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

Featured
The Long Way Home
The Long Way Home

Of the six or seven trees Kent had rounded up for our consideration, the one at which he now pointed was easily the least impressive. It was another pine, a Japanese black pine by the looks of it, wildly overgrown and terribly leggy. I didn’t see anything to recommend it.

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Wake Up, It's Spring
Wake Up, It's Spring

The routine so familiar you know it by heart,

a well worn path trod year after year

yet remaining somehow eternally new.

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The Chase Grove
The Chase Grove

It must have looked suspicious. Picture a rest stop off an Interstate, a van parked by itself a little removed from any other vehicles. Two men stand outside the van, waiting expectantly, looking down the road and one of them now and then checks his watch. Finally a second van pulls up, right alongside the first.

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Late Winter Work on a Trident Maple
Late Winter Work on a Trident Maple

What follows is an account of the late winter preparatory work done on a trident maple (Acer buergerianum) in a developmental phase. This same specimen has twice before been featured in the Curator’s Journal. The tree is revisited in this entry, on the cusp of its fourth growing season of bonsai development.

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Roots In the Air
Roots In the Air

Banyan is a catch-all phrase for several different species of figs (Ficus sp.) that share the trait of producing what are known as prop roots from their trunks and branches. Emerging like threads from the tree's bark, these roots are pulled downwards by gravity until they come in contact with the ground.

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upcoming Events

Events Blog
The Bonsai Exhibition Garden in Spring: Curator’s Talk & Tour with Arthur Joura
The Bonsai Exhibition Garden in Spring: Curator’s Talk & Tour with Arthur Joura

TUESDAY, MAY 13, 5:30 - 7:30 PM

Join this after-hours tour of the garden with Bonsai Curator Arthur Joura for a personal and informative overview of the art of bonsai and the Arboretum's own creative approach to it. Foliage is at its freshest at this time of year, and flowers will likely be blooming in the garden landscape and on select bonsai.

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Recommended viewing

Featured
The American Elm
The American Elm

From a simple seed grows a mighty tree — and a great new video by Ben Kirkland, content creator of the popular YouTube channel Appalachian Bonsai. He documents Arthur Joura in the 2019 styling demonstration that was the making of The American Elm.

A Radical Redesign: Tanuki
A Radical Redesign: Tanuki

Life, death, rebirth. Bonsai curator Arthur Joura undertakes an unusual and challenging redesign of an old juniper bonsai from the Arboretum's collection. The work was recorded live and edited by Visiting Artist Ben Kirkland, creator of the YouTube channel Appalachian Bonsai.

Creating a Tray Landscape
Creating a Tray Landscape

In Creating a Tray Landscape, Arboretum Bonsai Curator Arthur Joura creates a new planting featuring a lone weathered hornbeam and woody shrubs assembled with sculptural rocks on a natural stone slab. It makes for a scene evocative of the craggy Southern Appalachian highlands.

Repotting the River of Dreams
Repotting the River of Dreams

An iconic tray landscape — The River of Dreams — is de-constructed and its individual elements are reassembled to create a new composition, which is then replanted into a new and larger American-made container.

Out of the Box
Out of the Box

This second video of the series, "Out of the Box," shows what happens in several years when a bonsai-in-training is ready to take another significant step toward becoming a presentable piece.

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. ”
— Arthur Joura