Working on the most famous tree in America has been a great honor to me. With the goal of sustaining the bonsai and reclaiming parts of the design that had become hidden, the curator of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum and I cut back and reset the branches of this iconic forest by John Naka. One of the benefits to studying bonsai in Japan is having experience with much older bonsai like this one, started in 1953.