The Bonsai Board: Ross Campbell

Ross Campbell, NBF secretary/treasurer elect, pictured with his yew bonsai.

At the National Bonsai Foundation, we are grateful to our Board of Directors for their support, ingenuity and bonsai knowledge. Get to know the directors in our spotlight series, The Bonsai Board, highlighting their bonsai experience and why they joined NBF. 

Read about Board Chair Jim Hughes here and Chair-Elect Dan Angelucci and Secretary/Treasurer Jim Brant here. 

For this edition, we interviewed Ross Campbell, who joined NBF in August 2020 and became secretary/treasurer elect later in the year. Campbell worked for 34 years as a senior analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, reviewing and evaluating programs at federal agencies. He has penned reports to Congress on topics like ecosystem management, invasive species control and honeybee health. 

Campbell grew up in Detroit, Michigan, a Sister City to Toyota in the Aichi Prefecture of Japan. In an exchange program between the two cities, he traveled to Toyota to immerse himself in Japanese culture through tours, travel and staying with a Japanese family. He saw shrines, temples and examples of Japanese artistic hobbies, but he was most impressed by the combination of managed and natural styles in Japanese gardens. 

“Just about everyone I came across, young or old, had some interest in a historical or cultural practice like ikebana or martial arts,” Campbell said. “They really put a lot of effort, energy and skill into each garden.”

He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1985 and encountered the U.S. National Arboretum. The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum rekindled his interest in the art and culture he saw in Japan. Campbell then bought his first bonsai, a juniper sold at the Eastern Market on Capitol Hill. 

He joined and eventually presided over the Washington Bonsai Club, which met at the Arboretum. Campbell is a Brookside Bonsai Society member and newsletter editor and served as the Potomac Bonsai Association treasurer for many years. 

He said he is most drawn to bonsai because bonsai artists connect with nature, forests and trees in their natural setting. Campbell prefers more naturalistic bonsai styles rather than abstract – he wants his bonsai to be more representative, not suggestive, of real trees. 

“You can’t exactly play with or tinker with an actual forest, but you can do that with a bonsai and try to put that large forest experience into something you can hold in your hands,” he said. “I can’t draw, I can't paint, but I’m hopeful that through this bonsai hobby I can develop some artistic skills.”

Campbell and his son Ian in front of John Naka’s Goshin. Campbell’s family took annual pictures in front of the tree to show how his son and the tree had grown. 

Campbell enjoys both the group activity of bonsai and the relaxing practice of working one on one with his own bonsai. 

“I enjoy being with people and seeing or talking about their techniques, but ultimately it is most satisfying for me to be making progress just me and the tree at home,” he said. “It takes your attention and concentration but allows you to shut out stress and difficulties, slowly letting the process unfold and seeing things change over the seasons and years.”

One of Campbell’s most memorable experiences at the Museum was when Curator Michael James asked him to help perform some maintenance on John Naka’s famous “Goshin” on Campbell’s second day as a volunteer at the Museum. 

“It’s not like I had a pruning saw or even concave cutters in my hand, but the fact I was able to perform even minor work on such an important bonsai was very unexpected, fun and a bit tense,” he said. 

In winter 2019, Campbell became a Museum volunteer to improve his bonsai technique and help the Museum continue to thrive. 

“People who don’t know anything about bonsai come through the Museum but are clearly captivated by the collections,” he said. “NBF keeps that opportunity available, and if I can do anything to help NBF or the Museum, then that’s what I want to do. I’m glad I’ve been able to support the Museum as a visitor and now as a board member.” 

Museum Curators: Michael James

The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum couldn’t house the finest bonsai in the world without a dedicated, talented and knowledgeable leader. In our next installment of Museum Curators, we’re helping you get to know our current curator, Michael James, who is all of those things and more.

Horticulture was a natural career path for James, whose family owned and operated a small produce business out of Maryland called Blueberry Hill. His first bonsai encounter occurred around 1996 when he was in college – a silver maple forest planting at a community fair The beauty and intricacy of the small grouping of trees astonished him.

 James studied art at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he delved into the art and practice of bonsai in his free time. He then decided to pursue a plant science degree at the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“I realized that the most important thing is to learn the science behind it and the ‘why’ and ‘how’ plant cultivation can be done,” James said. “Whether it be higher yields or better tasting fruits or beautiful foliage, it can be done with knowing the physiology and plant sciences.”

Instead of waiting for a job opening or to be recruited, he reached out to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum for a volunteer position in the summer of 2001. James initially saw his time at the Museum as a place to learn bonsai with the best trees and instructors in the world, but he never thought he would procure a full-time job. He eventually became a permanent employee in 2002, after helping the Museum host that year’s World Bonsai Friendship Federation convention.

James planting blueberries with his late mother around 1981

In 2005, James returned to his family’s produce farm in Maryland, where he remained for the next decade. But he eventually found his way back to the Museum in 2014, working as the assistant curator to former Curator and NBF Co-President Jack Sustic. James was finally appointed curator in June 2018. 

The allure of bonsai and a curatorship

James’ favorite part of growing bonsai is watching the trees thrive and change over the years. Bonsai is such a lengthy process that Museum staff constantly make decisions that will be seen 15 or 25 years later, but James said watching the results of previous years of work is very rewarding.

 “We’re coaxing these trees to their future forms over a very long timeframe, and even though it’s subtle and very slow, you see those forms taking shape,” he said.

 James said some of the most exciting times at the Museum have been when he worked on trees with international bonsai master John Naka. Naka would share his vision for the styling and future appearance of his famous tree planting Goshin or exchange laughs with staff and other bonsai artists.

 “He was always making a joke, like pinching at a spruce with chopsticks and pretending to eat it, or other corny little things,” James said.

 To James, bonsai has always been an important facet to horticulture and agriculture production. He said cultures that produce their own food, like the United States, pave the way for more luxury and time for the arts, including bonsai.  

 “Bonsai turns science into a form of art that is relatable and a balance between both culture and science,” he said. “Some plants produce fruit and could technically be eaten, but these are living things that often speak to the soul, rather than feeding the belly.”

James working on Goshin as a museum volunteer under the direction of John Naka, 2001

 James said he tries to approach the styling of each tree with an unbiased mind, channeling the influence of the bonsai’s creator to maintain the integrity of its design.

 “When working on Goshin, I have to be thinking about what Naka would do to that tree,” he said. “The trees are in a different state than years ago, more developed and refined, but their creators would still utilize the same principles and individual characteristics they applied from the start.”

Most of James’ bonsai education has been through the Museum, but he has traveled around China and Southeast Asia to study the styles and inspiration for bonsai and penjing. James added that the diverse collection within the Museum – which holds bonsai from China, Japan and throughout North America – allows him to study the nuances of different plant species, from training techniques to growing specifications.

 “The Museum is a hub – all these incredibly educated bonsai artists pass through here when traveling to work on trees and explain their ideas of styling and bonsai culture,” he said. “In the branches and trunks, you can see what creators saw in them and what they were intending on in their form that translates out the branches as the trees continue.”

James is one of a few essential workers keeping the trees thriving while the Museum is closed to the public. Leave him a comment below to share your appreciation for his hard work and great leadership! 

ASSISTANT CURATOR'S BLOG: Fall at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

Figure 1Trident Maple (Acer buergerianum) donated by Ted C. Guyger in 1990, in training since 1975.

Practicing the art of bonsai and penjing is rewarding in many ways, and each season provides a multitude of beauty, work, and lessons. As fall continues, all the hard work we bonsai practitioners have put in throughout the growing season on our deciduous trees is honored by an array of yellows, oranges, and reds.

Now in mid-to-late fall, we have a moment to breathe the cool autumn air and enjoy the vibrant colors. But like many things in life, this moment of visual pleasure and relaxation feels all too short lived. The pigments slowly begin to fade, and leaves tumble to our display areas, signaling that the next phase of seasonal work has arrived. 

Leaves dropping from our deciduous trees conveys that the stored resources in the leaves have been reabsorbed into the twigs, branches, trunks, and roots. This reserved energy will power our trees when they awaken to grow again in the spring.

Now we can begin tertiary structural pruning of many of our deciduous trees, like the much-beloved trident maples and other non-flowering species. This pruning process includes spotting twigs that have thickened in the outer canopy, detracting from the delicate, finely ramified structure we strive for. We also look for areas where more than two twigs are growing from one location, known as a node. By reducing these areas to two twigs, we can prevent unwanted swelling and promote a smooth transition of taper from the trunk to the tip of the twig. 

Ginkgo biloba – donated by Kiku Shinkai in 1976, in training since 1926

Lastly, we look at areas where twigs have elongated too far and prune them back to scale with the design of the tree. This work may be completed after the leaves are done changing color until late winter but should finish before the buds begin to elongate and open. If we prune during the dormancy period, we reduce the chance that new growth will be stimulated due to the removal of growth inhibiting hormones. We prune judiciously to perpetuate health and the execution of the design we have been working so hard to create.

While pines, spruces, and junipers don’t lose all their foliage, these conifers also need some attention before the onset of winter dormancy. Pines and spruces can now be cleaned of old needles, and their designs can be refined with wiring. Weaker foliage on junipers can be removed, and adventitious growth can be eliminated from the crotches of branches.

Cleaning out old needles and growth allows more light to enter the canopy and stimulate interior buds, helping them more strongly develop. Cleaning trees this time of year can be tedious, especially on a large collection, but I think this intimate operation brings us closer to our trees and gives us an even better understanding of their health and growth habits. 

This is also an important time to take advantage of the last warm months to ensure all winter preparation and some spring preparation is completed, and those techniques vary greatly. The simplest is arranging the area where trees will be placed on the ground out of the cold drying winds. Raised beds can be constructed to heel trees into mulch to protect the delicate root systems. Cold frames can be built and prepared to provide protection from wind and frost damage.

Cleaning buildings and testing heating and ventilation systems in greenhouses should be done to ensure all mechanisms are functioning properly. No matter the method of protection, be on top of this task before the temperatures dip below 40° F. If a random cold snap of 28° F or below arrives before everything is prepared for winter, the best thing for your trees is to place them on the ground for the night.  

American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) donated by Fred H. Mies in 2003, in training since 1979

Many other tasks may be completed at this time of year, but the ones shared above are what I feel to be the most important. As the leaves on all of the trees in the landscape and in our bonsai and penjing gardens begin to fall, and winter approaches, we, like the trees, must try to store our energy, shed our stress, and prepare for the challenging cold months ahead.

Sincerely,

Andrew Bello
Assistant Curator

The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum
U.S. National Arboretum

Historical Tree Spotlight: A Black Pine from Dr. Yee-sun Wu

The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum is home to a breathtaking penjing collection housed in the Yee-sun Wu Chinese Pavilion. This month’s Historical Tree Spotlight draws your attention to a Japanese black pine (Pinus thunbergii) from Dr. Yee-sun Wu, whose trees initiated the foundation of the Museum’s Chinese collection and who financially supported the pavilion’s construction. 

A prominent penjing collector, Wu began styling the pine in 1936 and donated it in 1986, along with 23 other trees of various species. Read more about his personal background here. 

This Japanese black pine can be categorized as a tree penjing. “Penjing” refers to scenic landscapes created in trays or ports that often include additions like rocks and ceramic figurines, like a Chinese landscape painting come to life. A pot with a single tree can be called a “tree penjing” but is more commonly known as “penzai,” the Chinese pronunciation of the characters of “bonsai.” 

The pine’s exaggerated primary branch, the lowest and longest branch off the right of the tree, is a distinct Chinese tree penjing quality, James said.

“If your eye follows the curvy line of the trunk up and then down that swooping branch, you can see that it gives a playfulness or a whimsical look to the tree,” he said.  

Many of Wu’s penjing were trained in the Lingnan style – the clip and grow technique – which his father and grandfather are credited with popularizing. James said the dramatic change in the tree’s direction, led by the primary branch, is consistent with the aesthetics of Lingnan style. The sweeping movement emulates Chinese brush paintings and drawings that, along with scholarly pursuits of poetry and culture, have inspired penjing artists for hundreds of years. 

“If you look at a lot of old paintings of trees in China, there are sharp zig zags in the branching with a lot of natural breaks and snaps left in the painting,” he said. “It shows the weathering of the tree and its survival through time.”

This pine inspired the logo used on the cover of a booklet listing the trees Wu gave to the Museum in 1986.

A shot of the pine in its original pot from Wu's second publishing of his book.

Lingnan style technically means “south of the mountains” and strives to reveal but not control the nature of each tree specimen. Because the style encourages spontaneity and whimsy, these penjing appear more natural than bonsai, James said. 

He added that the black pine was likely collected and placed in a pot, like many Lingnan trees, rather than grown from seeds. The original pot is a traditional deep penjing container that fosters strong tree growth, which is useful when trees are first developing. Now that the penjing is more mature, it tolerates the shallowness and size of its current pot, which retains water well and restricts root growth, facilitating shorter branches.

Wu wrote in his book Man Lung Garden Artistic Pot Plants: “The challenge of art in penjing consists of uniting within the same pot the three elements from Chinese proverbs: ‘heaven, earth and man.’”

Caring for the pine

James hesitates to categorize this tree as completely Lingnan because black pines will die if they are constantly clipped back. Evergreens, like black pines, are typically treated with decandling, or the process of removing a first flush of foliage growth to create a second flush of needles shorter than the first. Shorter needles are in better proportion to small trees in containers and increase the trees’ ramification, or number of branch bifurcations, James said.

He added that Museum staff do the bulk of the work on this black pine between June and July, when decandling should be performed. Decandling the pine too early would produce lengthy needles in its second flush of growth, but decandling too late doesn’t give the second growth spurt time to harden before winter.

From August on, James and the Museum team remove old needles with fingers or tweezers. Black pines in the wild retain needles for multiple years, but James said they must remove the older needles periodically to help light filter through the top of the tree to lower foliage.

 “We pull more needles in stronger areas and less in weaker spots,” James said. “This practice makes the black pine look neater and balances the growth.”

Museum Donors & Their Trees: Dr. Yee-sun Wu

The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum is home to impressive trees from collectors and masters around the world. Among that amalgam of donors is Dr. Yee-sun Wu, one of the most prominent penjing connoisseurs and stylists. 

Dr. Wu was raised in a family that had practiced penjing for generations. He was born the eldest of 13 brothers and sisters in the Guangdong province of China. To support his family during the Great Depression, Dr. Wu started a bank in Hong Kong called Wing Lung Money Exchange – “Wing Lung” meaning “long-lasting harvest” or “good business.” 

The organization has grown over the decades into a multi-story, highly respected business in central Hong Kong and Kowloon now known as Wing Lung Bank. But Dr. Wu retired from the bank business at the end of World War II after his health declined and he was forced to rest.

During this period, he devoted all of his time to studying traditional penjing, creating a new persona for himself as “Man Lung,” or “scholar-farmer.” In 1967 in Kowloon, Dr. Wu and a few friends created the Man Lung Garden to display trees and serve as a forum for discussion about penjing. The Chinese government eventually acquired the land in the 1970s to build a railway station, but the garden was established at the Hong Kong Baptist University again in 2000.

In 1968, Dr. Wu printed 10,000 copies of his book the Man Lung Garden Artistic Pot Plants, his international term for penjing, to discuss the features of the garden and the ideology, history and celebration of artistic pot plants. 

He was one of six honorees at the Fuku-Bonsai Center International Honor Role in 1990. 

Dr. Wu, who died in 2005, is survived by 13 children and almost 40 grandchildren and great grandchildren in Hong Kong. 

Traditional styling 

Former NBF President Felix Laughlin said servicemen returning from their stations in Japan after World War II brought bonsai knowledge back to the United States. But he said many people didn’t realize that the tradition of penjing, the Chinese word for bonsai, could be traced back hundreds of years to China. 

Dr. Wu popularized traditional penjing, in the Lingnan style, throughout the Western world. Laughlin said Japanese bonsai artists often rely on wire to place branches in different positions, repeatedly replacing the wire as it cuts into the wood. Penjing artists like Dr. Wu tend to use the “clip and grow” technique, pruning again and again to determine branch placement, he said.

“You can tell bonsai have been heavily influenced by human care and training, while penjing are much wilder looking and free form,” Laughlin said. 

 Read more about the differences in the art form through our interview with Zhao Qingquan.

Dr. Wu’s trees

The penjing master curated a collection of more than 300 trees, which he donated to various institutions across the world. One can view Dr. Wu’s works in collections in Canada, Hong Kong, China and the United States. 

Former U.S. National Arboretum Director Dr. John Creech was familiar with Dr. Wu’s excellent penjing collection. He sent Col. John Hinds, a retired military officer who was heavily involved in the bonsai community, to visit Dr. Wu in Hong Kong to inform him about the plans to curate a collection in the United States. 

At first, Dr. Wu was impressed with the idea but thought his tropical trees would be better maintained on the West Coast, where the climate is more similar to Hong Kong and wouldn’t have cold winters like Washington, D.C. In 1983, Museum volunteer Janet Lanman wrote to Dr. Wu to renew the request that he display penjing at the Arboretum, assuring him that they could provide adequate winter protection for his trees. 

In July 1986, the Arboretum received 31 penjing from Hong Kong – 24 from Dr. Wu and seven from his colleague Shu-ying Lui. Dr. Wu provided a generous monetary gift for NBF and the Arboretum to construct the Yee-sun Wu Chinese Pavilion and even sent over some workers from Hong Kong to help with the details of the project. 

Although the Museum remains closed to protect staff and visitors during the spread of COVID-19, you can spot Dr. Wu’s trees online under our Chinese collection.

Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss: Fall Foliage at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

A trident maple in its full fall splendor

By the end of October in D.C., the trees have begun to lose their summertime greenery. The colors that have long dominated the spring and summer here are in flux. The chlorophyll that defined the color palette of nature is waning, and brilliant yellows, oranges and reds emerge. I visited the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum on the grounds of the U.S. National Arboretum one afternoon to see these fall colors in the fading light of an unseasonably warm day.

Photographing at this time of year feels like a gift, an exuberant offering of beauty and color that crescendos here in November then quickly fades as we settle in for the browns and grays of winter. The shortness of the days gives us golden hours in the late afternoon, bringing warm light from a setting sun. 

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LEFT: This photo was taken with the camera more or less on an even exposure. RIGHT: For this photo, I underexposed by a couple of stops (switching shutter speed from 1/125 to 1/500) and increased the contrast of the image in Photoshop.

As the sun sinks lower in the sky, I like to look for little pockets of light that have filtered through the trees, illuminating just a spot of a branch or particularly colorful leaf. If you’re able to adjust your camera’s exposure, you can deliberately underexpose the image a bit to deepen the colors and darken the background, as I’ve done above. 

Photographing into the sunlight gives the opportunity to see the colors of fall backlit and illuminated.

The vibrance of the colors is magnified with morning dew or a bit of rain. On the gloomiest, rainiest days, there are great images to be made. As the old photographer’s saying goes, “Bad weather makes for good photos.”  

At dusk, the light softens and we get these beautiful, subtle tones on a ginkgo tree that has just begun to turn yellow.

While I love golden light, I think dawn and dusk are the most interesting times to photograph. The light has cooled to a bluish tone, and the warm colors of the leaves stand out even more against their environment. In the gloaming, the hard shadows from direct light are gone and for just a brief time the drama of the sunlight fades and there are beautiful, subtle photos to be made. 

I placed a beautiful maple tree to serve as a splash of color to balance the wonderful stark white wall that shows off the tree in the background. Fall color can be part of your photographic palette and a compositional tool, it doesn’t always have to be the center of attention.

The trees changing colors at different times can be a great opportunity to show contrast and play with color. A particularly vibrant tree might make for an interesting macro (close-up) image, but you might also consider placing it in context. Sometimes we appreciate colors in nature more richly when they are photographed in comparison to their less vibrant surroundings. 

I was fascinated by these beech leaves, which showed the entirety of fall's transformation, from verdant green to the brown of winter with a pale yellow in between.

A macro lens allows you to use depth of field as a visual tool to sort out what you want to emphasize and not emphasize. I loved the distant silhouette of the cedar elm’s trunks that subtlety frame its foreground leaves.

With the setting sun, a quiet comes to the Arboretum. While the museum remains closed, the dedicated caretakers of these trees continue their work each day. These days, they are preparing the space for winter and for the time when they can reopen the doors for visitors to enjoy these special trees in person once again. Whether you have a bonsai collection of your own, or can simply see fall colors out your window, it’s a great time to pack a bag and walk through nature to interpret its splendor.

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As a photographer who now makes a living snapping pictures of some of the world’s most influential figures, Stephen Voss didn’t always know that photography could be more than a hobby.  Once a bonsai novice, he certainly didn’t think he would publish a photography book of bonsai.

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” This entry is part of his regular guest blog series, “Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss", published on NBF’s blog, covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees. This has been a special entry in this series given the times.

Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries! Read his last entry here.

A Holiday Gift Guide: What to Get the Bonsai Lover in Your Life

Looking for the perfect gift for the bonsai lover in your life? Or maybe loved ones are asking what you want for the holidays?

Read on for some shopping inspiration from National Bonsai Foundation board members and National Bonsai & Penjing Museum volunteers. If you make any purchases on Amazon, please use our Amazon Smile link to help support NBF with each dollar you spend!

A NEW TOOL

For the budding bonsai master 

For newbies, grab this eight-piece beginner’s tool set from Bonsai Outlet. A battery-operated toothbrush is a great tool to rid tree trunks and branches of algae. If you’re looking to splurge, we’re coveting this electric carver from Smoky Mountain Woodcarvers.

A GOOD READ

For the bonsai bookworm

NBF published many books about the trees of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in the last few years, including: 

• Bonsai & Penjing: Ambassadors of Peace and Beauty (Ann McClellan)

• In Training: A Bonsai Photo Book (Stephen Voss)

• The Peace Tree from Hiroshima (Sandra Moore)

• Forest, Rock Planting & Ezo Spruce Bonsai (Saburo Kato) 

• John Naka’s Sketchbook 

Find them in the NBF bookstore.

We also recommend John Naka’s Bonsai Techniques, Volumes 1 and 2, which many consider the “bible of bonsai,” and Michael Hagedorn’s latest book Bonsai Heresy.

UNLIMITED ACCESS

For the one who can’t get enough of bonsai

A subscription to International BONSAI magazine is a gift that keeps giving throughout the year. Each issue of this educational, professional publication is like a mini lesson on specialized bonsai topics.

A subscription to Ryan Neil’s Bonsai Mirai Live will provide weekly web presentations on all aspects of bonsai and access to an incredible archive of the last year’s presentations.

BONSAI PRIDE

For the fashionista

New this year, we are offering National Bonsai Foundation branded merchandise. A portion of proceeds from every sale is given to the National Bonsai Foundation to support the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum so your bonsai-lover can wear their pride and know they are supporting their passion as well. Shop sweatshirts, t-shirts, tote bags and even mugs.

A GIFT THAT CAN’T GO WRONG

For the one who’s impossible to buy for

A gift certificate to a bonsai vendor. The American Bonsai Tool Company, Dallas Bonsai and Brussel’s Bonsai are some of our favorites. 

A GIFT OF PRESERVATION

For anyone who loves bonsai, history or nature

A donation in their name to the National Bonsai Foundation to preserve the art of bonsai and penjing for future generations. Click HERE for more on how your donation supports NBF and the Museum. Happy Holidays!

Bonsai Around the World: The James J. Smith Bonsai Gallery in Fort Pierce, Florida

The entrance to the James J. Smith Bonsai Gallery at Heathcote Botanical Gardens in Florida. The architect-designed theme is “Asia meets Florida Cracker,” Kehoe said. Photo credit: @heathcotebg on Instagram.

The world of bonsai is fortunate to encounter so many legendary artists, many of whom are immortalized in displays, buildings or collections at bonsai museums and gardens. For this installation of Bonsai Around the World, we highlight the bonsai collection of an eminent and accomplished icon in the Floridian bonsai community: James Smith. 

We spoke with Tom Kehoe, a close friend and student of the late bonsai master who is now the curator of the James J. Smith Bonsai Collection at Heathcote Botanical Gardens in Fort Pierce, Florida. 

Kehoe was drawn to martial arts classes at an early age, which blossomed into an interest in Asian languages, history and art. After receiving a book about bonsai at 16 years old, Kehoe tried to start training bonsai, but he wasn’t very successful in keeping his trees alive. Fifteen years later, a knowledgeable bonsai stylist gave him some tips for bonsai care and, after a few months of successfully raising a few bonsai, Kehoe sought out a bonsai master named Jim Smith for a more expert point of view. 

Tom Kehoe, the curator at the bonsai gallery. Photos courtesy of Tom Kehoe.

Kehoe and his wife began attending Smith’s free monthly lessons, forging a 20-year friendship. Kehoe eventually began assisting Smith with his nursery, helping to run bonsai seminars and eventually taking over the care of Smith’s private tree collection as Smith’s health began to falter. 

“Jim must have had five or six thousand little trees,” Kehoe said. “He had tables and tables of little trees that could grow up to be bonsai.”

To ensure his private collection of bonsai would remain in loving and skilled hands, Smith decided to donate his 100 trees to Heathcote Botanical Gardens, to whom he had previously gifted a few trees. Heathcote leveled off an area of their grounds, designed a display section and constructed a pavilion for the incoming collection. Meanwhile, Kehoe and Smith spent about two and a half years preparing Smith’s bonsai for transfer to their new home. 

“We’d take trees out of the pots, trim the roots way back, reshape the canopy and put them back into the pots,” Kehoe said. “I’d even take one or two home with me, work on them and bring them back the next week. I developed a personal relationship with those trees.”

When the trees first arrived at the Heathcote gardens, Kehoe’s full-time job precluded him from working with the collection. But years later, after Heathcote staff asked him and his wife to work on the trees in preparation for a fundraiser at the gardens, he accepted the curator position. 

“I now commute down there a few times a week, but we have a whole cadre of volunteers that help us out,” Kehoe said. 

A popular attraction at the gallery, a bougainvillea. Its pot is 4 feet long, and the tree can only be moved by forklift!

Getting to know the collection and its owner

Heathcote Botanical Gardens consists of six separate gardens, including areas like the bonsai gallery, a rainforest garden and even a children’s garden. Once a month, staff will host events during which they’ll work on visitors’ bonsai or advise them on how to train and style your tree.

The James J. Smith Bonsai Gallery features about 110 trees of 35 species, almost all of which are tropical and subtropicals and continuously displayed. Their oldest tree is thought to be about 200 years old, a buttonwood with a massive driftwood trunk collected from the Florida Keys that has been in training since 2004. 

Kehoe said many of the bonsai are several feet tall and require six people or more to move them. He said Smith, a bonsai master and the collection’s namesake, is remembered as the “grandfather” of bonsai in Florida, which is home to myriad bonsai displays, nurseries and societies – including a state organization. 

Heathcote hosts a “Garden of Lights” event each year, bringing in 10,000 people to the bonsai gallery in a matter of weeks.

Kehoe said one of the collection’s most notable and prettiest trees is a twin trunk Jaboticaba John Naka styled in the 1970s. The gallery also houses a saikei, or “living landscape,” that bonsai master Yuji Yoshimura arranged in the 1970s. 

Smith is credited with bringing a number of species onto the bonsai scene, particularly Portulacaria Afra – a steadily growing succulent that plays a vital role in the South African ecosystem and is one of the most effective plants in climate mitigation processes. Smith’s first bonsai was a Portulacaria that has been in a pot since 1957.

Another atypical bonsai is an informal upright Bo tree, or Ficus religiosa, the storied species credited with starting the Buddha on his path to enlightenment. The Bo tree’s large heart-shaped leaves are said to represent the great heart of the Buddha.

“Jim would always find unusual species, like bo trees or baobabs, and see how to work with them to make bonsai,” Kehoe said. 

The late James Smith working on a 5-foot, formal upright Portulacaria Afra – the logo tree for the gallery.

Heathcote staff have to store their Baobab in a dark closet without water for part of the year to simulate its natural drought-ridden growth environment in Africa. The gallery also features a gumbo limbo tree, native to South Florida and the Caribbean. Their distinctive thin and shaggy bark is likened to the appearance of skin peeling away. 

“The local nickname for the gumbo limbo is ‘tourist tree’ because, like the tourists, it’s red and peeling!” Kehoe joked. 

You can find more information about the Heathcote and the James J. Smith Bonsai Gallery here. Have you been? Share your pictures and stories with us: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. 

This magnificent Ficus exotica is 4 feet wide, has been in training since 1972 and was displayed at Epcot’s Flower and Garden Show in 2019.

Historical Tree Spotlight: The Logo Tree

The Sargent juniper, photographed by Stephen Voss for the National Bonsai Foundation Annual Report in 2019

Have you ever wondered how the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum logo came to be? 

In this month’s Historical Tree Spotlight, you’ll get to know the story behind one of our Sargent junipers, Juniperus chinensis var. sargentii, known as the shimpaku juniper in Japan. While the tree is notable for its place among the first 53 bonsai that established the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum collection in 1976, it’s also the inspiration for the Museum’s logo!

History of the Sargent juniper

The juniper is a yamadori, meaning it was collected from the wild. The tree came from Itoigawa, in Japan’s Niigata prefecture. Donor Kenichi Oguchi, who ran a bonsai nursery known for its beautifully trained junipers in the neighboring city of Okaya, started training the tree in 1905. Oguchi’s employees visited the Museum in 1977 to demonstrate how to use wiring to maintain the shape of the juniper. 

Museum Curator Michael James said bonsai often outgrow or might not match the style of their original containers, but the Sargent juniper has lived in the same antique Chinese pot since it was donated. He said the styling of this juniper is an excellent representation of the natural growth junipers experience in the wild, specifically in the land around Itoigawa, home to some of the most prized juniper yamadori material in Japan. 

Bob Drechsler, the Museum’s first curator, wiring the juniper with two of Kenichi Oguchi’s staff members in 1977

Trees in the Niigata region grow along cliffs and mountainous areas and are exposed to heavy snows and winds. The harsh weather conditions force junipers to fold back on themselves, which is reflected in the way Museum staff have trained this Sargent juniper’s branches to harmonize with the “shari,” or deadwood on the trunk, James said. 

“When training a juniper or bonsai, if you go by the guidelines, the branches often radiate out from the trunk,” he said. “But in nature, their branches fold like ribbons on top of each other. Sargent junipers also have a mounding habit in its foliage that is often cloud like.”

A story of resurrection

In the 1980s and 90s, the Sargent juniper mysteriously started to experience die-back. Finally, a curator determined the cause: a pest called the juniper twig girdler – the larvae of a small moth – had been eating away at the bonsai’s branches each year, slowly killing off parts of the tree until the apex completely died in 1998. 

“In the wild, twig girdlers don't harm junipers too much because the trees only lose a few branches but are perfectly adept and still survive,” James said. “But when it’s a little bonsai, the twig girdler is devastating.”

The larvae bury themselves in tiny holes under the bark, out of reach from treatment like insecticides, he said. Curators tried protecting the tree with measures like screened cages, but the most effective method was using a magnifying glass to find the holes and using a dental pick to scrape out the larvae. 

Left: The juniper in 1998 after losing its apex to the girdlers | Right: The juniper in 2019 with healthy foliage and branches

Once Museum staff discovered how to stave off the girdlers, former Museum Curator and recently retired National Bonsai Foundation Co-President Jack Sustic restyled the tree to create a new apex, and the tree is healthier than ever. 

“Even to this day, that moth returns to this tree annually and often just to this tree” James said. “But when the girdlers are found early enough, with vigilant checking, the branches are not lost.”

The birth of the logo

The Museum’s logo, created for the U.S. National Arboretum and adopted by NBF, came to fruition thanks to a collaborative effort. Former Arboretum Director John Creech initiated the development of the logo to create a “visual identity” for the Museum’s collection, in imitation of Japanese family crests.  

Beverly Hoge in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s communications department and local graphic designer Ann Masters, who had traveled in Japan, partnered to create the symbol. Masters visited the original Japanese bonsai collection – quarantined in Glenn Dale, Maryland in 1975 before the Museum was built – and was inspired by this Sargent juniper.

The evolution of the NBF and Museum logo.

John Creech noted in his book, The Bonsai Saga, that the logo depicts the Sargent juniper in a double circle to reflect the “sturdiness” of the bonsai and its abundant foliage. The leftmost branch of the juniper breaks the bands of the circle, which symbolizes the “continued vigor of the trees in their new home” – the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum!

“You can see the cloud-like foliage, the twisted trunk, the ribbon-like branches and the line separating dead and live wood in the drawing,” James said. “Those aspects were the main focus when creating the final version of this logo.”

The next time you visit the Museum, be on the lookout for our logo and pass on your knowledge of the significant history of this Sargent juniper bonsai. 

The entrance gate to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum bearing the logo. Photo credit: USDA