BR Couple Shares Passion For Making Bonsai

Advocate staff photo by Travis Spradling

Howard Merrill, left, trims the root system of a San Jose juniper he is making into a bonsai as his wife, Jean, explains the process at a recent workshop at LSU's Hilltop Arboretum.

When Howard and Jean Merrill's daughter was asked to describe her parents, she said, "They like to torture little trees and play with dead people."
As retired chemists, the Merrills are quick to admit that their passions are bonsai and genealogy. At a recent Saturday morning bonsai workshop at LSU's Hilltop Arboretum, they demonstrated how to make a bonsai from a small juniper they salvaged from their yard.
Howard Merrill pulled the juniper from a nursery pot and, after cutting more than half of its branches off, he attacked the root system -- first removing the dirt with a probing chopstick and then chopping off dead roots and pruning the live roots.
"That looks pretty serious," one participant remarked as Merrill continued his methodical assault.
"We have killed a few over the years," Jean Merrill laughed as she cast a critical glance over the lines her dirt-speckled husband chose to follow in designing the bonsai.
Dressed in grey happi coats sporting pins from various bonsai clubs, the grey-haired couple said they got interested in bonsai in 1972 and now have about 100 miniature trees and plants in their collection.
Make that 101 with the new juniper, which Howard Merrill placed in a shallow clay bonsai pot, wired in to stabilize it and protect it against meddlesome squirrels and packed it with a special potting mixture. Sitting atop a custom-designed lazy Susan mounted over a large tray, the new bonsai curved gracefully left and then right and sported a white dead streak down the center of its trunk where it had been bumped with the lawnmower while still in the ground.
"You get pretty attached to them," Jean Merrill said, admitting that it is difficult to part with their bonsais. "They're kind of like children."
Bonsai is a Japanese word that means tree in a tray or, more specifically, miniature trees grown in shallow pots to resemble mature trees in nature. It is considered a living, growing art form. It is the aged, mature character of a bonsai that is highly prized; however, an artist can create the illusion of age in a year or two of training the plant.
A bonsai can be fashioned from almost any type of tree, shrub or vine, although it should have small leaves or needles. The Merrills said they also look for a large trunk, mature bark, a good root system and trees that are well acclimated to Louisiana. Most are grown outside as they can't tolerate prolonged periods indoors (with the exception of some tropical plants).
There are several basic styles of bonsai, as defined by the trunk line -- formal upright, informal upright, slanting, semi-cascade and cascade style. Two basic techniques are used to shape the bonsai -- wiring and/or weighting the branches (like using braces on teeth) and the "clip and grow" method, Howard Merrill said.
The investment the artist makes is mostly time and patience, though the special clay bonsai pots from Japan can be expensive and hard to find, they said. They use a blend of aggregate material and soil conditioner for potting the plants and have set up a self-watering system because the bonsais generally require watering every day it doesn't rain.
"They require a little bit of time most of the time and a lot of time at certain times of the year," Jean Merrill said. "February is a busy month because that's when we repot most of the plants."
Bonsai plants sold on the side of the road are rarely true bonsais as they may have been created only days before without proper care or conditioning to ensure a long life, the Merrills said. Many have rocks glued to the surface to hold them in place so that air and water cannot penetrate to the soil.
The lifespan of a well-cared-for bonsai is generally the same as that of the same tree growing in the ground. Many acquire great age and can outlive the artist who created them.
Anyone interested in learning more about bonsai is welcome to attend a meeting of the Louisiana Bonsai Club of Baton Rouge, which meets at 7 p.m. the third Thursday of each month at the Baton Rouge Garden Club, 7950 Independence Blvd. For more information, call (225) 275-2917.
The club's next bonsai show will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 9 and 10 at the garden center. A lecture demonstration will be held at 2 p.m. both days. The show is free and open to the public.