The idea is to put yourself in the picture. When you stand before a bonsai and look at it, if the trick works the way it's supposed to, you will become small. You leave the world you're in and enter another, where the little tree in the pot becomes full sized and the pot goes away and is replaced by a world born of imagination.

When visitors to the bonsai garden encounter the large tray landscape titled Aunt Martha's Magic Garden, no one need tell them what to do. They see the pathway, lined with white stones. They see the bench, waiting beneath the big old tree. They go right in, walking the path and taking a seat in the comfortable shade of the tree, and they rest there in that peaceful setting and think their thoughts. Or perhaps they let go of thought altogether and simply lose themselves in the serenity of a moment that exists outside of time.

The pathway and the bench are two features that make Aunt Martha's Magic Garden stand out from any other bonsai in our collection. They are both clearly elements of human origin, belonging to a landscape designed and built for human use. In all other cases, the Arboretum's bonsai represent a view of nature without the presence of overt human activity. Humanity is still part of the equation, present in the form of the viewer who looks upon nature, but nature by itself is the subject. Aunt Martha's Magic Garden represents a garden — Aunt Martha's — and the viewer who enters and takes repose upon the bench might well expect another person — maybe Aunt Martha herself — to come strolling along the path at any time.

No doubt some people must wonder about the identity of Aunt Martha. She was a real-life person, not a fictional character. Born Martha Duckworth Auten in 1910, she was a native of North Carolina, a graduate of Greensboro College, and served as a member of an American Red Cross Club Mobile Unit in Italy during World War II. Her career was with the Girl Scouts, and she served for a time as executive director of the Asheville Council as well as other higher level executive positions within the organization. One of these was as director of the Girl Scouts in the Far East, headquartered in Tokyo. It was there in the very early 1960s that Martha Auten developed a love of Japanese culture, including bonsai. When she returned to the United States after a couple of years, she began studying bonsai and maintained an extensive collection until her death in 1984. One of her trees was a dwarf hinoki falsecypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa 'nana gracilis'), which she purchased in 1964. She grew that bonsai for twenty years, and it outlived her.

It is an all too common dilemma: What to do with a person's bonsai collection once that person is gone? In Martha Auten's case, a younger sister, Billie Auten Kanupke, took on the care of the trees. Eventually almost all were dispersed to friends and relatives. One particular bonsai was greatly valued, and this was passed along to Billie's daughter, Laura Snyder, who was entrusted with the cherished dwarf hinoki falsecypress. This little tree was so special to Martha Auten that it was used as the focal point at the altar during her memorial service. In her eulogy the minister spoke of this bonsai as, "...a product of Martha's own hands, and in it are captured the towering themes of her personality: discipline, hard work, modesty, serenity, beauty and love of nature." Thus the hinoki became a living symbol of the person who cared so long for it. Mrs. Snyder has always referred to the tree as "Aunt Martha's hinoki."

Mrs. Snyder and her husband George held on to the hinoki as a remembrance of Aunt Martha, but they were not bonsai enthusiasts as she was. While they kept the tree they occasionally turned for advice and assistance to Dr. Beverly Armstrong, long a mainstay in the Charlotte bonsai community, who would eventually play an important role in supporting the Arboretum's bonsai efforts. Responsibility for this legacy bonsai weighed heavily on the Snyders, though, so for a while it was cared for by their son George Snyder III. He in turn was helped with the tree by a woman in Virginia named Kathy Walton, who also in time became an important supporter of the Arboretum's bonsai collection. Eventually the hinoki came back to the Snyders in Charlotte. They were now advised on its care by a man named Mike Brawley, who, wouldn't you know it, was a friend of the Arboretum's bonsai program. Mike connected the Snyders to the Arboretum, suggesting that perhaps we would be interested in the tree.

When Aunt Martha's hinoki bonsai was offered to the Arboretum in November of 2005, I was uncertain whether it made sense to accept it. It was obvious that the Snyders attached great sentimental value to the bonsai, but the Arboretum's collection already included a very nice larger-sized dwarf hinoki falsecypress (donated by Dr. Armstrong!). Aunt Martha's tree, although by no means identical, was similar in size, shape and feeling to the one we already had. A case might have been made that adding another such tree would have been redundant. However, the hinoki being offered now had something to set it apart from any other of its kind — it had Aunt Martha's story. Mrs. Snyder had taken care to write that story in the letter she sent me to propose the possibility of a donation. She had also included a photocopied newspaper clipping from The Nashville Banner, dated Thursday, September 30, 1965. The article was about her Aunt Martha being appointed the new executive director of the Cumberland Valley Girl Scout Council in Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. It told about her career up to that point, including her time in Japan and the influence it had on her, and it included a large photograph of a middle-aged woman wearing a Girl Scout uniform and a broad, friendly smile, and under the picture in capital letters it said, "MISS MARTHA AUTEN."

As I looked at the old black and white image, Aunt Martha looked back at me, smiling from across the decades. I thought somehow I knew her. I also thought about how big old hinoki bonsai don't come along every day, and maybe I could do something with Aunt Martha's that would make it more visually unique. I let Mrs. Snyder know we were interested.

Aunt Martha's Magic Garden was put together in a public demonstration. Twice. The first time was in spring of 2008. We had received the donation in early 2006, so there had been two years to get to know the hinoki, to look at it and think about it. I had decided the best way to utilize the tree was as the centerpiece of a tray landscape. Given its size, the tree would require a large scene to be built around it. We had received a donation just a short time earlier of a big, oval, white marble slab from China, the kind typically used for penjing (Chinese bonsai), and this seemed an intriguing option as a tray for the landscape. For secondary plants I gathered together a purple-leaved Japanese barberry, several pots of young Japanese spirea, and an assortment of dwarf ground covers to provide additional color and texture. I also collected some stones of varying appropriate sizes and shapes.

It was decided to do this demonstration as a special program for Arboretum members and invited guests, Mr. and Mrs. Snyder among them. Mrs. Snyder was invited to speak to the audience while I was working. She told everyone the story of Aunt Martha and how Aunt Martha's hinoki came to the Arboretum. Both the program and the planting came off rather well. The landscape looked different than any other in our collection, with the marble slab and colorful plantings, and it featured a pathway running through it. The result was not so much a naturalistic landscape as a fantastic one, like something from a dream. It looked like an imaginary garden, and at the end of the program I gave it a name: Aunt Martha's Magic Garden.

Laura and George Snyder with the newly constructed tray landscape at the end of the 2008 demonstration.

The following year — 2009 — the new landscape made it out on display in the bonsai garden and was an immediate hit with our visitors. It looked good, too:

It returned in 2010, but all was not well:

If you compare the two previous images, both taken in May a year apart, it can be seen that all of the secondary plantings were thriving and had become fuller. However, the hinoki was not happy. The lowest branch on the right side had lost foliage, and the lowest on the left side was showing a yellowish coloration. As 2010 progressed these issues worsened and became more noticeable. After a little time I pulled the piece off display and put it in the hoop house under the protection of the shade cloth. Before the end of the year the branch on the right had withered entirely and needed removal. The branch on the left held on, but was noticeably weak. The only reason I could think of for the decline of Aunt Martha's hinoki was that possibly it did not favor growing on a slab. I decided to deconstruct the landscape and pot the hinoki in a big wooden grow box to try and restore its health. This image shows how it was then, with the secondary plants, now in their own pots, sitting nearby:

Failure is not particularly enjoyable, and public failure is worse. I could keep the hinoki out of sight, but Aunt Martha's Magic Garden had already made a name for itself and its presence in the garden was missed. People asked about it. On top of that, there was the small matter of breaking the news to Mrs. Snyder. There was nothing for it, however, so I wrote and told her the unhappy tale. Fortunately, she was understanding. I promised her I would do everything I could to put the planting back together again someday, but there was no saying when that might be.

It took more than five years, but eventually Aunt Martha's hinoki rebounded, regaining its vigor and vitality:

The Snyders kept faith all the while, even coming to visit the tree during its recuperation. Finally in May of 2016 the time had come to rebuild the Magic Garden and another public demonstration was organized. This time it was done in the bonsai garden on World Bonsai Day:

The Snyders were there, and once again Mrs. Snyder spoke to the audience, remembering her aunt and telling the story of her tree:

Based on the suspicion that problems with the hinoki in the first rendition had to do with planting it on a slab, this time around Aunt Martha's Magic Garden was planted in a very large, rectangular bonsai pot. It is not as distinctive looking as the marble slab had been, but the health of the tree matters more. The finale of this demonstration featured a little surprise. At the very end, when the new landscape had been all put together, I brought out something I had hidden away nearby. It was a little bench, like would be appropriate for a doll house, which I then placed under Aunt Martha's tree. The use of such a prop is not unheard of in penjing, and can be quite effective in giving a sense of scale to the illusion created by a miniature planting. But in neo-classical bonsai, which is derived from the Japanese example, such an embellishment is considered to be distasteful. As Americans we are free to pick and choose among available ideas, and in this instance the bench seemed right.

The only problem was the little bench I had was not very good. It came from a craft store and was of dubious quality. I used it because it was what I was able to find, while holding out hope that something better would eventually present itself. That happened almost immediately, as upon conclusion of the program a gentleman who had watched the demonstration approached me with an offer to handcraft a nicer garden bench for the planting. He introduced himself as Alden Robinson and I took him up on the offer. Good to his word, Alden showed up again not long after with an exquisitely made piece of miniature outdoor furniture, constructed of cedar wood, which is the very same bench seen in the planting today.

It was a stroke of good fortune that Alden was in the audience that day and did what he did to add the perfect finishing touch to Aunt Martha's Magic Garden. Looking back over the many years since Aunt Martha passed away and her hinoki was left without her, good fortune and many helping hands were all along the path that special tree traveled to arrive at the Arboretum's door. It was fortunate, too, that the hinoki lived through the misadventure of being planted on a slab, before finally once again finding its place in the center of its own little imaginary garden.

That's where the Magic part comes in. Things don't often work out so neatly in the real world.