The Ancient Art of Bonsai by Thomas Atkins
While Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties are renowned for their towering forests of trees, if you know where to look there are a few nooks and crannies where forests can be found in miniature. Al Judnich’s yard in Sonora is one of these unique environments, and people have traveled far and wide to witness his dwarfed creations. Known as bonsai trees, Al has spent countless hours sculpting, shaping and pruning these interesting specimens into fascinating works of art, and with nearly a 100 different plants filling a corner of his property, it is worth getting lost in the tiny garden forest he has created.
“We have a little oasis here and people enjoy looking at it,” said Al, who has been cultivating bonsai trees for over 25 years. “Some people come and spend a good hour just admiring the trees. We’ve even had people traveling from back east come by and see the trees while passing through on their way to Yosemite.”
Originally from the Bay Area, Al and his wife, Anna, moved to Sonora in 1989 and Al brought his Judnich’s Gardening business to the foothills. It was here where they raised their three children, James (who now helps run his father’s business), John and Mary.
“I’ve been doing landscaping every since I got out of the service in 1965,” said Al, 64. “With nearly 45 years in the business as a gardener, getting into the art of bonsai just came naturally. I guess you could say that it’s a hobby that got out of hand.”
This hobby, the art of aesthetic miniaturization of trees or plants by growing them in containers (and keeping them under 30 inches tall), has been around for more than 2,000 years. Believed to have originated in China, this mini culture first became popular in the United States among Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, and Al quickly rooted himself into this growing niche.
“I was always interested and I had friends in the Bay Area that had been doing it for years,” he said. “In fact the guy I learned a lot from was Ken Sugimoto, the first bonsai master in the United States.”
Ken, who was first introduced to bonsai as a child in Hiroshima, Japan, became a devoted student to a neighboring bonsai master sensei. Upon arriving in the United States he began to spread the teachings of bonsai, establishing his first bonsai club in Los Angeles and opening the first bonsai nursery in 1951.
“I spent some time attending Ken’s bonsai classes at local nursery’s or the Buddhist Temple in Palo Alto,” recalled Al.
“At that time the art of bonsai still wasn’t too big. It really got big when the movie The Karate Kid (1984) came out. Then everybody wanted a bonsai.”
It was during this bonsai craze that Al began selling his wooden sculptures at art and wine shows.
“I used to travel to all the art and wine festivals in the Bay Area, but it was a lot of work and there was always the risk of damaging them,” said Al of the delicate trees. “On one trip I had them in the back of a pickup covered by a tarp, but the tarp broke loose and flapped around in the wind, thrashing about ten of them. It wasn’t long after that I decided not to move them around any more, and now we mostly keep them at the house.”
Complete with a cascading pool filled with coy fish, Al’s miniature bonsai sanctuary is nestled beneath a few towering pine trees, providing shade for the fragile, pot-bound trees scattered throughout shelves in the garden. The twisting, curving, weeping trees create a fairytale like setting, and every tree has a tale of its own.
“I usually plant the trees from small nursery stock,” explained Al. “I might look through a hundred plants at a commercial nursery and find one that is starting where I want to start. If it naturally has a nice shape to it, you’re off to a good start.”
Those without a good shape can still be molded into the desired look by pruning and by wiring limbs into the preferred position.
“It only takes a season to bend the trunk or the branches with a wire to create its shape,” said Al. “After that you just have to maintain it.”
These young trees are often referred to as bonsais ‘in training’, and as they mature they are eventually transported into the traditional bonsai ceramic pots, which Al imports from China, Korea and Japan. Oftentimes these plants are rescued from gardens at old abandoned houses that were going to be demolished.
“You can find some nice old, forgotten plants in gardens,” he said. “You can save the old, crusty plant and make a work of art out of it.”
Of course, a work of art takes time, and only the artist can foresee the finished product.
“He’ll often bring home the straggliest looking plants,” said Anna, who accompanies him in the garden from time to time. “And I often wonder, ‘what is he thinking?!’”
Yet Al has mastered this art of transformation, and with time, the finished product is sure to be spectacular. Standing next to one of his favorite trees in the garden, an s-shaped Japanese juniper, Al explained how he transformed it into its present beauty.
“It was just an old nursery stock – a big, clumpy looking juniper in a big pot,” he said. “So I striped it down to bare wood probably about three times to where it just had a little bit of green on the branches and then I’d let it fill out.”
During the shaping and pruning process, Al’s imagination is free to run wild.
“With each new tree I ask myself, ‘what do I want this to look like?’” he said. “I really enjoy the creativity of it. It’s definitely an art form.”
“He comes up with some very eclectic ideas,” said Anna proudly. “I really liked one he did that had the roots of the tree draping over a rock.”
But every bonsai artist has his or her preferred style.
“There are a lot of theories, but the two basic ones are: you shape them all the time whenever you can or just let them get big and bushy to get it thicker and heavier,” said Al. “I don’t like to let them get too bushy and I try to shape them on a regular basis. I like there to be air between the branches and I like them to grow up and out.”
Although the initial pruning on any plant is usually a lot, once the bonsai is formed to the desired shape and becomes established, the rest is just the maintenance of constantly trimming back the new growth.
While Al demonstrates his pruning method, Anna explained the home rules of the garden.
“He doesn’t let me have the pruners,” she laughed. “I do all the haircuts around here, but no trees…because I butcher everything.”
“She tends to get carried away,” Al interjected with a smile, as he sniped away at a Japanese juniper.
“There is a whole array of bonsai specialized tools,” explained Al. “I generally use the fine point pruners for the little stuff and nub cutters or concave cutters to remove limbs so they will heal up smooth and fast.”
The tree he is working on is the most common and tends to serve as the symbol for the bonsai practice.
“The Japanese junipers have the small needle and you can prune them any style you want,” he explained. “The five basic styles are formal upright, informal upright, slanting, semi-cascade, and cascade. People tend to like the windswept (slanting) look in appearance because it looks kind of like the classic Monterey Cypress.”
Yet while the Japanese juniper is the easiest tree to work with, this oriental art form is by no way limited to this one specimen.
“Bonsai is a lot of fun because you can just about miniaturize anything,” explained Al. “It’s not just the traditional Japanese juniper or Japanese maple.”
Al’s garden is evidence of this wide variety. Walking past the shelves he explains the various types of plants and trees he has turned into bonsais, which include: fig trees, Filbert nut trees, oak trees, pine trees, crepe myrtle, rosemary, weeping hemlock, palm trees, grapevines, manzanita, ginkgo, cypress, boxwood, sequoia (yes, a giant sequoia in dwarf form!), native lilac, and loquat, a sub-tropical fruit tree.
“I walk around a lot of old nursery’s and see nursery stock with a lot of possibilities, so I try different plants,” he said. “For example, that plant over there is just a typical garden hedge shrub, but because it had a nice natural shape I decided to make it a bonsai. The possibilities are endless, but some plants are much easier to work with than others. Manzanita is the toughest to train and oaks are difficult as well because they only like a certain amount of water.”
Al leads me to the easiest plant to take care of, which sits on the shelf amongst the other dwarfed plants. When asked why, Al answered with a smile, “Because it’s artificial. Although it looks real, it’s just plastic. I just had to have one of those in my collection so whenever someone tells me that they’d love to have a bonsai, but they don’t think that they can take care of it, I point them to this tree,” he said with a laugh. “I will admit, if a person isn’t good with plants, they should probably stick to this type. But if you like plants, real bonsais are great.”
Most of Al’s customers fall into the later category, and Al has several varieties that are very popular among his bonsai clients.
“People really like the flowering plants,” he said, holding a dainty looking plant. “This one, spyria, has a pink flower, which is pretty in the spring. I have some flowering quince that I’ll put out in the spring when they are full of blooms. I’ve also had wisteria with flowers hanging down, and honeysuckle – just about anything.”
Another well-received tree is the famed Japanese maple.
“We sell these all the time and we can’t seem to keep them in stock here,” said Al. “They are great because they turn the most amazing colors throughout the year.”
Although it usually can’t survive full grown in this region, another bestseller is the palm tree.
“People love the little palm trees,” he said. “One of the reasons is because people are able to keep them inside. It’s from the Mexican desert, so it likes to be a little on the dry side.”
However, the majority of bonsai trees have to be outside.
“This is an ideal setting,” said Al of the pine-shaded garden, which experiences all seasons of the foothill weather. “The plants will often freeze solid in the wintertime and they love it. When we first arrived to Sonora we thought, ‘oh no, the snow, bring them in the house!’ But if you bring them inside, the dryness in the house will dry them out. You can bring them in for the evening or the weekend, but then bring them right back out. They are outdoor trees and they have to be in that environment.”
Besides finding the ideal location for the plants, bonsai do require special attention to keep them alive.
“It’s all top secret information,” Al said with a laugh. “No, there actually isn’t anything secretive about it. People used to think that there were all these secrets, but although there may be a few hidden tips, generally its just basic gardening. They have to be watered every day just like any potted plant, and I have a sprinkler system that waters them every morning. The key to bonsai is to have good drainage. Different types of trees require different type of soil, but generally they like a lot of rock in the soil for drainage and I put gravel around the base of the trees so it doesn’t wash the soil off. Also, it’s good to fertilize them once a month to keep them healthy.”
To insure his customers give the trees this proper care, Al includes a care-sheet with each purchase of a plant, which range from $40 for a starter plant to several hundred dollars.
“It’s not unusual for people to come back and buy a couple of the trees for their yard,” said Al. “Or when they are searching for a special gift for someone. But for people up here, $450 is a lot of money for a tree. Most people would rather be looking for $40 worth of firewood…not a tiny tree. However, in the city there are bonsais that sell for $3,000 to $4,000!”
These pricey trees are usually very old, and while Al’s oldest are around twenty years, some bonsai have been known to live for hundreds of years.
“Some bonsai trees in collections are over 300 years old and they’ve been repotted for over a hundred years,” he said. “That means it has been passed down through a couple of generations.”
As the trees advance in age, they must be repotted every couple years so the roots can be cut back to stunt the top growth.
“It’s good to transplant them every four or five years because it encourages new growth and makes them livelier,” explained Al. “When you pull them out, cutting the roots back allows you to keep them in a small pot, and helps to control the top growth and the root growth. You’d be surprised how much root you can remove from a tree and not injure it. I usually cut about an inch away of the roots when I transplant it, but I’ve had plants where I’ve removed 80 percent of the root.”
Most of Al’s repotting takes place during the winter…sometimes prematurely out of necessity.
“One winter I had to repot 25 plants because their ceramic pots cracked due to the freezing temperatures,” he said. “But the winter is a good time to do it anyway because the plants are somewhat dormant. Plus it gives me something to do, because when it’s snowy and icy here, nobody is doing gardening work.”
Luckily Al is able to work through the winter by maintaining his clients yards in the Bay Area.
“The Bay Area has year round working weather, and I still drive down there a couple days a week to do gardening,” he said. “I have clients down there that I have had for over 30 years.”
And while Al continues to do landscaping up here, he prefers to be labeled as a ‘gardener.’
“I would rather be called a gardener, because gardeners really know how to grow things. Oftentimes landscapers just hire cheap labor to put big plants in little holes,” he said jokingly. “Things aren’t done the same anymore. People no longer prune by hand, but get the power trimmers and everything is made into a little square or a little ball. It’s almost a lost art to open a shrub up from the inside out and make it nice and lacey so it can breathe.”
Yet this art can definitely be found in his garden, and when at home, Al can usually be found trimming and nurturing his miniature projects.
“They are kind of like your babies,” he said. “It’s what they call a labor of love and I enjoy spending time with them.”
Al realized how much enjoyed it after selling off all of his plants about nine years ago.
“I sold out the entire nursery to a guy in Ceres, and after a year or two I missed them. I missed going out and just watering and talking to them…but you gotta play classical music,” he said with a smile. “You play that heavy rock and they just droop.”
Even now there are a few trees he is still attached to that he wishes he hadn’t sold.
“I sold a bristlecone pine and a cedar from Lebanon, which I probably should have kept just to have…because they were rare,” he said.
“He usually says there is no car he can’t sell…and it’s the same with the trees,” added Anna. “There is no tree he can’t sell, but sometimes he says, ‘ohh…I wish I held on to that one.”
Yet looking around his thriving garden, Al is content with what he has and isn’t planning on expanding.
“This is really all I want to care for,” he said. “There isn’t a huge market for it up here and I just about have my shelves full.”
Although Al’s trees are on display at Columbia Nursery, the Farmer’s Friend in Columbia State Park, and the Pine Tree Restaurant on Hess Avenue in Sonora, he enjoys when people come by his yard to have a look.
“As an artist, I like people to appreciate the work,” he said. “I don’t care if they buy it or not, it’s just fun, and I like that people can come by and have a good time. That’s what it’s all about…sharing with people. Plus, you don’t see many people who don’t like bonsai, and when they see what can be done with the various plants, they say, ‘well, I can do that.’ That was the same attitude I had when I got started. But watch out, it’s contagious.”
For more information and pictures of Al’s bonsais, visit www.Alsbonsai.com.
