• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Bonsai Tonight

An educational website about bonsai development

  • Blog
    • How-to Guides
  • Podcast
  • Shop
    • Bonsai
    • Books
    • Soil
    • Soil (wholesale)
    • Supplies
    • Tools
    • Video Consulting
    • Northern California Bonsai Resources
  • About
    • Workshops

Cut it here – my start in bonsai

July 3, 2015 by Jonas Dupuich

“Cut it here,” he said. I was working at the family business, a retail nursery in Alameda, California. It was 1993. A man I had not met before was offering me pruning advice, and the advice was good. “Cut it here,” he said again, pointing to another branch.

The man had a long name – Boonyarat Manakitivipart. I knew him as Boon. Boon often found me in the back of the nursery, pruning or nursing unwell trees back to health. Originally from Thailand, Boon was an ornamental tree pruner who’d recently moved to the area from San Francisco.

One day he pointed to a neglected bonsai at the nursery, a Japanese black pine, and offered to style the tree. “Style the tree?” my father asked. “Wire and prune the tree, make it pretty,” Boon said. That didn’t clear anything up, but my dad said OK.

A week later Boon returned with the tree. He had dramatically thinned it and wired the remaining branches into a curious shape. I can’t say I liked the tree, but something about it intrigued me.

Over time I got to know Boon. His passion was bonsai. Would I be interested in coming with him to a bonsai club meeting? It hadn’t occurred to me that there were clubs for these things. I said yes out of curiosity, and the next week we visited Merritt Bonsai Club.

It wasn’t what I expected. We showed up late and walked in on a heated discussion. More of a tirade, really. A club member was taking the club president to task for not doing more to engage the bonsai community. Meanwhile, club members sat at tables quietly working on their trees. Boon and I found an open table and joined in.

Around that time, Kathy Shaner began teaching a class in Boon’s backyard. I couldn’t afford the class and lacked the trees to work on, but I attended each month to help out and learn what I could. It was at these workshops that I began to learn about bonsai in Japan.

Five years later, I had the opportunity to visit Japan with Boon, Morten Wellhaven and Randall Lee. It was an incredible trip and the trees were beautiful.

—

That’s how I “got into bonsai,” but it’s not the whole story. It may have started earlier.

Before they dated, when my parents were still in school, my father gave my mother a bonsai, a Japanese plum.

I was surrounded by bonsai in my parents garden before I knew what they were. Most sat on the ground in wooden containers built by my father. By the time I was old enough to notice, only the plum remained. The tree was in the backyard throughout my childhood so I grew up knowing what bonsai was, but I didn’t give much thought to it until I saw the pine that Boon had styled.

—

Winter, 1994, I found myself at Boon’s kitchen table planting pine seeds. By then I’d joined a club and browsed some bonsai magazines, but the bulk of my bonsai knowledge was limited to plant care I’d learned at the nursery. Boon, too, was fairly new to developing bonsai from seed. Our primary guide was a pair of articles in Bonsai Today – it was a good starting point.

I spent that summer in Greece and Turkey. I’d cut off the seedlings’ taproots before leaving and worried they might not make it. I remember calling home and asking about the pine seedlings. My mom had offered to water while I was away. They were doing well.

My collection grew while the pines matured. I learned about wiring and repotting, cutback and display. I visited local shows and returned to Japan. Along the way I sold a few pines to friends.

I am fortunate to have grown up in a nursery family and to have learned so much from my father. I am lucky, and grateful, to have received guidance from Boon, Morten and Kathy from the very beginning. Without these starting points, I wouldn’t be writing this.

And then there are the pines. I owe much to planting them when I did. From them, I’ve learned to appreciate the subtle growth characteristics that vary from tree to tree. I’ve learned how present actions affect future growth and I’ve enjoyed seeing the trees develop over time. I’ve been able to experiment with different approaches to common problems, and I’ve learned from seeing friends work on similar trees they developed themselves.

I took a writing class with Maxine Hong Kingston in college. After suffering great loss in a fire, she noted that all she had left were the items she’d given away. The sentiment has stuck with me, and to this day, I really enjoy seeing trees I helped start in friends’ collections. I like that I don’t know exactly how the trees have taken their present shape, and I like that I don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Plum

Japanese plum, 1976

Bonsai display at Encinal Nursery

Bonsai display by Boon Manakitivipart and Morten Wellhaven, mid 1990s

Boon at Takeyama's garden in Omiya

Boon at Takeyama’s garden in Omiya

With Yosuke Omizo at the Green Club

With Yosuke Omizu at the Green Club, Tokyo, 1999

Daisaku Nomoto at Kihachi-en

Meeting Daisaku Nomoto at Kihachi-en in Anjo

Pines

My first batch of pines, late 1990s

Pot #3

One of the above pines as displayed in 2010

Black pine

One of the above pines as displayed in 2014

Black pine

Another pine from the same batch – developed in a friends’ collection for the past 10 years

Young pines

The next batch – 1-year old pine seedlings, 2005

Subscribe to Bonsai Tonight

New Posts Delivered Every Tuesday and Friday

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by Kit

Filed Under: Bonsai Care Tagged With: Boon Manakitivipart

Previous Post: « How to fill a tea bag with fertilizer
Next Post: Getting the balance right »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Greg wentzel says

    July 3, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    Great post. I think everyone should try growing trees from seed. You can learn so much.

  2. Nathaniel rhett says

    July 3, 2015 at 5:31 pm

    Great read, I always wanted to know your origin story. Continue the great works and can’t wait to see your trees at the artisan cup.

  3. Ben says

    July 4, 2015 at 1:37 am

    A fascinating post. Thanks Jonas.

  4. Marc says

    July 5, 2015 at 4:00 am

    A great story Jonas!
    This is how Bonsai grows from seed…not just trees.

  5. Brian VF says

    July 7, 2015 at 7:48 pm

    Thanks for the great story Jonas. Cool that the JBP that appeared on the postage stamp was one you grew from seed!

Footer

Follow Bonsai Tonight

Subscribe

Instagram ● Facebook ● Twitter
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Shop
  • About

P.O. Box 6560, Alameda, CA 94501 · 510-915-2025 · jonas (at) bonsaitonight (dot) com

© Copyright 2009-2025 Bonsai Tonight · All rights reserved · Privacy · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. You can opt-out if you wish. Accept Decline Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT