796
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: dates the beginnings of bonsa i uh to the Han

797
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 1: dynasty over two thousand years ago, or not the beginning

798
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: of bonsai, but the beginning of this predecessor um he wrote.

799
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,240
Speaker 1: He writes the following in Bond the Bonsai Survival Manual. Quote.

800
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,280
Speaker 1: Legend has it that at one point an ancient Chinese

801
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: emperor commissioned the construction in his courtyard of vast miniature landscapes,

802
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: complete with mountains, lakes, and of course miniature trees. These

803
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: landscapes were designed to represent all the parts of his empire,

804
00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 1: so in this way he could stand on his balcony

805
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 1: and survey his entire domain. WHOA and again that I

806
00:43:57,200 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: like that story because it gets back to what we're

807
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: talking about, like the the irresistible allure of the world

808
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: at large, naid miniature. I absolutely see that, and you

809
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: know it comes through in plenty of other ways too.

810
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 1: I think, uh, this is actually a primary motivator. I

811
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 1: think for a lot of people who have model train hobbies.

812
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 1: Not everyone, but I think a lot of people who

813
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 1: are into model trains. It's not even so much about

814
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: the train. I mean, that's part of it, but it's

815
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: about it's about a a driving excuse to create these

816
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: miniature landscapes. Because the miniature landscapes are so appealing for

817
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: some reason. I mean, I I love them. I love

818
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 1: dioramas and um, I love like a good museum that

819
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: has carefully painted dioramas. I know you paint miniatures, so

820
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,359
Speaker 1: you have this appreciation. Sometimes I wonder if if some

821
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:51,280
Speaker 1: of the people who are into like the model train

822
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: thing or like or like miniature diorama recreations of historic

823
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: battle scenes or whatever like that, are are it's basically

824
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,720
Speaker 1: the same impulse that dry ives. Uh, you know, people

825
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: who would do D and D or tabletop minatures. But

826
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 1: for people who don't like magic and wizards. Yeah, I

827
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:08,879
Speaker 1: think it's absolutely the case. Yeah. I mean you see

828
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: it in war gaming because there's a lot of that

829
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: that same energy that goes into the creating the environments

830
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: in trains. You see it in creating environments to have

831
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: your little battles on. You see it in the Lego

832
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:24,799
Speaker 1: pastime among both children and adult fans of Legos, where

833
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: they'll create whole little worlds. And that's that's part of it. Yeah.

834
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: And and indeed diorama creation can just be so in crowd.

835
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: I love a great diorama at a at a museum.

836
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: The the met has some of the bat I think

837
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: it's the met is it the mat that has some

838
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,399
Speaker 1: really good ones at any rate. I know, I've seen

839
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 1: some great dioramas in in New York. But anyway, this

840
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: particular Chinese predecessor to the Bond's I this is was

841
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: the art of punsai. Uh. These were luxury items of

842
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: the day, and around roughly eleven CE, Buddhist monks brought

843
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: the tradition to Japan, and is often the case, as

844
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: is off the case in Japanese culture. They took an

845
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: outside art form, they refined it, and they made it

846
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: their own. As doth It points out, the main drivers

847
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 1: here were the Japanese people's love of nature, uh, but

848
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: also increasingly in increasing artistic awareness, and this coupled with

849
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: the minimalist teachings of Zen Buddhism. So all of this

850
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: gets reflected uh in it uh and so so yeah,

851
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: as part of the Zen Buddhism movement of the time,

852
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: it takes root in Japanese culture and becomes you know,

853
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:37,759
Speaker 1: not only this this sort of you know, meditative pastime

854
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: that is associated again with Zin Buddhism, but also it

855
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: becomes the ultimate pastime of the upper classes. Like it

856
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 1: is this the uh, you know, this is a luxury

857
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: item to have and to care for. And to just

858
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: keep as a symbol of of who you are and

859
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 1: where you are in society. According to Robert J. Baron,

860
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: writing for Bonzai Empire dot com, quote finding beauty and

861
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: severe ear austerity. Zen monks with less land forms as

862
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: a model developed their trade landscapes along certain lines, so

863
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 1: that a single tree in a pot could represent the universe.

864
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: So a connection here again is made between the tree

865
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: and miniature, and not just the world at large, but

866
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 1: the universe at what led large. You know, not just

867
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: the world as a physical thing, but also the world

868
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: as as far as our you know, perceptions of self

869
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: and reality and the soul are concerned. Um. A connection

870
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: is also frequently made between the traditions of caring for

871
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 1: the plant and meditation. And during the mid nineteenth century,

872
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: as Japan began to make contact with the outside world

873
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: again in major ways, the bonds ie tradition began to

874
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:42,879
Speaker 1: spread as well. And so yeah, now you can find

875
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 1: bonds i literally all over the world. That's interesting to see,

876
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: especially for certain kinds of meditation. You know, the kind

877
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: of meditation that are focused on the control of attention,

878
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:57,319
Speaker 1: for example, you know mindfulness types of meditation. What they

879
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,719
Speaker 1: have in common it seems to me is that there

880
00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:04,760
Speaker 1: is is this never ending balance between sort of the

881
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: the natural growing chaos of life, which is sort of

882
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: like you're wandering attention as a as a meditator, or

883
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,879
Speaker 1: the growth of a plant in a pot versus like

884
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:17,400
Speaker 1: all of these sort of like methods of shaping. You know,

885
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: you could kind of think of meditation in one way

886
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:23,680
Speaker 1: as a as a shaping of the attention that naturally

887
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: wants to grow in one way or another, but you're

888
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 1: just sort of like pruning it down and and making

889
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:31,920
Speaker 1: it harmonious. Yeah, I can't help but to compare it,

890
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: first of all, to creating, say like a model tank.

891
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: You know, you put a lot of care into creating

892
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 1: that tank, but then once it's done, you can basically

893
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: put it on a shelf. Yeah, you might have to

894
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 1: dust it off from time to time, maybe you'll go

895
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,720
Speaker 1: back and tweak something on it, but it's essentially complete. Uh.

896
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: And then I think of of say having a you know,

897
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: an actual child, you know, like that that is a

898
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: case where you you're continually help helping this child to grow,

899
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:58,320
Speaker 1: but but in a way that eventually that child is

900
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:00,080
Speaker 1: going to leave you. That child is going to go

901
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:02,960
Speaker 1: on and have this, this larger life and is no

902
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: longer going to be a part of your household. The

903
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: bonds Eye tree is uh, he is always going to

904
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:11,360
Speaker 1: be there, you know, unless of course you you you know,

905
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 1: you you give it to somebody else, pass into the

906
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 1: care of another, or or of course ultimately have to

907
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:19,320
Speaker 1: make plans for it to continue living after you have died.

908
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 1: But you were, you were keeping it in this constrained,

909
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 1: a dwarf environment. You know, like you wouldn't want to

910
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: have you wouldn't want to have a Bonds Eye child,

911
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: you know that that would be that would be monstrous.

912
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 1: But the Bonsai tree different matter. I don't know. Some

913
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: people do sort of prune and wire their children. Well,

914
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 1: you do want to wire your children. You want to,

915
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: you want to to to to manipulate their development as

916
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:47,400
Speaker 1: much as possible towards um you know, the positive models

917
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: of being. But then you know eventually you want to,

918
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, let him out of the greenhouse. I don't know.

919
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 1: It's not a perfect metaphor for rearing a child, but

920
00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: at any rate, I I do see the so much

921
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 1: of the Bonds that is about about control, but not

922
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 1: just control for control's sake, but control for artistic purposes.

923
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, you wouldn't want to take that approach

924
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: to creating a child or so to growing a child, etcetera.

925
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: But then again also yeah, it doesn't apply. The same

926
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: sort of model doesn't apply to other forms of art

927
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 1: where you do reach some level of completion. Um if

928
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,160
Speaker 1: I mean even if you were saying, if you were

929
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: to compare it to say, writing, um, an epic poem,

930
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:27,439
Speaker 1: you know, and perhaps it's an epic poem you work

931
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: on your entire life, and then towards the end of

932
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 1: your life, uh, you know, you're still tinkering with it.

933
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: Maybe you never get it quite finished. But then does

934
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 1: that pass on to another person to get finished and

935
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: then onto another Like generally you're only going to see,

936
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 1: like maybe what a couple of generations of tinkering with

937
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:48,120
Speaker 1: a particular work of of literature. Well, this is very

938
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:50,760
Speaker 1: interesting and how it ties into epic poetry in particular,

939
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: because it depends on which epic poem you're talking about.

940
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 1: So if it's the need, you could just have Virgil

941
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:57,799
Speaker 1: the author sits down to write the epic poem and

942
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:00,799
Speaker 1: they you know, Virgil can decide when he's untinkering on

943
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: it mainly. But um, if it is something like the

944
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 1: Odyssey or the Iliad that grows out of an oral

945
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 1: tradition in which every telling of the tale was different originally,

946
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 1: so like the written versions that we have of the

947
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,759
Speaker 1: Iliad and the Odyssey are very is it's extremely unlikely

948
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:20,319
Speaker 1: that that was in any way a fixed form of

949
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: the poem from antiquity. It's going to be something that

950
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 1: grow out of an oral storytelling tradition that that had

951
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: infinite different variations and was told by different tellers, and

952
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 1: at some point some version of it got written down.

953
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: Now that's a great point. Yeah. So and in a way,

954
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 1: you could compare the Bond's Eye rather favorably to the

955
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:41,760
Speaker 1: creation of a myth and a legend, you know, because

956
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 1: you know, beyond the mere epic poem, the Iliot is

957
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 1: something that is continually retold time and time again. It

958
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 1: continues to live in different forms. Were perpetually trimming it

959
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 1: and caring for it, um, letting it grow out a

960
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: bit and maybe braining it back in. And we see

961
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 1: this with other forms as well. I mean, you could

962
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 1: even make an argument for something like Our Wars being

963
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: the case, you know, like for a while it was

964
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 1: George Lucas Bond's Eye and UH, and then in different

965
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 1: phases it has been passed on to other people to

966
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 1: care for and if it remains popular, this will continue

967
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 1: for centuries even now. To come back to just a

968
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,400
Speaker 1: little bit here at the end to to science, I

969
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 1: do want to point to a scientific paper that I

970
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: came across, and it deals with the science of root pruning.

971
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 1: So this is pretty neat. I mean, I'm not gonna

972
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 1: get super into the details of the study, but it

973
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: does make some great points just about uh the wondrous

974
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: um qualities of a plant's roots. So, plant roots are

975
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 1: naturally robust and regenerative since they're a vital they're they're

976
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: vital for water and nutrient absorption. They have to be

977
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 1: able to bounce back from injury really well, so they

978
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 1: have impressive plasticity, which also helps them adapt to changing

979
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 1: environmental circumstances such as drought. And this plasticity is harnessed

980
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 1: in root pruning UH in Bond's eye as a way

981
00:52:56,200 --> 00:53:00,359
Speaker 1: to control size and vigor and industry. Interestingly enough, there

982
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:04,840
Speaker 1: was a study from Hokkaido University that looked at the

983
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 1: molecular mechanism behind root regeneration to figure out exactly what's

984
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 1: going on, because prior to this there was you know,

985
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: there's definitely some strong theories, but the exact molecular mechanism

986
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:19,399
Speaker 1: was largely unknown. That study, published in Plant and Sell Physiology,

987
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 1: identified for the first time that Yuca nine, one of

988
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: the eleven Yucca genes involved in oxen synthesis, plays a

989
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 1: primary role in roots system regeneration. So, oxen is a

990
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: plant hormone which causes the elongation of cells and shoots

991
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:39,879
Speaker 1: and is and is involved in regulating plant growth. Now,

992
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 1: to be clear, this particular study didn't use bonds eye trees,

993
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: but they were part of the title and even the

994
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:48,879
Speaker 1: cover art for this edition of Plant and Sell Physiology,

995
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 1: as this beautiful photograph of a bond's I on the cover. Okay,

996
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: so root regeneration is related to this gene that stimulates

997
00:53:56,719 --> 00:54:01,840
Speaker 1: the production of this hormone that causes cells to elongate.

998
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:05,440
Speaker 1: Um and the elongation of plant cells, by the way,

999
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:07,960
Speaker 1: is something that's very interesting, uh, And I think a

1000
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 1: lot of people don't appreciate how much that comes in,

1001
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 1: even in things as mundane as cooking. You know, when

1002
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 1: we think about body cells. We think about cells that

1003
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:19,200
Speaker 1: are I don't know, I mean, I don't know what's

1004
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 1: the best way to think of them in a three

1005
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: dimensional sense, but in the microscope slide, since you think

1006
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: of them is basically like round or kind of like

1007
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:30,440
Speaker 1: a little square, right. Plant cells can be very elongated,

1008
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 1: and this is one reason that if say you're cutting

1009
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:37,719
Speaker 1: an onion, uh, the direction along which you cut the

1010
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 1: onion can make a big difference in how much of

1011
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 1: the compounds that induced tears are released when you're cutting

1012
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: the onion. So if you're slicing an onion cross wise, um,

1013
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 1: so you're going you know, you're creating the rings. You

1014
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 1: tend to shear a lot more cells because the cells

1015
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 1: are elongated from pull to pull along the onion. So

1016
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:59,879
Speaker 1: you're cutting more cells open, releasing more of that jew

1017
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 1: it's gonna make you cry more. If you turn the

1018
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 1: onion around and you cut it in the pole to

1019
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 1: pole direction, you're cutting parallel to the elongated cells instead

1020
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:11,760
Speaker 1: of across them. Fewer cells are ruptured, less juice is released,

1021
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 1: and there's less crying. I don't really have a problem

1022
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: crying while cutting onions, but I definitely need to watch

1023
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 1: a video on cutting onions because I know I'm doing

1024
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:24,880
Speaker 1: it very incorrectly. I'm very slapdash with my onion cutting,

1025
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 1: and this has been pointed out before. I'll give you

1026
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 1: a trainer someday. Okay, I do a lot of onion cutting.

1027
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:33,240
Speaker 1: I wonder how many onions I've cut up in my life.

1028
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: Probably thousands? Yeah? Which which color onion do you think

1029
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:39,720
Speaker 1: you've cut the most off? Oh? I guess regular yellow

1030
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: onions probably, yeah, but do them all? I like the

1031
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 1: purple onions, Red onions, Oh yeah, those are those are

1032
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,280
Speaker 1: really good for pickling. You'll ever make pickled onions at home? Um?

1033
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 1: We have maybe have made some like fridge pickles or

1034
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 1: sort of like I don't know, bold pickles for recipes.

1035
00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:57,160
Speaker 1: I don't know what you call that when you sort

1036
00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: of you pickle something for an hour or less, not

1037
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 1: like full lacto fermentation. Yeah, just simple like vinegar pickling. Um. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1038
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 1: that's great. One of the one of the most versatile

1039
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 1: things you can have in your kitchen is just just

1040
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:14,279
Speaker 1: a nice container of pickled onions. And red onions are

1041
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 1: great for that. So you just make like a brine

1042
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,760
Speaker 1: solutions like half water, half vinegar, add some salt sugar

1043
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: if you want it, and then pour boil that, pour

1044
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:24,880
Speaker 1: it over some sliced red onions and then put that

1045
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 1: on everything. All right, Well, well there you have. And

1046
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:28,600
Speaker 1: I feel like we covered a lot of a lot

1047
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:30,759
Speaker 1: of ground in this episode. And obviously we'd love to

1048
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:34,360
Speaker 1: hear from everybody out there about Bonsai trees specifically, but

1049
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:39,800
Speaker 1: also uh dwarf trees in the strange Fluidian wilderness, onion

1050
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:43,319
Speaker 1: cutting uh uh you know, all of it is on

1051
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 1: the table, but yes, specifically, if anybody out there has

1052
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 1: expertise with Bonsai trees or uh you know it has

1053
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:51,879
Speaker 1: more more experience with them, we'd love to hear from you. Uh,

1054
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: so please ride in and uh and tell us all

1055
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 1: about it. Um. And I do want to just yeah,

1056
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:02,359
Speaker 1: remind everybody when when it becomes safe to do so.

1057
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,279
Speaker 1: I do recommend going out and seeing some Bond's eyes

1058
00:57:06,320 --> 00:57:10,359
Speaker 1: in real life, you know if uh again, I saw

1059
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:12,239
Speaker 1: them when I was in I think I saw some

1060
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 1: of the San Diego Zoo, and I saw some in

1061
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Speaker 1: San Francisco somewhere, maybe a botanical garden there. But they're

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Speaker 1: all over and wherever you live, there's bound to be

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Speaker 1: some place that will be offering you a chance to

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Speaker 1: view them in the near future. In the meantime, if

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Speaker 1: you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you'll find the Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts and

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Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. We just asked that you rate, review,

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Speaker 1: and subscribe huge things as always to our excellent audio

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Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get

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Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or

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Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or

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Speaker 1: just to say hi, you can email us at contact

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Speaker 1: Blow the Mind's production of I Heart Radio. For more

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