Recent topics for Sekibokka include multiple overseas pop-up events, as well as local pop-up events at HANDS be and Ginza Tsutaya Books, showing a strong outward-facing presence. However, our daily operations mainly involve diligently replanting our plants. Plants have optimal times for replanting, and unfortunately, spring coincides with these times for many plants. While missing the optimal period doesn’t necessarily mean the plants will perish, we, like any caring parent, want to maintain them in the best possible condition. Currently, the Sekibokka staff is deeply engaged in daily planting activities. By handling the roots that have become entangled in pots and reducing their volume, we promote new root growth and improve overall plant health. We encourage you all to give it a try!

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A collaboration event was held between select shop “432hz”, which receives overwhelming support from street culture freaks in Hong Kong, and Sekibokka. A launch party was held the day before the event, and it was an exciting night attended by representatives of Hong Kong’s famous brands and celebrities. This unique collaboration, which came about after a passionate request from the 432hz brand owner, created many chemical reactions and was undoubtedly a great experience for Sekibokka. Many Sekimuhana bonsai and items were sent to the 432hz Causeway Bay store, but the customers who visited 432hz rushed to buy, and the items sold out within a week. Based on the brand concept of “Big Nature in a Small Vessel,” We has been working to inherit the Japanese aesthetic sense and culture that is conscious of the connection with nature in a new form, but the people of Hong Kong also sympathize with the concept. Not only did they show me their support, but they also welcomed me with more enthusiasm than I could have imagined. It was an impressive event with a solid response.

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This summer has been very, very hot, and it feels like it’s going to last forever. We often work outside, but due to the intense heat of 39 degrees Celsius, we were unable to work outdoors during the day, so we had to work outside in the mornings and evenings, and evacuated indoors to a room with an air conditioner during the day. By the way, some plants grew vigorously in the intense heat, but some had sunburned leaves or poor growth. . That’s probably why this summer was so hot. We have also heard from growers in production areas outside the prefecture that their leaves and fruit have been burnt due to the heat. However, very few of the trees we are growing have died due to the intense heat, so I think we have done a good job. The vitality of plants is amazing. In autumn, the weather becomes milder and the plants become more vibrant. It’s an annual tradition that when the weather gets cool, we give fertilizer to the trees as a thank you for making it through the summer. Autumn fertilizer works well. Please give some fertilizer as a thank you. Spring budding and flowering will be very good.

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The arrival of spring is coming quickly, and plants are starting to sprout more and more each day. What does your plants look like? In spring, if you expose your plants to plenty of sunlight, they will produce beautiful buds, but on the other hand, you need to be careful about damage from cold weather and frost. If your pet grows wet when the temperature is below 5 degrees Celsius, it may get sick due to the cold or frost, so check the weather forecast and protect it indoors or under the eaves when the temperature drops. Well, We started with the Ginza Tsutaya Bookstore POPUP in January, followed by a fair at the Gungendo Muromachi store, a fair at Loops in Nagano, a POPUP at Shibuya PARCO, the current Isetan Shinjuku POPUP, Tohoku Standard Market / A flurry of events are being held, such as the fair at Kanei Restore. We will keep you updated on next month’s information on SNS, etc., so please look forward to it. Also, mountain hydrangea, which is popular as a Mother’s Day gift, was recently released. The flowering season is from May to June, so you can enjoy the beautiful flowers at just the right time. The Sekibokka members are busy preparing for this.

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Our base of operations is located in a relatively snowy area of Yamagata. Although there are many hardships in winter, there are also many advantages unique to this climate. One of them is that we can see swans flying in with the melting snow up close. They eat the fallen ears of rice in the melting rice paddies with a single-minded devotion. Their appearance is quite cute, but it is a sad fate that the white ones are dirty. You can easily tell which ones are eating harder than the others by the color of their faces. If you look closely, you can see that a child with a black face may be a veteran because of its large size. The ones with white faces are not yet experienced. When swans fly in, we hear their calls throughout our working hours, but we don’t find them noisy. Rather, it is a pleasant and soothing BGM. Eventually they leave to migrate north where the snow has melted. Interestingly, the flower buds of the “swan flower” begin to swell around the time the swans fly in.

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We feel nature in our daily life and love small changes in our life. I feel that bonsai, a traditional Japanese culture, teaches us, in our busy modern life, what is the essential richness and what is important for a better life. Not only daily healing, but also the difficulty and pleasure of facing living things, the good sense of tension and relaxation that can be gained by correcting our posture a little, and the heart that can notice small changes. The sadness of the occasional withering and the joy of the blossoming of trees that have been carefully cared for are also precious and irreplaceable movements of the heart, I am sure. The heart to feel the subtleties of nature from season to season and the sense of beauty represented by “wabi sabi” are the traditional Japanese spirit that we all have. We should not forget them. However, modern lifestyles have changed drastically. We hope that by adapting this wonderful traditional culture to modern life, we can refine its essential values and make it more frank and enjoyable for as many people as possible. I believe that time spent quietly facing plants is also time to refine one’s mind.

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Happy New Year and thank you to everyone who has been involved with us in the year 2022. Looking back on last year, there are too many things that have happened to write about, but if I had to pick one thing to mention, it would be that we were able to have more opportunities to talk directly with our customers at real events, starting with the event at Honda’s headquarters building in January, the POPUP at Parco Shibuya, the event at Tokyu Plaza Shibuya, and the workshop at the well-known Tohoku Standard Market, We are very happy to have more opportunities to talk directly with our customers at real events. We will continue to create such opportunities this year. This year, Sekibokka celebrates its 20th anniversary. We would like to thank all of our customers, suppliers, and Sekibokka members for their support. We will continue to love nature, protect what needs to be protected, innovate from time to time, and strive to share the wonder of nature and the joy of bonsai with you. Thank you very much for your support. We look forward to your continued support this year.

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I had the impression that there were many very hot days in September. I was wondering what was going to happen, but as soon as October arrived, the temperature dropped dramatically. Please take care of your health. The plants in the our nursery have begun to turn beautiful autumn colors due to the change in temperature without catching a cold. The fruits of the Japanese white oak, which are usually the first to turn bright red, have been followed by the fruits of the Japanese nipplewort and the crested kingfisher, which have also turned soft red over the past few days. The leaves of deciduous trees have also begun to turn red and yellow, creating a colorful landscape in the nursery. The mechanism of such autumn coloring is that plants begin to prepare for defoliation by sensing a drop in temperature, which causes a change in the sugar content in the leaves and enzyme activity, resulting in the production of pigments. （In other words, plants only become beautifully colored when they sense a change in temperature. Please expose your plants to the outside air and nurture them. The best part of bonsai is that you can enjoy the coloring of autumn leaves and fruits close at hand. Let’s enjoy it!

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Sekibokka’s base is located at the foot of a mountain commonly called “Turtle Mountain”. It is not a majestic mountain, but a satoyama where people are close to each other. It is a small mountain with vegetation consisting mainly of red pine and konara oak. It may not look like anything special at first glance, but it is a complex of ruins from the Old Stone Age to the Middle Ages, and many stone tools and earthenware still lie in peace. The name “Turtle Mountain” is a common name, and is derived from the fact that it looks like a turtle lying down when seen from a distance. I would like to take a “turtle-like” picture someday, as the image does not seem to capture the image at all. Incidentally, the official name of the mountain is Mount Kawashima, but I personally prefer the name “Turtle Mountain” because I am familiar with it from my childhood. So I will probably continue to push for that one in the future.

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Summer has finally arrived. Brilliant sunshine makes plants grow more robust. However, the heat often causes potted plants to dry out. If the water in the pots runs out completely, the plants will wither and die, so it is important to be careful not to let them dry out too much. Adjust the exposure to sunlight and watering frequency according to how dry the plant is. Sunlight makes plants hardy, but the intense sunlight is too strong for small potted plants. In such cases, it is recommended to use a reed screen to create a “shady” area where soft light can enter. By using a reed screen, you can recreate the shade of a forest, so please give it a try. Hot weather is the perfect time to enjoy the cool appearance of plants. Bringing the plants in front of you to admire them, while enjoying a cool drink in your hand, makes for a relaxing chill time with an excellent healing effect.

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The seasons move quickly, and before I know it, May has arrived. It has been a long time since I have kept a diary. For those of us who work with plants, spring is a very busy time. Repotting, fertilizing, pruning, irrigating, and building shelves are just a few of the tasks that we have to do. In the spring, we build shelves with single pipes, and in the winter, we tear them all down to make room for heavy snowfalls. In the same way, the plants are stored in the facility in the winter and moved outdoors in the spring. The 100,000 pots are moved as if taking a deep breath. The trees, which have grown so large that their pots have become cramped, silently plead, “Hurry up and replant them! But when I come back to myself, I realize that it is only the human mind that is busy, and the rhythms of nature are calm. The beautiful budding of the trees and the sprouting of the buds soothe me, and I try to keep my mind in order as I go about my daily activities.

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The snow remaining in the rice paddies has disappeared over the past few days. As if they had been watching for the right moment, swans are flying in one after another. They come to feed on the fallen ears left over from the fall harvest. While I was working, I could hear swans singing in the nearby rice paddies, and it seems that the days will continue to be busy for some time to come. The beautiful sight of swans is something to behold every year, and since ancient times, swan worship has been widely practiced in the Tohoku region, a major swan flying area, and many swan shrines still remain today. Indeed, the pure white swans are considered to be a spiritual bird. Speaking of swans, one of the most popular trees in Sekibokka is the “swan flower”. This tree gets its name from the fact that its flowers are pure white and look like swans. As if to coincide with the arrival of swans, this tree is also in bloom.

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It is gradually turning into spring in snowy Yamagata. Although it is still a silver world on the ground, plants that have been cured in the warm sun begin to move. The power of plants in spring after enduring a bitterly cold winter is tremendous, and when I see the buds swelling up on the trees, I feel as if I can share their life force with them. It is as if all the energy that has been stored up during the winter cannot be contained, and all at once, buds burst forth. The word for budding is “Houga” which refers to the sprouting of new shoots of plants and trees. It is also used as a metaphor for “a sign that something new is beginning. When nature, culture, art, or anything else sprouts, it is a time when the energy that has been hidden inside explodes. It strongly attracts people’s hearts. It is a time for both plants and people to endure in a harsh environment and to gather strength with dedication.

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“Is Sekibokka a bonsai?” When people ask me that question, I am happy to feel that it is a question born from a flat sense of value. -But the answer is both yes and no. The questioner will surely be bothered by the ambiguous answer, “Yes and no.” – but the answer will be “Yes and no.”. Bonsai” has an important significance in our value system, but it is only a part of it, and respect for ‘nature,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘tradition’ is at the base of all our activities. In fact, we are also quietly engaged in unexpected activities and preparing for the distant future. Until now, we have not had much opportunity to talk about our values, and you have often been able to guess them from the worldview that surrounds each of our works. However, I will basically try to capture the momentary glimpses of everyday scenery and plants, and write about them in a casual manner.

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