In the bonsai world, shows happen all the time. That highly reactive interface between human beings, with their individual natures, and little designed trees, each with its own character, can be found at any bonsai show. Our show is different, though. Most bonsai shows last for a few days or maybe a week at the most, while the show in the Arboretum's bonsai garden runs for more than half a year.
Read MoreIt was not until almost thirty years later that I identified that tree, from memory. So clear was my recollection of time spent up in that tree's boughs that I could distinctly recall the look of its bark, the shape of its leaves, the form of its structure. Once I started working at the Arboretum and learned something about plant science, these memories were enough for me to know the tree's botanical identity.
Read MoreThe bonsai garden is a premier attraction for the Arboretum, so having that attraction back online after a five month winter hiatus is a big deal. For me, World Bonsai Day is a deadline that can’t be missed. All those wonderful little trees and landscapes don’t get dressed up and lined out on the display benches by themselves — it’s a lot of work!
Read MoreVisitors to the Expo were encouraged to vote for their favorite bonsai and in 2013 John’s baldcypress won hands down. Small wonder — the specimen is big and obviously old, and to see such a tree growing in a container defies belief for the average person.
Read MoreFoliage is wonderful, of course, but on a deciduous species the foliage is absent half the year. In the landscape, a naked Japanese cutleaf maple can still be beautiful for its form, particularly in the display of its branching and finely articulated twigs. The same can be true of a Japanese cutleaf maple bonsai when seen without its leaves. It can be true, but is not automatically so.
Read MoreMr. Martin had a diverse collection with some older looking specimens, and seemed to like his little trees to be on the large side. Most amazingly, a substantial portion of Mr. Martin's bonsai, including some of the larger, older looking pieces, were trees he had grown himself from seed.
Read MoreWe were The North Carolina Arboretum in the Southern Appalachian region of the United States, engaged in the business of building our own identity, which would primarily reflect our own unique place in the world. The three gardens comprising the Arboretum's core area, opened to the public just a year earlier, all modeled this approach.
Read MoreI knew a challenge when I heard one. I went home that night and stayed up late to write out a statement by hand, then went to work the next day and asked my friend Cindy to type it up for me. Then I made sure the Executive Director and everyone else in administration received a copy.
Read MoreOf 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.
Read MoreThe 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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