Mr. 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.
Read MoreIt must have looked suspicious. Picture a rest stop off an Interstate, a van parked by itself a little removed from any other vehicles. Two men stand outside the van, waiting expectantly, looking down the road and one of them now and then checks his watch. Finally a second van pulls up, right alongside the first.
Read MoreWhat follows is an account of the late winter preparatory work done on a trident maple (Acer buergerianum) in a developmental phase. This same specimen has twice before been featured in the Curator’s Journal. The tree is revisited in this entry, on the cusp of its fourth growing season of bonsai development.
Read MoreBanyan is a catch-all phrase for several different species of figs (Ficus sp.) that share the trait of producing what are known as prop roots from their trunks and branches. Emerging like threads from the tree's bark, these roots are pulled downwards by gravity until they come in contact with the ground.
Read MoreWhen 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 MorePeople who get into bonsai in a big way typically go through a phase early on in which every woody plant they see is evaluated for its potential to be made into a bonsai. That is, they will look at any smaller sized tree or shrub in a pot or in the ground and imagine how it might literally be turned into a designed miniature tree.
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.
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