The Inamori Pavilion at The Japanese Friendship Garden in San Diego. Photo credit: Dominic Nepomuceno
Museums might be closed and traveling restrictions are still in effect, but that won’t keep us from sharing the art of bonsai. Welcome to our new blog series, “Bonsai Around the World,” where we highlight different collections around the globe.
For our first in this new series, we talked with Neil Auwarter, the bonsai curator at the Japanese Friendship Garden since 2018, about the collection he oversees in San Diego.
A lawyer by profession, Auwarter’s love for bonsai began in about 2008 after he helped his daughter take care of a bonsai he gave her as a birthday present. He said he relied on online instructionals from bonsai artists like Graham Potter and Bjorn Bjorholm until he discovered local bonsai outlets and organizations, like the San Diego Bonsai Club.
Auwarter took a volunteer position at the bonsai pavilion in what used to be known as the San Diego Wild Animal Park (aka Safari Park), which houses one of the club’s bonsai collections. He was soon promoted to oversee the club’s collection at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park.
A stream at The Japanese Friendship Garden. Photo credit: Dominic Nepomuceno
First opened in 1991, the Japanese Friendship Garden is a nonprofit that participates in the same Sister City program as the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. Its sister city is Yokohama, Japan.
Auwarter said the garden originally just put a few bonsai out for show on an indoor tokonoma and maintained a separate growing area for the trees they were grooming for the display. But about 15 years ago the growing area became its own attraction, and staff began crafting a traditional three-scene Japanese garden to show off the bonsai.
Auwarter said the garden and bonsai collection now receive about 200,000 visitors a year.
A pomegranate in the collection at The Japanese Friendship Garden. Photo credit: Dominic Nepomuceno
A few standout trees
The Japanese Friendship Garden scenes reflect the features of and species grown in San Diego’s Mediterannean-like climate, including a stream, two koi ponds, a water feature and a new pavilion.
“It’s a very elaborate and beautiful Japanese garden,” Auwarter said.
The most recent bonsai donation is an old, twisted pomegranate from Bruce and Yaeko Hisayasu, very active members in the bonsai community. One of Auwarter’s favorite trees in the collection is a 200-year-old California juniper donated by Sherwin Amimoto.
“I love the fact that it’s a California native,” Auwarter said.
Auwarter working on a California juniper donated by Sherwin Animoto at home.
The garden also boasts a femina juniper forest bonsai composition, similar to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum’s famous Goshin. Auwarter said Larry Ragle, who studied under Goshin’s creator, John Naka, worked on the arrangement at a two-day festival at Disneyland, then donated the display to the garden.
“It’s a beautiful composition,” he said. “It’s massive, very well done and so reminiscent of Goshin. The influence of John Naka makes the display special to me.”
While the Japanese Friendship Garden is not currently open to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic, staff members are evaluating how to safely return to operations. Keep an eye out on their website for announcements, and if you’re ever in Southern California, be sure to stop by!
