This morning, May 17, I repotted a black pine.
It is a tree I have been raising since I started bonsai. Five years with me. Three years with another artist before that. Eight years old this year.
Eight years, and still young as bonsai goes. The tree will probably reach what we call "completion" when I am forty or fifty. Twenty more years. Thirty.
I was holding that timeline in my hands this morning.
1, 5, 10 years.
We set 1, 5, and 10-year stewardship periods at Azukari because we wanted everyone to feel a timeline like this.
1 year is the length of one full season. Your tree wakes in spring, grows in summer, slows in autumn, rests in winter. You see one complete turn.
5 years is where I stood with my black pine this morning. It is the horizon at which the phrase "it's getting close" first starts to mean something specific.
You look at the tree every day. But after five years of looking, one day the landscape you want the tree to grow into, the future shape you want it to take, finally arrives in your mind. That is what "it's getting close" actually means.
10 years is when the form of the tree visibly deepens. It is ten years raised by the artist who stands in front of the pot every day, and by you, who comes once a year to stand with them.
1, 5, 10 years means raising the tree together with the artist.
During this period, the physical care happens in the artist's studio. The one standing in front of the pot every day is the artist who has been raising the tree.
And you, as the owner, watch the tree's progression and come to be there in person once a year.
So 1, 5, and 10 years is both "the period the tree is in the artist's custody" and "the period you and the artist raise it together."
Pricing and policy exist to support this feeling.
The three plans are how you choose your time horizon.
From the Custody Plan view of MKT-003 — Shimpaku Juniper, 30 years, Informal Upright
- 1 year — USD 3,850 — Viewing Lounge
- 5 years (Recommended) — USD 5,500 — Viewing Lounge + Owner's Book
- 10 years — USD 9,350 — Viewing Lounge + Owner's Book + Artist Tour
The four consent items at checkout (Ownership conditions / Terms of Service / Privacy Policy / Support Guideline) are the rules that hold between you and us during this long time. We have written them to be read, not just clicked. Beginning a ten-year participation deserves agreement, not a checkbox.
An eight-year-old tree, reaching completion when I am forty or fifty. That length of time was sitting in my hands this morning during the repot.
The world has many systems for what moves quickly. We work with what moves slowly. 1, 5, and 10 years is our first answer to that.