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Collect trees, grow your nursery, earn real trees.
yamadori 山採り — a tree collected from the wild.
Yamadori is a bonsai nursery that lives in your pocket. Wander the mountain for wild trees, raise them over real weeks and months, shape them with your own hands, and be proud of what you've grown. Not a game — a hobby.
The philosophy
Not a game. A practice.
The tree is the interface
No HUD, no popups, no ads. One beautiful living thing on screen — everything else gets out of the way.
Real time, real care
Trees grow on a calendar, not a progress bar. Open the app tomorrow and yours will be bigger. Neglect leaves marks. Craft does too.
Zen, not grind
No energy meters, no streak-shaming, no timers to beat. A session is a few calm minutes — water, look closely, snip once, leave.
The ritual
Two quiet minutes, most days.
Pruning is the signature act. You cut — the branch falls with real weight, the wound heals over days, and the tree grows back around your decision.
Every tree is grown branch by branch, so no two are alike — and every scar in its story is one you put there.
The world hums quietly around you — wind in the needles, birds at dawn, water over stone, the clean snip of the shears.
The daily ritual
Water the benches, feed the koi, pull a weed, check the leaves.
The weekly craft
Prune new growth, wire a branch, choose the styling line.
The living world
The sky wears the hour — lanterns at dusk, and shows on the calendar.
The world
A little planet, all your own.
Step out the nursery gate and the whole world turns under your feet. Paths wind past the koi pond, a quiet shrine, and the compound of a master grower named Ben.
This is where yamadori happens — climb into the foothills, find a wild tree that's been growing for years, and carry it home on your back.
The forage
Wild trees appear with the morning — the higher you climb, the older the find.
The nursery
Koi to feed, cuttings from the mother trees, a bench for every tree you keep.
Beyond the torii
Cross into the Redcliffs — crimson crags and tea gardens. More worlds are growing.
The catalog
Nine species. Deeply grown.
Each species has its own silhouette, bark, branching habit, and temperament — grown branch by branch, never from a template.
Juniper
Juniperus procumbens 'Nana'
The classic first tree. Forgiving, sculptural, and happiest when you let its pads breathe. Where every collection begins.
Chinese Elm
Ulmus parvifolia
Lacebark and fine ramification. Elegant, quick to respond to the shears, and beautiful in every season.
Deshojo Maple
Acer palmatum 'Deshōjō'
A three-trunk clump that flushes crimson in spring — one family rising from a single root. Patience, rewarded in color.
Also growing in the nursery: Fukien tea, ficus, bougainvillea, serissa and jade — new species arrive with the seasons.
The gallery
Grow it.
Then frame it.
When your tree is ready, the Gallery re-stages it like a museum piece — deep ink backdrop, gold moon, rim light.
Export your actual tree — its true silhouette, its healed scars, its age and name — as an art print for your camera roll or lock screen. That's the point of all of it: something worth showing.
The exchange
Grow it for a year.
Then hold it.
Here is the part no other game has dared. Keep a tree alive in Yamadori for a full year, and a real bonsai ships to your door — a living juniper raised on real benches at our partner nursery, with a care card to start your second year together.
We partnered with a real working nursery — run by a close friend of the developer — because the promise only means something if the tree is real. It isn't a sweepstake and it isn't a purchase. The only way to earn it is the way bonsai has always demanded: show up, water, wait.
Every other game's reward is pixels. Ours is photosynthesis.
The 365-day law
A tree becomes exchangeable on its 365th day of care. Time is the one currency that can never be bought.
Guaranteed, never gambled
No drawings, no odds, no luck. Every tree that earns it, redeems it.
Your tree stays
Nothing is traded away. The digital tree keeps growing — it simply wears a permanent mark: rooted in the real world.
Full program details — regions, limits, timing — publish at launch. Read the announcement →
Bring home your first tree.
Yamadori is growing in a small nursery of its own right now. Leave your email and you'll be there when the gates open.