In January of 1995 I traveled to Briarcliff Manor, New York, for a three-day study session with Mr. Yuji Yoshimura. Shortly after my return, I wrote an account of the experience and submitted it to Arboretum administration to communicate the value of what I had learned. What follows is an unedited transcript of that report.
Read MoreIn writing about my experience with Mr. Yoshimura, I am looking back over a span of nearly thirty years— long enough ago that some significant changes have occurred in how we live everyday life. Perhaps greatest among them is the revolution wrought by advances in electronic communication.
Read MoreAs the new year began in 1959, thirty-seven-year-old Yuji Yoshimura began teaching bonsai classes at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He'd arrived in America laden with all the bonsai materials needed because they would not be otherwise available. This amounted to more than a ton of baggage, and the whole operation must have required prodigious planning and organization.
Read MoreThe time has come for me to talk about Yuji Yoshimura. His name has appeared repeatedly in this Journal, because his influence on me — and, through me, on the Arboretum's bonsai identity — has been profound. But I have not yet told the story of the experiences with him that set my bonsai thinking on such a fateful course.
Read MoreIn 1994, even as I was working toward the goal of a regional bonsai community with The North Carolina Arboretum at its center, I was trying to accelerate my personal bonsai learning curve. Word reached me early in the year that Yuji Yoshimura was going to be in Charlotte, doing a workshop program for the Bonsai Society of the Carolinas. Ever since meeting Mr. Yoshimura at the convention the year before I had been trying to figure out how to pursue the tantalizing offer of personalized instruction with him.
Read MoreWhen the 1993 World Bonsai Convention in Orlando was over and I returned to work, there was so much to do. It was springtime and our fledgling bonsai collection was leafed out and growing, and now my imagination had been sparked by both the convention experience and the study period in DC before that. My mind was full of big ideas about improving the Arboretum's trees and all the work it was going to take to begin building a program to support them. But it was springtime in the nursery, too.
Read MoreHe didn't crack this like an obvious joke. He said it straight faced and then went about his business. This was one of several instances during the program where Mr. Yoshimura projected what I took to be an iconoclastic tendency. He was conservative in his appearance, precise and formal in manner, but seemed rebellious in his attitude. At the conclusion of the program I turned to Janet and said, "What a dangerous old man!"
Read MoreDon was formulating a plan to have me further my education by studying with a well-known bonsai professional who was a friend and associate of his. When my horticultural mentor Dr. Creech caught wind of this he immediately stepped in and made arrangements for me to go to Washington DC to study with bonsai curator Bob Drechsler. Dr. Creech was insistent that this be done and he pulled all the strings to make it happen.
Read MoreThe drive between Butner and Asheville took nearly five hours each way and the two journeys there and back were done as day trips, only a few days apart. We really had to pack the trucks to make everything fit in two trips, but amazingly we hauled everything without doing any damage. I had plenty of time on the long drive to think about how these desperate little trees would impact my life, but honestly, I don't remember what went through my mind.
Read MoreWhen the Arboretum accepted the unsolicited donation of a bonsai collection and I was offered the job of caring for the little trees, I tried to turn down the assignment. I was happy doing what I was doing at the time, which was most often manual labor out on the Arboretum property. We were outside most of the time, working on our own with more than four hundred wooded acres to keep us busy, and we rarely saw anyone else all day.
Read MoreNow, twenty-five years later and with the advantage of hindsight, there are certain elements of my Japan experience that I recognize as having had more importance than previously acknowledged. It is time to shine some light on these matters.
Read MoreFrom Ryoanji we walk another fifteen or twenty minutes to Kinkakuji Temple, another truly outstanding site. The gardens are beautiful, but the real highlight is a golden temple, three stories high, sitting above a large pond that reflects the image. It's fantastic, dreamlike. I shoot a million pictures, but it's unlikely that I capture on film the shock of seeing such an amazingly wondrous thing for the first time.
Read MoreEven after years of pouring through books and magazines studying countless pictures of the great aged bonsai from Japan, nothing could have prepared me for the marvel of standing before the living trees themselves. All of them were apparently in perfect health, meticulously groomed, planted in exquisite containers, and everything I saw looked old.
Read MoreWhen I think back on that time in Washington so long ago the memory is golden to me, an experience that positively changed my life. Connections made there that April led to other important learning experiences in the years to come, eventually taking me all the way to the other side of the world and back again.
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