The Curator’s Journal by Bonsai Curator Arthur Joura offers the ultimate insider’s view of bonsai at The North Carolina Arboretum. Regular entries chronicle growing an art and growing an enterprise. Some journal entries will be long and others more brief; some will be mostly words and others mostly pictures; some will be close-up studies of detail and others will step back to take in the wider scene.
The path will not be linear, but all the entries will be steps on a journey. You’re invited to come along.
Preview the latest entries and resources offered below. With Joura as a knowledgeable guide, you can forgo the map and travel in time to meet remarkable trees, each with stories and life lessons worth sharing.
REcent Journal Entries
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People are often interested in a specific topic within the art of bonsai. The journal entries have been sorted to reflect that, making it easier for readers to find entries covering material they would like to read about in greater depth.
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A SMALL Sampling OF Bonsai IN THE Arboretum’s COLLECTION
Captions may not be supported when viewing on a mobile device. Find a list of the bonsai currently on display here.
“We use bonsai as an interpretive tool to help excite people about nature, to help engage them, to make their visit to the Arboretum special... That focus exclusively on the natural aspect, that’s what sets us apart. Here, bonsai is a way for people to see nature differently. ”
The baldcypress water-and-land planting Mr. Zhao made for us in his 1998 demonstration program was remarkably good right from the time he put it together. It had a great feeling to it, a kind of authenticity that evoked the experience of being in nature, somewhere in the hushed coniferous forest where the sound of water splashing on rock is so persistent it ceases to be noticeable.