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First thing you need to do is find out what you have to work with. Everything's so overgrown right now you can't really see what branching belongs to which tree and what parts might not be alive anymore. Clean up all those trees, right as they are, before you think about cutting any of them apart. Go tree to tree and prune each one to make it look as good as it can right now. Might as well strip off the foliage, too, so you can see everything better. It won't matter to the trees because they're on the verge of shedding foliage anyway — the growing season is essentially over. What a mess. Letting little trees in pots just grow for awhile is good for them, rejuvenates them, while letting them grow untended for years is not. All their shaping comes undone. Lots of lower branching withers away because the branching above it is going to town and hogging all the sun. These trees did get some pruning, don't forget that. They were headed back at some point last year, the overall silhouette of the mass was sheared to keep it tidy, so that checked the sprawl. No detail work, though. 

Well, it's all getting a good going over now. None too soon, either. If the branch is dead, cut it off. If it's a larger sized branch and dead, break it off and leave a stub. The living branches are all too long, so they all get chased back and shaped up and you go through all of it branch to branch, tree to tree and you lose yourself in it, and then you're doing the work without thinking about it, your hands just moving all the time, the scissor snipping and little pieces of branch falling away, your eyes moving just ahead of your hands and telling them where to go — directing them, not telling them because there are no words, no thoughts. Sight provides the stimulus, your hands respond with action, memory is the template. This is too long, these are too many, those are in conflict with each other; find the line and follow it, simplify it, feel the movement of it and let it do something surprising now and then. Feel it and trust the feeling. Don't think about it.

Is this zen? People often ask about that, comment about it, Oooh, do you get, like, all zen and everything when you work on these? The answer is probably yes but you never say yes. You always joke it off. What the heck is zen anyway? It's a state of mind, right? It's a way of looking at the world, a way of engaging with life where you put away thinking and judgmentalism and preconceived ideas and you open up to the moment, you occupy the moment and accept it as it is and then you become tuned into a wavelength that's there all the time although you're never conscious of it, and you recognize that you're actually a part of that wavelength, not separate from it, and all things are part of it — good and bad, right and wrong, living and dead — all part of it and you flow easy with that feeling because it's just as natural and right as can be. What would it be like to exist in that state of mind all the time? It's probably not possible, or if it is, it's rare. That's what the monks are striving for, with their praying and chanting, fasting and living apart from the world. They're trying to tap into the wavelength full time, to live the enlightened life. You could never do that. You'd go out of your mind... but that's the point, right? Out of your mind. Leave your mind behind, leave thinking behind, live in the moment and be here now. Yeah, listen to you. What's the secret of life oh great guru? Talking about zen is the second most un-zen-like thing you can do. The most un-zen-like thing you can do is to think about it. 

Even trimmed back and stripped of foliage you can see these trees have been on auto-pilot too long! They were stretching already before the main tree died, creeping up, getting taller all the while and they were all doing it at once, synchronized so it wasn't evident. You maintained the height differential, but all the trees were stretching. The death of the main tree brought an end to the piece as it was, but there was going to be a need to hit the reset button regardless. All the trees were going to need their tops lowered and that probably would have necessitated pulling the landscape off display for a year or more, anyway. That height adjustment will have to be part of the work now. When you put the planting together you'll arrange the trees according to the caliber of their trunks and then at the end adjust the height as needed. Wait for the end, though. Decide the arrangement and get all the trees placed and planted and then shorten them, once you see how they all relate to each other.

Yeah, about that arrangement... Now that the trees are all stripped down you can see better how it is, not just the shape of the individuals but how they are next to each other and what the chances are of separating them. Helps to have the big dead tree out of the way. That old tree came out easy enough. No cutting necessary after five years standing dead in a pot, just grab hold, twist and pull.

Separating some trees looks more doable now and leaving some together as they are will be good. Should you do that work now? It would make your job easier when show time comes if the separating was done beforehand, if all the plant material was prepped and ready to go. That would make less of a show, though. Most people haven't seen grouped plants like these taken apart. Most people haven't even seen roots cut before, and that's always something that seems to interest them. Probably won't be so hard to do the separating as part of the program — make a show of it. Ha! Famous last words. 

It's easier now to see the three biggest trees and compare them. Any of them might work as a main tree, if you set aside the other two and not have them in the picture. That wouldn't leave much, though. The secondary trees are okay. They're not nearly as good as the three biggest and maybe you shouldn't put so much visual weight on them. Maybe some of those secondary trees don't live if you have to separate them from the bigger ones. You don't have this figured out yet, that's for sure. But it doesn't need to be figured out now. It doesn't even need to be figured out before you do the demonstration.

Good thing you got those little trees from John, they're going to be critical for the new planting. It was good to see him again after so long and his place looks great. Amazing that something like his garden exists where it does, down a yellow sand road in the middle of nowhere, a lush little tree oasis tucked in among the soybean and corn fields. Can't even remember when the last time was that you saw his garden, but it was way more than a year ago. Maybe more than two years. Looked great though, this time, better than ever. You can see he's got the time to give it now that he's retired. Funny how retirement for him meant finally being able to give all his time to bonsai, while retirement for you will be just the opposite. Unbelievable how many baldcypress he has, from first year seedlings to big trees collected from the swamp and all sizes in between. He'll see some return on them, but he'd probably have just as many plants as he has even if it wasn't selling because that's how plant people are. Of course he wouldn't take any money for the trees he let you have. 

Those young trees are going to be important. They're going to make the remaining trees from the original planting look older, bigger and better by comparison. They'll give you the size differential you need, too. The little trees will be just trunks to start out, no branching, so they'll have to be developed for a while after the planting is put together. That's no problem because the original trees are going to need some time as well, to find their strength again and replace parts they've lost, and all of that can happen concurrently. It's likely to be a year or two before the landscape will be showable again.

Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you? Maybe you shouldn't worry about how long it will be before you can show work you haven't done yet. You don't even know if what comes out of this will be something you'll want to show. 

To be continued…