Yoshio Fujimoto

Yosh, as he is called around here is 93 years old. He is not sure about that really. After the war he set up in California to be a landscaper, as many Japanese Americans did after the war. He found that most of the good accounts in Fresno were under the care of landscapers already. It was at this time that he felt starting a nursery would be a good idea. While buuilding his landscaping buisness from scratch, he planted his first maples to be parent trees for the seeds he would need to keep in nursery business alive. He would specialize in red maples. His nursery contains red and green maples, trident maples, juniper, Japanese yew, podacarpus and crape myrtle. Many of the trees that were started from seed in the sixties and seventies had been boxed and sold off during the housing boom of the beginning of the new century. What is left now are the trees mostly planted in the early eighties. The recent tree I purchased there was planted from seed in 1983. Had it not been grown in a container it would be 7 inches across and fourty feet tall by now.

Yosh started dabbleing in bonsai in 1957 and began working trees he dug from clients yards, much the same way the Los Angelas crowd did during the same years, guys like John Naka. Even though he started the nursery with making trees for clients yards, it was not long before other in bonsai began seeking out the trees of Yosh for bonsai. Many famous bonsai people from the north and south in California sought the trees of Yosh for their collections.

Yoshio Fujimoto stands behind a pickup full of plants bought at his nursery.

Yosh writing a thank you card to Kenji Miyata in Kanji.

My teacher Katsumi Kinoshita  and Yosh.

 

Left to right, Katsumi, Yoshio and Mike Nishitani

Yoshio doing the hard work for Toshio. Toshio Saburomaru, known as Yosh and Tosh conduct a demonstration for the Akatsuki Bonsai Society in 1988. Tosh was the clubs sensai for many years until failing health kept him from making the trip from the Bay area to Fresno in the central valley.

Tosh behind the plant with Yosh to the left.

Some views around the nursery. Lots and lots of Japanese maples.

 

 

 

 

Junipers are around, you just have to look for them

 

This yew is a plant I will go back for.

Looking around one can find these rough bark maples mixed in with other maples.

My friend Chuck purchased this five trunk clump. It has a rough bark tree in the mix, very unusual.

 

Some of the old wood nursery containers can be seen here. There is a huge pile of them somewhere. I don’t think I took a picture. These were from the decades of using these trees as landscape material. all the trees are mostly in 25 gallon black nursery containers.

 

 

Here we switch gears and drive over to Yosh’s house. Here we can see his collection and the trees used for the seed from the entire nursery.

 

This little juniper is one I mentioned to Yosh I would like to purchase if he decides to sell it. I can see a great shohin tree in this material.

You don’t often see bonsai made from ivy. This one has a nice form

Pretty big trunk from an ivy.

This verigated cascade ivy has a monster trunk

This is the larger green maple used for seed.

This is the trunk on the Oshio Beni in his backyard

Here is the canopy on the fourty foot tall red maple.

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