The Ways To Bring Out Your Inner Gardener Are Manifold, And The Time Is Always Right

Bonsai is the ancient art of dwarfing trees. There is much more philosophy involved than you might imagine, and you can do it on your windowsill. The N.C. Bonsai Association is a great place to learn more about this fascinating discipline. The association meets at the Miller Park Recreation Center on the fourth Monday of each month, except for December and May. For more information, call 774 8009.

 

 

Garden Calendar

SAT Sky Nursery: 18528 Aurora Ave. N., Shoreline. 206-546-4851;

Feb. 19, 11 a.m. -- Indoor Bonsai Lecture and Demonstration: Learn basic indoor bonsai techniques. Training, watering and ongoing care covered.

AHEAD Bonsai Northwest: 5021 S. 144th St., Tukwila. 206-242-8244.

Feb. 5, 1:30-3:30 p.m. -- Yamadori Workshop: Learn how to mimic the old, gnarled "smash down" look of an old juniper in this intermediate class by starting with a young, small juniper and learning to twist and contort without breaking; must have taken a beginning class and should already know how to wire, style and root prune properly; $25; includes materials.

 

 

Green Stuff West Bay

Bonsai and Suiseki Display Garden Fifty bonsai trees and suiseki viewing stones on permanent display. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Today-Fri., 10 a.m.-3:45 p.m. Sat., noon-3:45 p.m. Sun. Bellevue Ave., Lakeside Park, Oakland. (510) 763-8409.

 

 

Master Gardeners Present Lecture Series

Continuing a 15-year tradition, the Sonoma Valley Master Gardeners is hosting its free winter 2005 lecture series from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays at the Sonoma Valley Regional Library, 755 W. Napa St.

€ Feb. 5, "From nursery lot to bonsai pot" presented by Sam Douglas.

€ Feb. 26, "Care of garden tools" presented by Al Derrick.

€ March 5, " Trees: Selection and care" presented by Bob Cannard.

€ March 19, "Questions and answers" with a Master Gardener panel discussion.

The Sonoma Valley's Master Gardener office is located at 19722 Eighth St. E. It is open 1 to 3 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays; call 938-0127 during office hours or at other times to leave a message.

 

 

Bonsai's Unadorned Winter Beauty

PACIFIC RIM BONSAI COLLECTION Japanese Beech

In Japan, winter is considered the perfect season for bonsai viewing. "When the leaves are off you see the architecture of the plants," says David De Groot, curator of the Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection, a one-acre outdoor museum at the Weyerhaeuser Company campus in Federal Way. "The division of the branches reveals the years of work and indicates the maturity of the tree."

Exhibit review The Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays-Wednesdays, October-February (closed Thursdays and Fridays), 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Fridays-Wednesdays (closed Thursdays) March-September, Weyerhaeuser Company campus, Federal Way; free (253-924-5206.

Sixty bonsai remain on view year-round, with some rotations to show off blossoms, fall color and plants with special seasonal importance. Weyerhaeuser Company began its collection in 1989 as part of the Washington State Centennial celebration and now owns more than 100 bonsai. It is among the best of only 23 public bonsai displays in North America, De Groot says. Washington, D.C., has the largest and finest display, with other top collections in Boston, Oakland and Montreal.

Not all bonsai are trees. Azalea bushes and wisteria vines are among the many plants used to shape miniature landscapes whose proportions, colors, form and age all must be considered when choosing the perfect shallow container. Fine bonsai pots, works of art themselves, can be more valuable than the plants they hold. And established art-quality bonsai in the U.S. can range in price from $2,000-$25,000 and up, De Groot says.

Bonsai were created to represent a scene or feeling from nature and date back at least to the second century in China, where they are called penjing, meaning potted scene. The practice of cultivating miniature bits of nature probably traveled through Korea to Japan, where a different style evolved.

Bonsai have two ages: one for the plant and another for the time it has been cultivated. The oldest tree at the Pacific Rim collection is about 1,000 years old but has been a bonsai for only a few decades. A convoluted and weather-worn 500-year-old Rocky Mountain Juniper was collected near Raymond, Colo., from an elevation of about 8,000 feet and has been trained as a bonsai for 40 years. Other bonsai are started as slender young shoots that are clipped and wired into shape. De Groot says it takes a minimum of 6-10 years to develop a bonsai, and they need continuing root-pruning and shaping throughout their lifetimes.

The oldest bonsai in the collection has been trained for 125 years. That tree, a Trident Maple, was brought from Japan to San Francisco for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition. Afterward, it was purchased by a Japanese-American nurseryman in California, who passed the tree on to his son. During World War II, while the bonsai's owner was briefly interned and then worked in the Midwest, the maple was neglected. It received enough water to survive, but its roots — which normally would be regularly pruned — grew through the hole in the pot and established in the ground, allowing the tree to grow rapidly. The natural proportions of the maple were lost and it had to be cut back and reshaped. The tree has been on loan to the collection since 1990.

Staghorn Sumac, left, and Curly Sedge

Except for the tropicals, which have a special greenhouse, bonsai must grow outdoors. In the winter, to protect the shallow roots from abrupt temperature changes, special Plexiglas display cases enclose the trees. On freezing nights, doors are added and some cases get heaters as well. To see the trees without the visual distraction of the cases, visit the collection from mid-April through mid-November.

Bonsai are works of art and also delicate living things that can be easily destroyed by improper care. Most of the world's bonsai are less than 50 years old, De Groot says. Many fine old plants were lost or destroyed in Japan during World War II and in China during the Cultural Revolution. In this country, De Groot said, most bonsai collectors are hobbyists who want to make their own. But in Japan, connoisseurs collect venerable bonsai and board them with a master who can properly tend them. If you pay half a million for a bonsai, it needs expert care, De Groot points out. "You can do-it-in in two hours on a hot summer afternoon."

 

 

Bonsai Society Offers Classes

The Nashville Bonsai Society's new meeting date is the first Tuesday of each month, beginning with a 7 p.m. meeting at Cheekwood Feb. 1.

Randy Davis of Lynnewood Gardens will present the program, "Wake up your Bonsai and prepare for spring." If you need help with a tree that you have, bring it to the meeting.

Upcoming Bonsai events include a session on "Root Pruning and Repotting" led by Ken Jantz March 1; a booth at the Lawn and Garden Show at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds March 3-6; a tree-collecting trip to Burns, Tenn., March 12; a grove-planting workshop led by Davis March 19; a class on pots led by Barbara Walton April 5 at; and a show at Cheekwood April 23-24.

 

 

Bonsai For Beginners

Hundreds of bonsai trees were given as gifts this festive season. How do you keep a bonsai alive, and what should you be doing with it? Here is a survival kit for new bonsai owners:

Where to put it?
A common mistake most beginners make is to think that a bonsai is an indoor plant. You may certainly bring your bonsai indoors to show it off, but only for a few days at a time. Ideally, the bonsai should be placed outside where it can receive and absorb the morning sun.

Keeping it alive
This is the single most important factor in bonsai care. In our dry climate, your bonsai should be watered daily in summer. In winter every second day would suffice, but the medium in which the roots grow must never be bone-dry.

Watering may be done by means of a fine mist spray. Ensure that the growing medium in the pot is thoroughly soaked, so that the water drains from the holes in the bottom of the pot.

Another approach to watering is to put the entire pot into a basin of water so that the water reaches the lip of the container. Allow it to soak for at least 10 minutes. Spray foliage with water from a spray bottle to keep the leaves clean and pest-free.

What to feed it?
Bonsai grow in small shallow pots and there are few nutrients in the limited soil around the roots. Liquid fertilisers are safer and easier for the tree to absorb so use an organic (Nitrosol, Sheer Blue) and chemical (Pokon Bonsai) fertiliser alternately every two weeks during the growing season for best results.

Grooming your bonsai
There is one fundamental law to remember when trimming your bonsai.

The earlier and harder the pinching back, the slower and smaller will be the resulting new growth.

Trim your tree right up to the leaf stalk, leaving no stumps behind as these will die and look unsightly. When trimming, remember to cut your branches at an angle and try to cut them so that the cut faces backwards.

Shaping your bonsai
Wiring bonsai trees is a very simple exercise but will challenge your artistic ability. When using copper wire it must be annealed first by passing it through a flame until it is red-hot.

Coil your wire around the trunk or branches of your bonsai and make the coils about 10mm apart. They should not be too tight, otherwise the plant will get strangled as it grows thicker. When wiring, always follow the original curve of the tree first before moving away from this.

Wire the trunk first by pushing the wire into the soil at an angle. After that, move up the tree, wiring each consecutive branch. You may want to use thinner wire as the branches get smaller.

When wiring the branches, you don't have to start from soil level each time. Rather put a few coils around the trunk below the branch you wish to wire and progress from there. The wire should be left on the tree for three to nine months: the ideal period depends on the type of tree you have.

 

 

Tracing The Art Of Bonsai

The Philippine Bonsai Society in cooperation with Goodwill Book store has just launched Bonsai and Suiseki—Trees and Stones in Harmony at the World Trade Center along Roxas Boulevard. The book contains more than 150 pages of beautifully photographed bonsai trees and unique natural stones from the collections of renowned Filipino bonsai artists like Done Bernabe, Fely S. Gupit and her daughter Yumi, architect Roberto Gopiao, Willi Hahn, Teddy Lim, David Du, Dr. Oding Reyes, Yumie Gupit, Vic Ceballos and many more photographed by Edison and Belen Noblela. It also contains valuable information on bonsai culture and art.

	Pemphis Acidula or Bantigue from Philippine Bonsai Society’s president Bobby Gopiao’s collection

In providing the introduction to the book, Philippine Bonsai Society president Roberto Gopiao noted that ancient Chinese monks were nature lovers. They wanted to mingle with trees and animals, but there were times when these hermits had to spend long hours meditating, praying, contemplating and doing chores indoors. Hence, these men brought in trees and tried to plant them in containers. The limited space in the temples gave these men the idea of reducing trees to smaller sizes.

Buddhism spread to other gates of Asia through its monks and Japan was one of the countries that accepted this religion. The ancient Japanese readily appreciated and loved the art of bonsai. Discipline, orderliness, simplicity and love of nature are a few of the character traits of the Japanese people and these are what they used to make their works of art.

The exact beginning of bonsai is now lost in time for no records were found. The oldest living proof of its beginning can be seen on a famous Japanese scroll painting which is about 800 years old, showing a dwarf tree in a ceramic container. Gopiao relates that early Japanese nobilities showed a strong interest in unusual botanical specimens. These nature-dwarfed trees were weathered into unusual, fantastic shapes, and noble men collected them from all over Japan. But as enthusiasm grew and spread, the naturally dwarfed trees became scarce. This led to the making of artificially dwarfed trees by sophisticated Japanese horticulturists. The shaping underwent many changes before the dwarfed trees became what are now know as bonsai, Gopiao describes. There was even a time when the highest goal of bonsai art was to create the most grotesque, unnatural or bizarre shapes one can imagine.

The ancient Japanese from the ancient Chinese monks of the Buddhist temples learned bonsai or the art of dwarfing trees. The essence of bonsai art is to evoke the spirit of nature. Although the Chinese claimed to have originally “invented” bonsai, it is the Japanese who developed and perfected the art through the years.

“The essence of bonsai is to evoke the spirit of nature,” relates Gopiao. “Your bonsai can take you virtually anywhere you want to be: in a forest, mountain, by the riverbank or anywhere you can picture yourself in using your imagination and the miniaturized tree. That imagination will give the spirit of nature reflected in the bonsai, but that spirit will only be brought to life by your work on the plant.”

During the mid-19th century, the aesthetic principles used today, based on asymmetric balance, were adapted. In 1909 bonsai first appeared in the western world through a garden exhibit in London, England. From, then, the interest in bonsaihas enormously increased worldwide.

“It is neither hard nor expensive nor time-consuming to start bonsai,” Gopiao attests. “If you become interested, there is no need to go to Japan to find and obtain the materials necessary to educate yourself and develop your skills and artistry. Bonsai Clubs are all around locally and abroad to help you and the Philippine Bonsai Society is one of them.”

The organization is not only for experts and specialists. In fact, the club was formed mainly for hobbyists and especially for beginners. The Philippine Bonsai Society holds exhibits annually to entice people to the elegant and serene beauty of the Japanese art of dwarfing trees. In these exhibits new members, mostly beginners, are encouraged. Their interest is supported by lectures and demonstrations, workshops and field trips, bonsai hunting, all sponsored by the PBSI. The society also publishes a bonsai magazine twice a year containing educational articles—pictorials, how-to-do and listings of plants for bonsai and plant care; and a directory of reliable and legitimate bonsai artists and experts.

Gopiao further says that one can find potential bonsai materials everywhere. In a garden, a neighborhood park, or even in a plant nursery, there may be some fruit trees or flowering trees stunted because of neglect. Ideal for bonsai are bougainvilleas, fire trees, narra, mahogany, tamarind, guava, kamias, starfruit/balimbing, mulawin aso, bignay, golden shower, kamachile, bantigue, Palawan, cherry, kasuy, balite, acacia, calachuchi, callos and many more.

 

 

Five Basic Bonsai Styles

Formal upright: Classic proportions that form the basis of all bonsai. Has a straight trunk and horizontal branches. Easiest for a beginner to grow because it requires the least experimentation. Looks best in oval or rectangular containers

Informal upright: Has much the same branch arrangement as the formal upright style, but the top -- instead of being erect as in the formal upright style -- bends slightly to the front. Looks best in an oval or rectangular pot.

Cascade: Tree's growing tip extends below the base of the pot. The trunk starts by growing upward from the soil, then turns downward abruptly and reaches a point below the bottom edge of the container. Looks best in a round or hexagonal container that is higher than it is wide.

Semi-cascade: Like the cascade, the growing tip projects over the rim of the pot but does not drop below its base.

Slanting: The trunk has a more acute angle than in the informal upright style. The lowest branch spreads in the opposite direction to the slant of the tree. Style looks best planted in the center of a round or square container.

 

 

Taking Care Of Your Bonsai

Location: Outside, preferably on a shelf or table that can be shaded from midafternoon sun and protected during cold winter nights. Subtropical indoor varieties are the exception to this rule and may be grown inside.

Watering: Individual trees have different watering needs. In general, the top layer of soil must be allowed to dry down an inch before watering. Use a very fine spray-head watering can to water soil directly, or stand the bonsai in water up to the edge of its container for five to 10 minutes. Mist the foliage and moss regularly. Too much water can be harmful.

Feeding: Bonsai food pellets can be buried around the moss or under the gravel, or a common water-soluble fertilizer at half strength on actively growing plants may be used. Do not feed any plant during winter or immediately following transplanting.

Trimming/training: Snip and pinch with your fingers, or use sharp pointed bonsai scissors to clip hard-to-reach parts of tree to maintain the original artistic shape. Remove shaping wire when it becomes too tight as it can strangle the tree.

Transplanting: Bonsai should be transplanted every two to three years. If pests or diseases appear, treat promptly.

 

 

The Bonsai Bond

Bonsai, pronounced BONE-sigh, is a Japanese term meaning "tree in a pot' and represents the stylized art form most commonly seen today.

Bonsai are not miniature trees, but full-grown trees kept small through stunting and pruning their roots and branches, and repotting. They range in size from trees grown in thimble-size containers to trees requiring several men to move. With diligent care, bonsai can live hundreds of years.

While many trees are suitable for the practice, junipers, maples and pines are considered classic bonsai because of their well-tapered trunks, branch structure and small leaves. But even nontraditional plants, such as bougainvillea, can become bonsai.

Before buying a bonsai, however, Pressler and others advise beginners to join a club, many of which offer workshops on the care and maintenance of the trees. Taking lessons from a skilled bonsai artist is also strongly recommended.