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
Hemlock Landscape
Hemlock Landscape

Tray landscapes give the viewer a helping hand by providing a little more information. The inclusion of multiple trees, shrubs, stones, and other components creates a more fully described image. This makes it easier for the viewer to do what they are supposed to do when contemplating any bonsai, which is to shrink themselves down to the correct size and step into the picture.

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What You Need
What You Need

I thought the game was over, but the tree didn’t. All the other parts of the oak were still good, still growing, still strong. That tree still wanted to live and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell it otherwise.

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High Summer Reflections
High Summer Reflections

By intention, the bonsai garden is a place where reality is meant to be set aside for a short time. The garden creates an environment conducive to magic. The magic is not inherent in the garden, but is brought in there by the visitors who enter. The visitors walk in carrying with them their own unique set of experiences and, hopefully, their imaginations.

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A Snapshot of Now
A Snapshot of Now

That which is thought to be optimal is often enough at odds with reality. We might have a plan that anticipates a certain course of events, but that can never be anything more than a starting point, after which things go the way they go due to circumstance. Mitigating factors in the world of bonsai growth and development include, but are not limited to: Weather conditions, incidence of disease and pest damage, accidents, mistakes, poor timing and availability of labor.

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Maymont
Maymont

Naturalistic bonsai requires the study of trees in nature, with an eye toward truly seeing what trees do and understanding why they do it. That is the big attraction for me in coming to a place like Maymont. Here there are genuinely old trees of different species, growing out in the open where they can fully express themselves while being viewable from all angles, near and far.

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Explore Entries By Collection


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.

 
 

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