Toshi's Cascade JBP

[TR8Driver]

My father in law, who passed last year, gave me a few of his bonsai (actually all of the ones that survived as his health wound't allow him to care for them). Here is the first I want to share, this one he gave to me a couple of years ago. It had escaped into the ground (as the other two also had), and the soil in the pot was very compacted. Since it was mid-summer when I brought it home, repotting wasn't advised, so I put it into a larger pot of well-drained soil. That worked well, as the next spring when I repotted it with the help of Micheal Hagedorn, the added pot was full of roots. We had to remove them to repot, but I'm sure it kept the tree healthy. We removed half of the old soil, and I'll probably change the other half next spring.

The tree needed a little energy balancing, and it has been responding well to that. I'm slowly trying to reduce the silhouette a bit, and it needs a lot of refinement in the pads. It has very interesting nebari and upper trunk section, that is hidden by the current canopy. I'm hesitant to reduce it too much too quickly, but long-term I do want to expose that area better.

The old photo is the tree in 1982, when he displayed the tree, probably during Obon.

I'm hoping to get this tree in shape to display in the next few years, and I'm planning to try to build a stand for that purpose at some point.

I hope you enjoy, I plan to post updates in the future.

 

[CaptColin]

Wow! Incredible tree! Following

 

[misfit11]

Nice tree and great story to go with it. What an honor to carry on your father-in-law's legacy. It was wise to get an expert's help with working on this tree. Thanks for sharing. I'm interested to see where you take it.

Cory

 

[ACooke]

Beautiful tree, even better that it has meaning to you beyond that, and very cool to have that old photo too.
I already know I'll regret not taking photo's myself, one day - but continually put it off.

 

[ShimpakuBonsai]

Very nice tree and story.
The pot looks to be the same after all those years but I think this trees deserves a nicer pot.

 

[Bu-Jetjet]

Excellent example on how the tree (bonsai) has outlived the owner and now has been passed on to the next generation. I heard/read somewhere that (I will be paraphrasing here) if we do our "job" correctly, our bonsai will outlive us and we will be part of its story. All we are are its caretakers... as they serve as time capsules...

Something along those lines.

Thank you for sharing your story and your father-in-law's legacy.