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Todd Schlafer

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An Award-Winning Bonsai Joins the Collections

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Dr. Karen Harkaway with the spectacular Blue Spruce she donated to the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum.

RECENT Donations to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum
Part 3/6

In 2024, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum welcomed five remarkable new additions—four exquisite bonsai and a striking suiseki. Each piece tells a unique story, reflecting the artistry, history, and evolving traditions of bonsai. Carefully selected for their cultural significance and artistic merit, these new acquisitions highlight the diversity of bonsai and its growing influence in North America. Join us as we explore the fascinating origins, creative vision, and horticultural mastery behind these latest treasures.

If you work in bonsai, chances are you’ve come across a blue spruce. Picea pungens is one of the most common of the 35 species in the Pinaceae family, originating in North America, Northern Europe, and Asia. Hard to miss – but have you ever seen one like this?

In early 2024, Karen Harkaway, a former board member of the National Bonsai Foundation and president of the American Bonsai Society, donated a beautiful blue spruce to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.

Blue Spruce (Picea pungens), 2024.

President’s Award 2024, Mid-Atlantic Bonsai Societies.

Her captivating conifer previously appeared at the 2022 and 2024 Mid-Atlantic Bonsai Societies' Spring Festivals and the U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition in 2023, where it won the North American Award for Finest Native American Bonsai.

In its natural habitat, a blue spruce can grow up to 200 feet, enduring heavy snowfall that forces it to form dark, flakey rough bark – one of its best bonsai attributes. For a bonsai display, that protective covering provides a lovely contrast with the spruce’s vibrant green needles and potential for beautiful deadwood features.

Todd Schlafer, of Denver-based First Branch Bonsai, first collected the specimen in 2016. Two years later, Harkaway purchased the tree from Schlafer’s vendor booth at the 2018 U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition. 

Harkaway’s spruce then underwent two stylings in 2019 and 2022 with Italian bonsai master Mauro Stemberger. Stemberger published videos on both the original styling and restyling, where you can learn about the importance of shade and moist, acidic soil for the spruce, as well as the duo’s styling choices.

Harkaway explains that the blue spruce had lived in a growing box and sought to regain health in her greenhouse, before its 2021 repotting with bonsai artist and former NBF board member Chase Rosade. The current moon-style container may appear as stoneware, but is actually European artist Erik Krizovensky’s cement creation – custom made to Harkaway’s specifications.

This tree is on display in the North American Pavilion at the Museum during your next visit. Don’t miss this incredible example of American artistry using a native species with a unique flair.

(click images to enlarge)

The Future of Bonsai: Todd Schlafer

Bonsai and penjing masters like Saburo Kato and John Naka are recognized as icons who really advanced and expanded the ancient art of bonsai. Now, the next generation of artists are building on those legacies, putting down roots for many more decades of bonsai artistry.

In our new series The Future of Bonsai, the National Bonsai Foundation is highlighting up-and-coming bonsai and penjing pioneers who are next in line to spread the spirit of bonsai. Colorado native Todd Schlafer, who runs the school “First Branch Bonsai,” is one such artist. Get to know him through this recent interview with Sophia Osorio, the First Curator’s Apprentice at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. 

Sophia Osorio: How were you first introduced to bonsai? 

Todd Schlafer: I was at a market in Spain that had a "grow a bonsai from seeds” kit. I brought it home and tried to grow the bonsai, and it sprouted but died. Then I just started looking for bonsai – I Googled “Colorado bonsai.” I was working as an art director for a pet toy company called Kong, and there was a wholesale nursery called "Colorado Bonsai" near where I worked. I started volunteering on Saturdays, Sundays and after work, and the owner Harold Sasaki introduced me to a man named Jerry Morris, who took me to Utah for the first time to collect trees.

Then I met Ryan Neil while he was traveling around, and he invited me to go out to Oregon and stay there with him. In my head, to get to where I wanted to be, I probably needed to do this full time. And at the time, I was getting up at like six in the morning, working on trees until I had to go into work, and then I would come home and work on trees until I had to go to bed. On the weekends, I would go to the mountains and all of that, so I was already pretty involved.

But I wasn't happy with my job at the store. I had been there for a long time and one day, I was saying to my dad, "something needs to change.” Because at work, I wasn't very patient, and I'm a very patient person. He asked, "If money wasn't an issue, and you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?" I said, "I would do bonsai and collect trees," and he said, "Then that's what you should do.” He said that to me twice, and after the second time, I decided to pursue bonsai as a career. 

Left: one of Schlafer’s ponderosa pines Right: one of Schlafer’s Colorado blue spruces

Left: one of Schlafer’s ponderosa pines Right: one of Schlafer’s Colorado blue spruces

SO: Where or how did you study bonsai techniques and aesthetics?

TS: I read books. But when I went to Oregon and started studying with Ryan Neil, everything changed. I started realizing what the potential was for our native species. He had trees the size I had never seen in person and the amount of refinement on Rocky Mountain junipers and spruces and our native species, sierras, that I had never seen before. I saw the potential that our species here have. I always tell people that studying with Ryan really changed everything.

SO: What are your future plans with bonsai? 

TS: I just started teaching. I quit my job in 2017 and started traveling doing bonsai that year. When Ryan came back, he traveled, and when Peter Warren finished his apprenticeship, he started traveling, so I was like, "Well, I guess that's what I do!" From 2017 through the beginning of 2020, I traveled between 250 and 280 days a year. I was just trying to see repetition with trees and just get my hands on a lot of trees. You kind of have to prove yourself, I guess.

Last year, I had some classes scheduled but they were canceled because of COVID-19. This year I’m holding classes and still traveling, but not quite as much. I have about 12 different three-day intensive courses at my place in Denver. I just gutted and finished my workshop, and I think eventually I'll need more land. That's something I need to look at – I want more land, I want a bigger greenhouse, a bigger workshop. But it'll come with time. First things first. 

SO: Who would you say has influenced your work in the bonsai community?

TS: Probably the most is Ryan Neil. I still continue my education with him. But now, for about the last year, I’ve started to find my own voice or my own style and approach - trying to figure out who I am and what my stance is going to be, how I’m going to present things and how I explore different forms. But studying with Ryan, and how particular he is, his technique is just so good. It's helped me out a lot and has given me the ability to explore what my vision is, what my thoughts are and having the techniques to be able to pull off whatever that looks like."

SO: Why should someone pursue bonsai? 

TS: All the care and maintenance of this living piece of sculpture can be very therapeutic. There are times where I've struggled with anxiety or depression, so I'll just go and I'll take a toothbrush and clean deadwood on a juniper because there's something therapeutic about it. As an art form, if you're creative, bonsai is a good way of getting some of that creativity out. I love my job and I wouldn't want to change it. But it's also not always as glamorous as everyone thinks. For four years, I was never home. It can be a grind, but it's what I felt like I needed to do at the time.

Also, working on collected trees, whether it's the initial structure or the repotting, is very rewarding once it's finished, but while you're doing it, it's very stressful. Everyone thinks, "Oh you're just going to trim your bonsai and have a glass of wine,” but that's not really it at all. If you kill a tree, then it hurts a little. But there are all sorts of things that come out of it that are very rewarding.

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Schlafer working on a pine

SO: What advice would you give to someone who is interested in pursuing bonsai either as a hobby or a profession?

TS: Even when I was still pursuing bonsai as just a hobby, I found someone that I kind of tuned into, like how they design trees or what their approach was, and I stuck with that one person. There are some schools of thoughts that encourage taking your bonsai to as many people as you can. I think that's fine, but also everyone is going to see things differently. Your tree is just going to get beat up basically because everyone is going to have a different view on it. 

Be careful because it's a slippery slope: you get one tree, then you get two trees, and then it turns into five trees and 10 trees. Then you buy a house and you need sunlight for your trees and then you quit your job to do it for a living. That was my thing. If it's just going to be a hobby, then keep a certain number of trees just for your collection that you can maintain because they are a lot more work in the different seasons than a lot of us have time for.

Schlafer can be found online at firstbranchbonsai.com, on Instagram as @todd_schlafer_bonsai and on Facebook as @ToddSchlafer and @FirstBranchBonsai. 

The National Bonsai Foundation funds and curates several programs to educate and train the next generation of bonsai, like the First Curator’s Apprentice position. To support our work, consider gifting today.

The National Bonsai Foundation funds and curates several programs to educate and train the next generation of bonsai, like the First Curator’s Apprentice position. To support our work, consider gifting today.