For those of us in the bonsai game, September brings relief in two critical areas of concern: watering needs and rampant plant growth. Through the heat and glare of summer nearly every bonsai needed water nearly every day that it didn't rain; as we move into September there will be days when just a few plants here and there need "touching up" and there will be time to do a little catching up.
Read MoreThis humble but durable little tree has a poetic name: Golden Heart. It can be said, and not inaccurately, that this poetic name refers to the beautiful golden yellow color the tamarack turns every autumn. A quietly glorious sight to see. This bonsai is called Golden Heart for another reason, though, and it is something few people know about.
Read MoreHow did age get to be such a big part of people's general conception of bonsai? There are bonsai trees that are authentically hundreds of years old, and that sort of information makes an impression. People are fascinated by longevity, particularly if the age is beyond that which any person might expect to attain in a lifetime.
Read MoreTrees are and always have been a subject of heightened awareness for me, and so I notice them. I notice them every day wherever I happen to be, and the notice is automatic, not necessarily conscious. I think about trees a lot, too, but often when I’m looking at them my response has more to do with feelings than words, emotion rather than intellect.
Read MoreDespite the heat the plants are still growing. Some bonsai have already been pruned half a dozen or more times this year, but they are still growing and will need to be pruned again. Grow and cut and grow and cut and grow and cut. We practice what can be thought of as "pruning from the outside." That is, we are focused on appearances.
Read MoreIn Creating a Tray Landscape, the latest in our five-part docuseries, Arthur again takes a landscape from inspiration to completion. He 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.
Read MoreAunt 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 of the hinoki bonsai in early 2006, so there had been two years to get to know it, 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.
Read MoreIt’s often our tendency when faced with a plant that looks unhealthy to reflexively think, What can I spray on it? One of the greatest dangers inherent in the use of chemical pesticides is that they are relatively cheap and easily available to anyone, regardless of the competence, intelligence or sanity of the buyer. These are dangerous and often lethal substances that can be purchased in quantity at the nearest big-box hardware store.
Read MoreOne truth learned by being observant and studying the ways of nature is that some parts of it line up with human desires and interests and some don't, and this is particularly true as regards farming and gardening. Those living beings in nature that facilitate the human impulse to cultivate plants we refer to as "garden beneficials." Those that work against our objectives we refer to as "garden pests."
Read MoreIt all starts with the energy of the sun and in July the energy is free flowing and the sun is beating down hot. The beginning of July finds us in the middle of the calendar year, and smack dab in the middle of the great cycle of life. July also finds those of us who care for the Arboretum's bonsai and bonsai garden out working in the sun, dealing with the on-the-ground reality of summer.
Read MoreAfter the exhausting verbosity of the black pine articles, readers of this Journal will perhaps be relieved to find there are relatively few words to read in this latest entry. There is, however, a video to watch, and in it the verbosity will come to you in a different format. The “River of Dreams” planting is a favorite among those who visit the bonsai garden any time it is on display, and even more so if it happens to be flowering at the time.
Read MoreWhat matters more, and the reason for detailing the history of this specimen, is the degree to which it has evolved. More than simply the product of normal aging, this particular black pine transformed the way it did because the person who grew it over the course of that time experienced an evolution of aesthetic sensibility.
Read MoreDissatisfaction was once again creeping in. The tree looked better to me now than it did when it was trying to be classical, that's for sure, but there was still much room for improvement….It was time to push the tree further along the path of design development.
Read MoreIf April is the time of horticultural anxiety and May is when the big green wave hits, June finds us engaged on all fronts, managing best as possible to stay atop a situation where life is surging in every square inch of the natural world. The plants are growing with greater energy than at any other time of year.
Read MoreIt took a long time to build that bonsai. To change it would require some drastic alterations that would likely set the tree back a decade or so. Whenever considering such a move you have to question if the end result would warrant the effort. Every tree has a certain limited capacity for perfection.
Read MoreThe bonsai garden is once again in a state of completion. It can be so only when the little trees are out on display and the public is there to experience them in the context of that special place created just for their enjoyment. The garden is not whole until the bonsai are in it. Just as the Arboretum, wonderful as it is, is more wonderful still when the bonsai garden is whole.
Read MoreTrees, like human beings and all the rest of organic life, are not only subject to stress but are actually shaped by it. Think of a tree limb. A big, powerful, undulating tree limb is the product of a life of stress — the stress of reaching out to hold its leaves in position to access sunlight, and to hold them that way despite their weight and the weight of the limb itself against the force of gravity.
Read MoreThere is a process at work here: Every year in spring the tree is cut back hard, then allowed to grow unrestrained for a year. Out of the new growth some new possibility might present itself, or some previous idea could be undone by what happens in the course of a year of unrestrained growth. Flexibility is necessary; the tree has some say in what it will ultimately look like.
Read MoreMay begins with an array of colors in the landscape that is at least the equal of the celebrated colors of autumn. There is a certain color that, for reasons of marketing products like paint, is called "spring green.” But spring green is an amalgamation of just about every shade of green there is, from the dark richness of a spruce tree to the ghostly paleness of a fern’s unfurling fiddlehead.
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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