I appreciate you posting it here and I will definitely watch the next episodes, if they will be available for free. I did post a comment on the video, but now it is gone. Might be a bug. I kind of know how the bonsai world works. Your advice is as good as your best trees. Warren definitely has me beat there. I am sure following his results will give you similar results. And hands on experience in Japan just cannot be replaced. But he says a lot of strange things that I don't see Ryan Neil say.
I see he got a degree in astrophysics. For example, his comment on bark and winter hardiness of azalea. He says azalea have thin bark; true. He says that satsuki azalea has hardiness problems in western Europe. As garden plants, probably true for a majority of cultivar. For bonsai, probably more severely true. I have no idea how much such an exposed root Issho no Sono is more susceptible to frost than my Haru no Sono. Then he says this is because of the thin bark. He doesn't use the world 'insulation', but with his astrophysics degree, he should have a better sense of the concepts of heat and thermodynamics than me with my biophysics degree. If you have a astrophysics degree, the idea of the bark of a tree insulating the tree and keeping the center warm when the outside temperature drops should raise a red flag.
It turns out we have a pretty good understanding of winter hardiness in plants. Plant tissue gets damaged when the water inside a cell freezes because ice crystals occupy more space more space and ice crystals pierce cell membranes. So the solution plants have is to prevent freezing of their cellular contents. I have never seen the role of bark being connected to winter hardiness of plants. And many many plants without bark survive fine without any bark; grass being an obvious example. R.indicum isn't very winter hardy because they grow in valleys and along rivers. R.kiusianum grows in mountains above 1 km, and as a result they are more winter hardy. But they have the same super-thin bark.
Similarly, he talks mysteriously about this complex magic or secret knowledge Japanese satsuki masters use to get the perfect flower variety distribution on trees. The fact is, there is no secret and he seems, strangely, to not know how it works. And the reason some of these masters are better at it than others is because they are better at their craft, not because they know things other people don't know. Similarly, when he gets a question about fertilizer and flower colour, he says he knows the answer, but then doesn't answer the question. I have seen this question come up, and there is always a different answer and people answering know for sure their answer is correct. I don't think they are seeing a pattern and I don't believe there is a reliable way to influence the flower colour intensity or sports through fertilizer. Probably, theoretically it has some effect, because it is all a huge chaotic biochemical soup where everything is connected.
On top of that, I also don't have a lot of confidence in the Japanese master-apprentice system and judging from the way he pronounces the satsuki cultivar, it doesn't sound to me he is fluent in Japanese. While a invaluable experience, an apprentice in Japan does a lot of work. I am not sure how much teaching there actually is. And when you also don't speak Japanese fluently, you are going to learn less than your Japanese fellow apprentices. And what do these Japanese masters actually know? Do they know how to make great trees? Yes, as almost all nice satsuki bonsai are made in Japan. Almost exclsively. Do they know the science behind why their method works? I have strong suspicious. Just a few days ago I saw one of them claim something he did prevented bad bacteria from growing in the soil. And how many Japanese bonsai masters still use wound paste? So do these people know how to work your or their satsuki tree? Yes. Do they actually know the things they say they know, seems like way too often they just make it up.
He also is in kind of a difficult position. He somehow has to make a living as a bonsai professional, which must be hard. If you claim you don't know anything, why would people pay you? And you cannot cirticize your Japanese master, for several reasons. So if all these Japanese masters have quirckly ideas about genetics or bad bacteria, or plant hormones, what do you do? They produce the best trees. And their superior trees is part of the reason why people in Europe should be paying you.
Hmm I feel like I may have made more important decisions than this...,
