When something goes bad or doesn't work right, blaming it on politics is always a safe bet. People think politics are inherently bad. Politicians are generally reviled and dismissed as being among the lowest of untrustworthy creatures, so much so that calling someone a "politician" is a slur.
Read MoreThe year 2005 was a watershed for bonsai at The North Carolina Arboretum. That was the year the Bonsai Exhibition Garden first opened to the public, in October on Expo weekend, and the advent of that space for displaying our collection forever changed the institutional status of bonsai.
Read MoreThe early years of the Carolina Bonsai Expo were an exhilarating experience. The show grew bigger and better with each passing year, with more people coming to see it and more clubs wanting to join. The undeniable success and popularity of the Expo became a prime driver of bonsai’s ascension up the Arboretum’s institutional ladder.
Read MoreBy the time of the final Expo in 2019, the event had established itself as one of the leading bonsai shows in the United States and was internationally known. For many years the Expo was The North Carolina Arboretum’s single largest event of the year as measured by visitation. Starting out, however, the Carolina Bonsai Expo was a humble affair.
Read MoreIn 1995 the Arboretum hosted a visit from the popular American bonsai artist Chase Rosade. He had bunches of very young plants of differing species, and at the end of the class he had three Japanese stewartias (Stewartia pseudocamellia) that weren't utilized, so he gave them to the Arboretum.
Read MoreIt turned out that keeping this elm under control while giving it the freedom of growing in the ground was not practicably possible. When I cut it back in the spring the tree would simply explode with new growth, as if it would just as soon be a big bushy shrub if I wasn’t going to let it climb up to the sky.
Read MoreAfter twenty minutes or so, Duane came to my office and stood silently in the doorway. I looked up at him. "I think you better come look at this," he said. I walked down the short hallway to the headhouse work area, and there was the landscape planting out of the pot and sitting on the table.
Read MoreWe talked easily enough. Mr. Yoshimura's new surroundings were newer, cleaner and less cluttered than his home in Briarcliff Manor had been, and it felt different encountering him there. One thing hadn't changed, though — he still spoke to me in riddles sometimes.
Read MoreNine thirty the next morning I was at the hotel and Mr. Yoshimura was not waiting in the lobby. I stopped at the front desk and asked the woman working there what room Mr. Yoshimura was in. She told me the number then asked if I wanted her to call his room and let him know I was there. "No," I said. "He's expecting me."
Read MoreOn a mostly forgotten day in February, 1995, the telephone in my office rang. When I picked it up I heard Mr. Yoshimura's voice on the other end of the line. It was a happy surprise to hear his voice, because we hadn't spoken since my study visit with him in early January.
Read MoreWe decided we’d get out to the Three Sisters Swamp together and set about making plans to do that. A trip to an unfamiliar swamp in a remote area is not something to be undertaken casually. The only access to the Three Sisters site is by boat, so with the aid of the Internet John found a guide who leads tours of the swamp and we got in touch with him.
Read MoreSometimes you have to get away. No matter how you spend your time on a regular basis, and it doesn’t matter if you truly enjoy what you do, sometimes you have to get away. This year having a vacation meant more than simply getting away from the work routine for a little while.
Read MoreIn this part of the world, to be out in the woods in autumn is to know something of the sublime. More than a mere colorful delight for the eyes, there is a spirit in autumn that reaches deep into memory to massage an aching place of melancholy acceptance. Autumn out in nature is like free therapy.
Read MoreA grower needs to recognize a tree's nature and accept it. If it can't be accepted, then maybe that tree isn't the right one to work with. Many a bonsai has come to an ugly end because the person growing it was determined to make the poor tree conform to a preconceived design idea.
Read MoreShort of taking the sackcloth and ashes route and resorting to a life of humble debasement as penitence for having lived with eyes closed while whistling a happy tune in the face of the brutal randomness of our existence, there's little for it but to gather ourselves up and get back to business as usual, best we can.
Read MoreFrom that low beginning, an entity seeking to recover must first endure and summon the will to go on. It must suffer the defeat but fight back, and persist in the struggle for however long it takes. Forever after, such an entity bears the stamp of the ordeal, for better or worse.
Read MoreThe heavy rain continued the rest of the afternoon, then all through the evening and all through the night without letting up. Somewhere in the darkness, as most people slept, the wind got up and started moving around, making itself known with murderous force. When morning came the damage that had occurred overnight gradually revealed itself.
Read MoreLast night you read how the hurricane would land on the Gulf coast of Florida, then travel north-northwest through Georgia and South Carolina before arriving in western North Carolina. There would be lots of rain, the forecast said, maybe as much as twenty inches. There would be high winds too.
Read MoreIt amazed me that people were so generous. Their only motivation, so far as I could see, was to be helpful. They were supporting a new arboretum that was trying to start a new public bonsai collection, and if anything they had could be of use in that effort, they were happy to give it to us.
Read MoreI had to actively advocate for bonsai's place within the Arboretum. Bonsai was still in the institutional position of being a curious side venture, an experimental anomaly, and nothing like a full-fledged program in its own right. I was no curator then. I was allowed to refer to myself as the bonsai caretaker for public relations purposes, but that was an unofficial title.
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