Yasuo Mitsuya has been making the rounds in California for a couple of months now in the equivalent of a high-ranking prelate or statesman's working tour, a celebrity occasion that's not on the radar of most people outside of bonsai circles...

Mitsuya comes across as direct and focused. He seems to act like a hummingbird: concentrating intensely on one plant, then inexplicably disappearing while you're looking at it, only to turn up yards behind you in some other bit of the garden...

For a set of three backdrop camellias: "Cut each twig on top back to one healthy bud; in the middle, to two; on the bottom, to three buds. This will help strengthen the bottom, always the weakest part of a shrub or tree."

Link.