Influential Bonsai Master: Harry Hirao

In 2009 Harry Hirao posed next to his 2004 gift to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, a California juniper that he collected in 1960. Photo from U.S. National Arboretum.

This edition of Influential Bonsai Masters highlights the history of the loving spirit and innate talent Harry Hirao shared with the world.

Hirao co-founded Kofu Bonsai Kai, one of the largest U.S. bonsai clubs, and sat on many bonsai boards across the country, including the National Bonsai Foundation. But his interest and leadership in bonsai wasn’t in full swing until his middle-aged years. 

Though he was born in 1917 in Colorado, Hirao temporarily moved to Japan at 8 years old to receive an education and work on the family farm. But he returned to the United States at 16, befriending young bonsai master John Naka, with whom he adventured through the Rocky Mountains to fish for trout.

At the time, Hirao and Naka were so focused on fishing they didn’t realize they were falling in love with the surrounding precious viewing stones and the unique twists and folds in wild trees. 

Hirao soon met his wife Chiyo (also known as Alyce), and they married in 1941. Ten years later, the family moved to Huntington Beach, California, where Hirao launched a landscaping and gardening business and grew his family.

Fishing remained a hobby for Hirao for many years, but Naka introduced him to bonsai, guiding him through the Mojave Desert where stout, aging trees grew in harsh environments. Hirao and Naka were granted a digging permit to remove junipers growing in the desert, beginning years of field trips through the mountains and intriguing Hirao in the process of transforming the unassuming trees into beautiful bonsai.

LEFT: Hirao and John Naka discussing Naka’s famous forest planting “Goshin,” or “protector of the spirit”

RIGHT: In 2011, Hirao restyled the juniper he gave to the Museum for the new North American Bonsai Collection.

Photos from USNA

He was eventually nicknamed Mr. California Juniper for his uncanny ability to produce masterpiece bonsai from raw California junipers. But something else in the wild finally caught his eye – stones. Hirao and his wife became enamored with suiseki, or viewing stones, and quickly grew their collection. 

Hirao is often remembered as a mountain goat, jumping over ridges and through streams faster than most to find gorgeous stones or unique junipers to turn to bonsai. 

Former NBF President Felix Laughlin said he went on a collecting trip with Hirao once, and before he got out of the car at their destination, Hirao was already leaping and running toward the mountains with a backpack slung over his shoulder. 

“It was so amazing that in his late age, his 80s at the time, Harry was such a bear of a man and just went at the collecting,” Laughlin said. “He loved it so much, and he did so much for California junipers, which were his babies.”

Jack Sustic, a former National Bonsai & Penjing Museum curator and NBF co-president, held a special and long-lasting relationship with Hirao. After meeting during a West Coast bonsai convention, the two became instant friends. Sustic began traveling to California once or twice a year to collect stones or work on trees with Hirao, absorbing bits of wisdom and building their friendship. 

“Harry would say, ‘Don’t rush. If you rush you make mistakes,’” Sustic said. “I always hear his voice when I’m working on a tree or looking for stones – I can hear him telling me to take it slow. Bonsai masters’ advice is often not just for bonsai but for life itself.”

LEFT: At the 2009 Bonsai Festival, Harry directed a bonsai demonstration with assistance from Museum curator Jack Sustic and Museum volunteer LeAnn Duling. RIGHT: Harry Hirao collecting a California juniper from the wild in 2007.

Photos from USNA

Hirao could always make someone feel special, often giving his visitors a viewing stone as a token of appreciation for their time together. Sustic fondly remembers his loving, genuine and kind demeanor, but he said everyone who met Hirao spoke well about the bonsai master. 

“Nobody ever had a negative comment or worry about Harry, and that’s a bit rare these days,” he said. “Harry was like a father, best friend, teacher and confidant all wrapped into one for me. A day hasn't passed that I haven't thought of him.”

The Museum received its first American viewing stone from Hirao, and the Harry Hirao Reception Room opened in the Museum’s Yuji Yoshimura center simultaneously with its John Y. Naka North American Bonsai Pavilion. 

Two of Hirao’s trees have found a home in the North American collection and one of them remains in the Museum’s auxiliary collection. You can view the trees here and read more about Hirao in our 2007 newsletter, “Happy Birthday Harry!”

Hirao on a collecting trip – photo from Jack Sustic

Historical Tree Spotlight – Blue Atlas Cedar

The Blue Atlas cedar in 2012, pot designed and produced by Sara Rayner

A “power couple” is defined as a pair of two people who are each independently influential or successful. 

The Blue Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica Glauca Group) featured in this month’s Historical Tree Spotlight was gifted to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum by a power couple well known throughout bonsai and the overarching horticultural circles: Frederic and Ernesta Ballard.

Ernesta Ballard, a well-known horticulturist and women’s rights activist, previously owned a small house plant business. She developed a reputation in the Philadelphia community and was invited to display her work at the renowned Philadelphia Flower Show, put on by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS). Ernesta won a top prize for her submission, and she was eventually tapped for PHS’s executive director position.

In her new role, Ernesta revitalized the event, growing it into a more participatory and educational experience and one of the premier flower shows in the country. As the event regained traction and pulled in more money, Ernesta used some funds to engender the Philadelphia Green program, which transformed vacant lots into flower and vegetable gardens.

Simultaneously, she became known as the “godmother of Philly feminism” for campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment and founding local chapters of groups like the National Organization for Women. Ernesta also wrote two books: Garden In Your House (1958) and The Art of Training Plants (1962). 

LEFT: John Naka produced this sketch when Fred Ballard hired him as a consultant for the tree. The sketch was featured in the Journal of the American Bonsai Society with an article Ballard wrote about how important it is for other people to critique your trees and what it was like to work with Naka. 

RIGHT: The Blue Atlas cedar in 1990

Frederic Ballard fell in love with bonsai through Ernesta’s influence and became so drawn to the art that he served as one of the inaugural National Bonsai Foundation directors and was appointed the second NBF president in 1990. Both Fred and Ernesta were founding members of the American Bonsai Society. 

The Ballards bought the featured Blue Atlas cedar as a little shoot from Monrovia Nurseries in California around 1960. The sprout was meant to be a landscape tree, typical of the species, but with guidance from bonsai master Yuji Yoshimura, the couple trained it into a cascade-style bonsai. Bonsai master John Naka helped the Ballards develop the apex of the cedar. 

Blue Atlas cedars are native to the Atlas mountains in Morocco. Their popular function as  landscape trees means the species is drought and heat tolerant. But Museum Curator Michael James said this cedar becomes thirsty once it is transferred to a pot and paying attention to its water needs is very important. 

“A lot of times with bonsai you can make the wrong assumptions by thinking about where these trees natively grow and applying those conditions to the potted plant,” James said. “But it doesn’t work that way when roots are constricted in a container. It needs a lot of water.”

The volume of water a cedar demands will depend on the humidity and temperatures of its growing conditions, but James said Museum staff working in Washington, D.C.’s climate frequently water the Ballard’s Blue Atlas cedar twice a day in the summer.

He added that resisting the temptation to cut back the cedar’s shoots too early and letting the tree elongate as it grows throughout the spring allows the tree to build energy. James said trees like the Blue Atlas cedar can even benefit from a lack of clipping long into dormancy. 

“This cedar is a vigorous grower, so those new shoots in the spring will quickly grow out of the tree’s silhouette,” he said. “But it’s good for its health to resist clipping and let the roots build strength through the increased foliage.” 

This cedar can be found among the Museum’s North American trees. The Ballards took part in the groundbreaking for the John Y. Naka North American Pavilion (pictured above) and christened the collection with their beautiful Blue Atlas cedar. Visit the virtual collection here. 

First Curator’s Apprentice Blog – Scratching the Surface of Bonsai

Sophia Osorio cleaning leaves on a Chinese Elm Forest

“O solitary pine, how many generations of man have you known? Is it because of your great age that the passing winds sing in so clear a tone?”  – Prince Ichichara, “Man’yōshū”

If you had asked me six months ago what career path I would want to pursue in the world of horticulture/arboriculture, bonsai would not have come to mind. But after spending enough pleasant time interning at the most renowned bonsai and penjing museum in the country, bonsai is now the only thing that comes to mind.

I first stumbled across the opportunity to work at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum on a job posting wall at the New York Botanical Garden, where I was attending classes to obtain an arboriculture certificate from their School of Horticulture and Landscape Design. I was doing all the career research I could for a person like myself, with a distinct passion for arboriculture and tree care. I decided to take a chance and apply for the First Curator’s Apprenticeship, which would eventually spark my appreciation for the world of bonsai. 

Like most people, I had a general familiarity with bonsai. But growing up in the hustle and bustle of New York City, I had realized that urban areas lack access to more natural landscapes. Of course, one can admire the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum or perhaps stroll through Central Park. But otherwise it can be difficult to unplug from the fast-paced, famous city that never sleeps to enjoy more reserved and peaceful environments. This is where my recognition and adoration for the Museum comes in. 

Three years in a row now, Washington City Paper’s Best of D.C. poll has designated the Museum as the “Best Place to Take an Out-of-Towner,” and for good reason. Nestled in the energetic and largely concrete city of Washington, D.C., the Museum seems to slow time. Within its pavilions and tree collections, the beauty of nature is captured, condensed, perfected and displayed within the result of a centuries-old artistic tradition. 

Sophia, left, and her fellow Central Park Conservancy interns gardening at Marine Park in Brooklyn, New York

Bonsai can be horticulturally defined as a tree or group of trees pruned and trained to live in a container, often for hundreds of years. The literal translation is “tray planting” or “planted in a container.” I’ve come to learn that it is truly a living art form and a small representation of the larger natural world. This realization puts into perspective the amount of hard work and effort that goes into keeping a tree just as strong and vibrant in a container as it would have been cared for in the landscape by nature. 

My admiration and eagerness to learn more about bonsai has only augmented since my apprenticeship began. In trying to put the feeling of looking at a bonsai into words, I would say it is close to what one might experience if watching a renaissance painting come to life: standing in the presence and witnessing the sights of something that has been around for hundreds of years – growing, changing and living right before your eyes.

In my short tenure so far, I’ve had the privilege of working on trees donated by prominent figures in bonsai history, like the Japanese white pine that survived the bombing of Hiroshima, donated by bonsai master Masaru Yamaki. The notion that a tree that has experienced so much history can still be alive and flourish with the help of many passionate staff members here at the Museum has made the art of bonsai one of the most inspiring practices I’ve ever been part of.

From daily tasks, like watering every tree in the collections to the technique of selecting and pruning of branches to reshape a tree’s structure or entirely repotting a tree, I feel as though I have merely scratched the surface of the hard work and dedication needed to keep a bonsai thriving. This is truly an experience I want to share, expand on and practice more of for many years to come. 

With enthusiasm, 

Sophia Osorio

First Curator’s Apprentice

National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

U.S. National Arboretum

Bonsai Around the World: Jardin Botanique de Montréal

”Garden of weedlessness” – the Penjing greenhouse at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, credit to Matthiew Quinn

For this edition of Bonsai Around the World, we’re highlighting a garden that is just a hop, skip and a jump north of us: in Canada!

The Montreal Botanical Garden, or Jardin Botanique de Montréal, is home to about 350 bonsai and penjing from North America, Japan, Northern and Southern China, and Vietnam or similarly tropical areas. About 120 trees are on display at a time, while others are worked on in a service area or greenhouse, depending on the season. 

The collections began with just Chinese trees. In 1980, the garden participated in a flower show called Floralies, and after the show concluded, Japanese and Chinese vendors donated trees they couldn’t sell to the botanical garden. Dr. Yee-sun Wu, a notable penjing collector, also gifted the gardens his penjing with the stipulation that they construct a dedicated penjing area. 

Left: Juniperus chinensis var. Sargentii, Japanese collection, donated by Kenichi Oguchi (Japan); Right: Serissa japonica, penjing collection, donated by Lui Shu Ying (Hong Kong) – credit to Roger Aziz

A greenhouse was soon converted to house the penjing, followed by a Japanese garden in 1989 to house trees gifted by the Nippon Bonsai Association. The gardens eventually accumulated so many bonsai and penjing that former curator David Easterbrook and other managers decided to start employing two curators to oversee the different collections. 

Curator Eric Auger working on a bonsai – credit to Roger Aziz

One current curator, Eric Auger, first became involved with the Montreal Botanical Garden working under Easterbrook, whom he met at a bonsai workshop. 

“One day he told me, ‘You’ve got good hands and a good eye, maybe you could take over for me when I retire,” Auger said. “I studied horticulture in Canada and bonsai in Japan, and when I came back I got the job.” 

He became curator in 2011 to oversee the Japanese, North American and tropical collections. Some of the more famous trees Auger works on are a forest planting by Saburo Kato, a juniper from Kenichi Oguchi, a few bonsai from Nick Lenz and a tree from Ryan Neil. 

The Montreal Botanical Garden North American Collection – credit to Eric Auger

The North American collection is on display in the The Frédéric Back Tree Pavilion, an educational center that opened in 1996 to educate visitors on the various dimensions of tree care, the importance of ecosystems and the vital role trees play in human life.  

The Vietnamese collection constitutes the garden’s core tropical tree collection. A generous gift of big tropical bonsai in the 1990s and further donations built the collection to what it is today. The trees are shown once a year in the garden’s main entrance hall. 

Auger’s favorite part of the curatorship is technical work, like wiring and shaping trees during the winter, when the bonsai are all in the same greenhouse. In the summer, the bonsai and penjing are spread out across the botanical gardens.

He added that the goal for the North American collection is to only hold native species, regardless of where the artist is from. 

“Right now we’re at about 70 percent of native species, but we’ll soon hit 100 percent,” he said. “All of our collections are donations, so we’re dependent on that, like many bonsai museums.” 

Curator Matthiew Quinn working on a penjing – credit to Roger Aziz

Curator Matthiew Quinn cares for the two Chinese collections. Quinn was first introduced to bonsai in a way many got their first taste: watching Karate Kid. Years later, he read Michael Hagedorn’s book on bonsai, bought a ficus and attended a class in Montreal to rekindle his interest in the art form. 

Quinn eventually showed off his bonsai skills to Easterbrook, who wanted him to prove that he was serious about bonsai and could eventually take over the garden’s Chinese collections. So he went back to school, started part-time work on the Montreal collections and studied bonsai and penjing in China before accepting a curator position. 

One unique aspect of the Chinese collections is that Quinn tries to maintain the authentic Lingnan style of Chinese penjing. 

“People who just try the clip and grow technique on their penjing are missing a whole bunch of pointers to make it really authentic,” he said.

Learn more about the Montreal Botanical Gardens here, and share with us on Instagram or Facebook if you’ve visited their beautiful collections!

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.