Julian’s passion for bonsai appeared at a young age and reemerged when he had a job selling knives that were hand crafted with burl handles. The burl handles with their intricate beauty peaked Julian’s interest which led to his looking for trees with burls in nature. A fishing trip with his father led to another discovery. He was curious about how he might incorporate a rock with a tree; therefore, the creation of bonsai began for Julian. After college Julian began a two-year apprenticeship at Fujikawa Kouka-en in Osaka, Japan. When he returned to Los Angeles, he postponed his professional bonsai pursuit to work in another profession. However, he continued his education in bonsai, driving from San Diego to Sacramento to study with Peter Tea and to Los Angeles to study with John Wang.
After much contemplation, Julian, decided to pursue his passion and become a bonsai professional. In 2022 John Yang told him that he was leaving the bonsai profession and would hand over some of his top clients providing he was on good terms with his boss in Japan.
Julian has a high standard of professionalism of work and integrity. Bonsai is his number one pursuit. Julian states that running a business is hard work with constant traveling and management of client relations. In addition to maintenance and development, he finds time to promote his work and conduct workshops as well as exhibitions.
He has been working for two years professionally. Julian returned to our club on February 1, 2025 to work with club members on their own special projects. A group of club members visited a nursery in Clear Lake where they obtain 25-year-old Juniper trees in need of a lot of attention. One of the trees was chosen by the group to be obtained for Julian to design and become “the tree” to be won at our Opportunity Drawing held at our December 2024 meeting. The tree that was chosen resided at Joel Rainey’s house where he fertilized, watered, and maintained it for eleven months prior to Julian’s arrival.
Julian worked extremely hard advising various club members that he saw on a private basis at their homes. The tree chosen for the February bonsai club General Meeting was a Juniper. It was a great opportunity for the general membership to not only gain knowledge, but to view an aging Juniper bush become a beautiful bonsai tree that, if maintained well, will last for many, many years to come.
Thank You, Julian, for sharing your knowledge with us.
We are looking forward to your return.
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