Shaped by Many Hands

Botanical Name: Juniperus chinensis

Common Name: San Jose Juniper

Story of the Tree

According to John Planting, sometime in the early 1960s Tosh planted a whip in his nursery and bent it around a piece of bamboo to give it shape. At some point John acquired the tree and kept it in a 5-gallon pot until it was used by Tokita (Matsuya's first apprentice) for a demo in 1998. I won the tree and then over the next 20 years did at least one workshop with Mitsuya and Kathy on it in 2004.

During the Mitsuya workshop he bent the top down dramatically and fashioned a new apex from upper / rear branches. He also turned several of the lower branches into long jins. He said to break them back later — but once the tree developed, the moment they would give the tree some character. I've done that, although I can't remember if I removed the lowest jin, sticking out at right angles from the first bend. I was supposed to.

It has also been worked on in workshops with Steve Iwaki. And I took it to the recent Bjorne workshop — where he said it would be best to graft shimpaku onto the trunk.

In 2025, I made jin most of the lower branches to make a sinuous, snake-like form; repotted to turface soil; wired main branch ends down.

Exhibited by Michael Greenstein