Ex-cop and a nurturing nursery forge a bonsai bond By Linda DuBois
from physical and emotional disabilities. Nanson also accompanies Nagatoshi on travels to the world’s largest bonsai events and nurseries and to Japan to learn from the world’s greatest masters. At the nursery, those new to bonsai can find everything they need to get started, such as the seedlings, pruners, wires, pots, fertilizers and soil mixes. Occasionally, Nagatoshi buys seedling trees from other nurseries, but often he starts new plants with cuttings from his older plants or seeds he’s collected. He teaches weekly workshops at the nursery and sometimes teaches abroad in places such as Mexico, South Africa, South America, Australia and New Zealand. Participants bring their own plants and can ask for advice from Nagatoshi and more advanced students. Nagatoshi designs his classes so each student will learn to take any plant—even one dug up from a backyard—and mold it into a beautiful bonsai. His No. 1 tip? “Patience is very import- ant,” he said. “Some people picture grab- bing a plant and turning it into a bonsai the next day. It takes many years sometimes to develop into a nice bonsai. “There are a lot of technical things to learn,” he said, but, like his father, he doesn’t adhere to strict rules.
At Fuji Bonsai Nursery in the Sylmar community of Los Angeles, nursery own- er Roy Nagatoshi teaches classes on the basics of working with bonsais, miniature trees that caretakers keep small by growing them in pots and trimming their roots and turn into living art pieces through thought- ful pruning and shaping. He instructs visitors on how and where to cut the bonsai branches and how to fer- tilize the tree, trim the roots, repot it and wire the branches to shape it. Along the way, he encourages his nursery class stu- dents to relax and concentrate on nothing but appreciating and nurturing the trees in front of them. One of his longtime students is Gary Nanson, a former South Central Los Angeles homicide detective. In the early 1980s, Nanson stopped into the nursery when he was in Sylmar to conduct a search warrant nearby. Shigeru Nagatoshi, Roy Nagatoshi’s father who founded the nurs- ery in 1965, greeted Nanson. They struck up a conversation, and the elder Nagatoshi, who has since passed away, seemed to sense that the police vet- eran needed relief from stress. He invited him to return to the nursery on a Saturday, for what turned out to be a bonsai class. “Shig walked up to me and said, ‘Policeman, your life is awful. You need calmness in your life. Sit here,’” Nanson
Former homicide detective Gary Nanson, far right, and Los Angeles County nursery operator Roy Nagatoshi, center, have partnered for decades in extolling spiritual benefits of raising bonsai trees.
recalled. “He put a little tree in front of me. He said, ‘First bonsai tree. Keep it your whole life.’” To this day, when Nanson works on a bonsai, he said, “My soul just kind of qui- ets. The world slows down. I’ve also come to appreciate that not only are we creating beautiful artwork, but we’re also growing something, a natural tree that can last 100 years or longer.
“When I collect or grow a tree, I look to see how it bends, where the strength is, where the front is and how I can display it. I ask a lot of questions and look at it for a long time before I start messing with it.” Nanson stayed involved with the nurs- ery long after Roy Nagatoshi took over in 1998. The two became good friends and, eventually, Roy Nagatoshi entrust- ed Nanson with leading Saturday bonsai classes for military veterans who suffer
See BONSAI, Page 17
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