Latest news with #bonsai
Forbes
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Bonsai Collection Turns 100
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is celebrating the 100th anniversary of their bonsai collection with a ... More special exhibit and events. Shown are bonsai within the garden's Magnolia Plaza. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden often gets attention for when their esplanade of cherry blossom trees are in bloom. However, the park is recognizing another tree species on its grounds this year - the bonsai. 2025 is marking the centenary of the BBG's bonsai collection. Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing and shaping miniature trees in containers, and the BBG is said to have one of the oldest and largest collections on public display. From June 14 through October 19, the BBG will celebrate the collection with an expanded display of specimens, including never-before-displayed 'tiny trees' and an outdoor display of bonsai. The festivities will also extend to special tours, exhibits, workshops and other events. 'Brooklyn Botanic Garden has been the proud caretaker of this remarkable bonsai collection for 100 years, fostering a practice that is equal parts horticulture, art, design, and patience,' said Adrian Benepe, the garden's president. 'We are excited to see even more of these miniature trees—true works of art—displayed this year, including outdoors amid full-sized trees for a stunning comparison.' The Brooklyn Botanic Garden's C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum is the location for the garden's longtime ... More bonsai collection. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder The garden's bonsai collection was started in 1925 through a generous gift of trees and shrubs imported from Japan in 1911. It was donated by Ernest F. Coe, a Connecticut landscape designer and nurseryman. Three bonsai from this original donation remain. They are a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), a Daimyo oak (Quercus dentata) and a Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora). Today, the Rocky Mountain Juniper is the oldest living bonsai in the BBG's collection. This Juniperus scopulorum is about 500 years old and features a full cascade style, meant to depict a tree hanging from the side of a cliff by the seashore or a stream. Overtime, the collection grew and diversified under the care of the BBG's first exclusive bonsai curator, Frank Masao Okamura. His 34-year tenure at the garden ran from 1947 to 1981. During his career, Okamura developed bonsai from unusual plants, including many tropicals and semitropicals. In the 1950s, the BBG launched the first of its renowned bonsai handbooks and began offering some of the first bonsai classes in the U.S. For 34 years, Frank Masao Okamura was the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's first exclusive bonsai curator, Today, the garden's bonsai collection is on view in the C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum. As many as 30 specimens are on exhibit at any given time from the BBG's collection of almost 400 temperate and tropical bonsai. Some of the trees are well over a century old, with many still cultivated in their original containers. For the BBG's bonsai collection's 100th anniversary, this museum will have new interpretations highlighting it as well as bonsai techniques and tools. A selection of bonsai outdoors in a seasonal display will be shown on Magnolia Plaza. 'I change the display often and bring in flowering and fragrant trees as much as possible so that the visitor's experience is always fresh and exciting,' explained BBG's C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum gardener David Castro. 'We have so many bonsai and this is such a rare collection, it's easy to display something different.' Visitors at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden marvel at the garden's bonsai collection inside the C.V. ... More Starr Bonsai Museum. In the BBG's Conservatory Gallery, visitors can see The Mountain, the Tree, and the Man by graphic novelist Misako Rocks!. In this playful exhibit, a bonsai in the BBG's collection shares memories of its life in manga-style panels. Along the way, visitors will learn about Okamura and can watch a restored short film from 1971 featuring Okamura. From June through October, the garden will offer tours for visitors to learn about the collection and see bonsai gardening demonstrations. Tours will run every Saturday and Sunday in June starting June 14 and happening monthly from July through October. Continuing Education bonsai workshops will be offered this fall. Visitors will find Japanese-inspired dishes and drinks in the BBG's Yellow Magnolia Café and Canteen; a series of ticketed Sake Dinners will happen in September. Terrain at Brooklyn Botanic Garden is offering not only bonsai trees, planters and tools, but also new boxed sets of cards and tote bags featuring illustrations of bonsai by Okamura. On Saturday, June 14, visitors are invited to mark the 100th anniversary of this collection, join a tour and enjoy live music. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's website.
ABC News
24-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
'Gnarly' bonsais are trending in the tiny tree world
The craft of cultivating bonsai evolved from Japan with a focus on minituarising trees and plants. Recent enthusiasm for the world of tiny trees is seeing Australia's native flora re-imagined as bonsai.
ABC News
24-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Australia's native flora emerges as an increasingly popular muse for bonsai hobbyists
The craft of cultivating bonsai evolved from Japan with a focus on minituarising trees and plants. Recent enthusiasm for the world of tiny trees is seeing Australia's native flora re-imagined as bonsai. Leigh Taafe has crafted more than 10,000 bonsai and said native trees are perfect candidates. He is the curator of the National Bonsai and Penjing Collection of Australia and said "there was a lot of thought within our community in the early days that it was very difficult to do Australian native trees as bonsai". He said that as bonsai artists increasingly dabbled in natives, they learnt to tailor traditional practices to the local environment, giving shape to an "Australian style". Mr Taafe said high praise came from Japan's Bonsai Art Museum which was "taken" with the native trees, particularly banksia. "They've probably never seen them as bonsai before, so when they came to visit, they were in awe of the size and the texture of the trunks." The first tree ever donated to the national collection was a now-57-year-old Freshwater Paperbark by Derek Oakley from Western Australia. Mr Taafe said a good bonsai design was one "that evokes a memory of the Australian landscape". Steve Liston's love of bonsai began when he was aged 17 and he collected a Japanese maple seedling from a friend's garden — it became his first bonsai tree. Fifty years later and his love for the art is thriving, along with his tiny Japanese maple. Mr Liston led a team which curated a display for this year's National Bonsai Convention. Many of the bonsai have a unique local link and were originally dug up around Canberra. "Our last dig was down at Fadden Pines," he said. "We'll go get some of those woody weeds which have escaped from gardens and eventually turn them into bonsai." But, as Mr Liston warns, there are regulations around taking trees. "The first thing is to get permission … the second thing is to do it sensitively and don't leave a mess when you're finished digging it up," he said. Mr Liston said the array of Australian natives being used by bonsai hobbyists was one the biggest and most exciting changes he had seen in the art. Tony Gill is president of the Canberra Bonsai Society and said anyone can appreciate native bonsai which are "very much part of the convention theme". "Bonsai are for all ages … our youngest member, a lad called Henry, is only nine, and our oldest member still active is a lady call Lucia and she is 95," he said. The society was formed in 1975 by eight horticulture students. "When it first started it had an emphasis on exotics … nowadays there's probably more of an emphasis on native trees for bonsai." The interest in native trees is so great, the society enlisted Marcela Ferreira, an Australian native bonsai artist, to deliver workshops. Ms Ferreira first encountered bonsai while watching the Karate Kid. "When I first started, there were some people playing and dabbling with them, but it wasn't readily available. You went to shows and if you were lucky, you might see one or two trees. It's really grown and there's a lot of interest for it now." She said some misconceptions about Australian natives persist. "I think it is just a mindset that people have been too stuck on." "[But] the beauty of our Australian natives is they're quick and easy to grow … I definitely want to see more people using our trees." Her advice to aspiring native bonsai artists is simple:
NHK
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NHK
Finding life in the art of bonsai
Enthusiasts from around the world are making their way to Suzuki Shinji's studio to discover the art and artistry of his contemporary bonsai.
CBS News
13-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
An East Bay bonsai master is inspiring the next generation to find stories inside the trees
An East Bay bonsai master is inspiring the next generation to find stories inside the trees An East Bay bonsai master is inspiring the next generation to find stories inside the trees An East Bay bonsai master is inspiring the next generation to find stories inside the trees For more than 50-years, a tiny movement has grown in the East Bay thanks to Dennis Makishima. He is considered by many, a master of Aesthetic Pruning, and an influential figure in California's bonsai culture: the Japanese art of shaping and cultivating miniature trees. "There is the essence in every tree, find it, bring it out," said Makashima. "I can make them talk to you. Part of the principle of aesthetic pruning and bonsai is, I feel you got to tell a story." His story begins with his father, who after WW2 when thousands of Japanese Americans returned home from the Internment Camps. "My father was a gardener. He had to be a gardener because after the war, he couldn't get another job," said Makashima. "So, when I was growing up, it's kind of shameful that I was embarrassed by what my father did." Ironically, one day after helping a friend prune a tree, Makashima quickly realized he had a natural eye on how to shape and cut. "I kind of sensed it," said Makashima, "I realized this was meant to be, I was destined to do this kind of stuff, and I could make a living." Destiny would take him to Japan, where he would travel to more than dozen times learning the art of bonsai, and was later honored by the country. He applied what he learned in Japan to his pruning business, establishing 3,000 clients, including Disneyland, where he was hired to prune a dwarf pine that was planted by Walt Disney himself. But despite all of his accomplishments, he is most proud of branching out to the next generation, including Yuki Nara who is one of his 106 apprentices who carryon his legacy. "He's as a human being I respect. I love him so much. I learn from him. Without him, I wouldn't be able to do this," said Nara. Makashima would go to create an Aesthetic Tree Pruning program at Merritt College and also served as President of the Golden State bonsai Federation. During his career, he had accumulated more than six hundred bonsai. His backyard looked like a tiny forest. "Individually, they all had a story, and I worked on each one," said Makashima. But three years ago, Dennis felt he had completed their stories and decided to stop and give them away. "I had completed the goal that I set out, and I realized I'm just looking at these trees now," he said. He donated them to the Golden State Bonsai Collection in Oakland who auctioned them off to raise money for their garden, raising more than 150-thousand dollars. And after 50-years, Makishima decided his story was also complete and decided to retire. Today, he still has a handful of clients and still holds a handful of seminars. But even in retirement his influence and legacy continue to grow, through the students he has taught and the trees he has touched.
