Pruning the Pines at our London Japanese Garden 

8:10 🍑💨 🙊🤣🤣

Peter is generally regarded as a western bonsai master and has been working with trees and bonsai for several decades and written well renowned books on the subject. You couldn't have stumbled across a better channel. Cheers. :)

The thing is, this what property developers (and facility management, and yes, also the owners) of high-end commercial properties prefer. This kind of atrium garden, devided up between short lawn and gravel areas, while emulating a traditional Japanese gravel garden in some aspects, suggests prestige and expense while being very low-maintenance. The only qualified maintenance needed is outsourced and relatively cheap, maybe the nursery needs to come in on a triannual basis, maybe have a tech check in once or twice a year to check on lighting and irrigation, and all the rest can be done by unqualified personnel making minimum wage. Perennial beds, large trees and shrubs which would invite birds and insects require qualified personnel coming in on a regular basis, maybe once every two months, to look good. And yes, to some people this kind of sterile, unimaginative garden is considered 'clean' and 'neat' and preferred. The fact that facility management neglected to water for 6 months is telling, there is probably no qualified gardener on staff, only people who can barely operate a lawnmower, and landscaping is often considered a tertiary priority (unless a tenant complains). The sculpted trees are beautiful, the rest is very dull.

@@dakunssd absolutely agree with you. You put it into the right words. Worst thing is the red bridge. 🤦‍♀️

Better this than a concrete jungle.

@@peterchan3100 makes me really glad I live in a Soviet era Khruschevka and work in Soviet era buildings. They planned a lot of green space around the buildings so I have beautiful trees and nature right out side my apartment.

@@samlomb2093 Sam the trees are in a courtyard surrounded on 4 very high sides if grass had been used it would have ended up full of weeds and became a muddy patch.

​@@briankavanagh7191 That's actually not true. I used to work in lawn service.There are many different species of grasses and clearly enough light for the trees to thrive, so a grass could be found that would do well here. They used astroturf so they don't have to drag mowers through the building or pay for that maintenance.

@@samlomb2093 thanks for the info Sam.

Good for you - but indoor bonsai for offices are a nightmare. I have so many requests for this but don't take them on.

even in bonsai you style the tree from all sides, otherwise the tree wouldn't get enough light between the branches and it would die back and the branches would elongate with leaves or needles only at the end. The front of bonsai will only be kept open to show the trunk and nebari to its full beauty.

@@h.b.1421 Good question - I try to make it look good from the back as well, but these trees do have a front and a back.

They dont have Peter Chan there !!

@@peterchan3100 hahaha I always enjoy a great sense of humour

I have this question too. It looks like pots with dirt mounded up around them. Looking at the rest of the courtyard makes me wonder if they had to mound up hills to plant in the ground because the whole courtyard is concreted in and that was the only way to get dirt deep enough to plant them. I would really love to emulate this look in my own yard. Also love the "river bed". Stunning.

@@GraeMatterz you do realise it's artificial grass, right ?

We do weed the astro turf because seedlings sprout up all the time.

@@peterchan3100 thanks mr chan

Yes -300 apartments - expensive

@@peterchan3100 I bet they are; those apartments must be as expensive as they come if they could afford your niwaki trees and have employed your specialised labour on site. What a treat for the residents to have that garden.

Maybe needs a timed drip system

Plus I was always told you can actually grow a pine in a bag of gravel lol