New Special-Edition, Commemorative T-Shirt Design!

We are thrilled to launch the new design of our 2022 commemorative World Bonsai Day t-shirt to our Gift Shop. The art featured on the front is of the Museum collection’s Black Pine and was originally done in woodblock by professional artist and friend of the Museum, Mary Ellen Carsley. Learn more about her and the inspiration she finds and shares through bonsai and the Museum here. The back features a quote by Bonsai Master Saburo Kato.

T-shirts come in both short-sleeved and long-sleeved and in several colors. Get yours today, or as a gift for your favorite bonsai lover!

Learn more about World Bonsai Day here.

World Bonsai Day 2022: A History of Friendship and Celebration

Are you joining the National Bonsai Foundation at the U.S. National Arboretum for World Bonsai Day 2022?! Check out our agenda for the day, and in the meantime, freshen up on the history of this global celebration:  

The concept of World Bonsai Day sprung from the thoughtful mind of Saburo Kato, a world-renowned bonsai artist – and philosopher of sorts. 

Born May 15, 1915, in Japan, Kato spent much of his life working on Ezo spruces, so much so that he published a book called “Forest, Rock Planting and Ezo Spruce Bonsai.” He helped to establish numerous bonsai groups, like the Nippon Bonsai Association and the Japanese Bonsai Union. 

Kato had a big hand in Japan’s bicentennial gift of 53 bonsai and six viewing stones to the United States in 1976, which were the start of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum collection. A few years later, he gave a speech at the International World Bonsai Convention that underscored the idea that you can become closer with the beauty and fragility of the natural world by practicing bonsai. 

This philosophy is known as “bonsai no kokoro,” or “the spirit of bonsai,” and Kato touched on it in many speeches after that initial convention. In 1989, he co-founded with John Naka and Ted Tsukiyama the World Bonsai Friendship Federation (WBFF), which exists to bring peace and camaraderie to the world through this art form. 

After Kato passed in 2008, WBFF established World Bonsai Day to pay homage to Kato and his efforts to promote international peace and friendship through bonsai. The first event was held in 2010, and the day is now celebrated on the second Saturday of May each year, to coincide with Kato’s birthdate. 

Arboretum Director Dr. Richard Olsen said he hopes that visitors on World Bonsai Day can rekindle and forge new personal connections to trees, their value and the need for preservation and conserving the world’s flora after these last few years of online celebrations.

“Bonsai are living works of art meant to be enjoyed in person, not in two dimensions on screens or pages,” Olsen said. “The connections between visitors and the bonsai specimens – expressions of astonishment and awe – remind us of the importance of curating and showcasing this art form. World Bonsai Day is the ultimate annual event in celebrating an art form that transcends cultures and boundaries.” 

NBF Board Chair Dr. Richard Kahn, PhD, said World Bonsai day calls attention to an art form that is not often understood or appreciated and that visiting the Museum or pursuing more information online can convey more about the living sculptures known as bonsai. 

“Bonsai and penjing enriches many lives, not just those who nurture these beautiful objects,” he said. “We hope you, too, will now take the opportunity to enjoy them as so many do.”

NBF Board Chair Emeritus Jim Hughes said that, no matter where or how you’re celebrating, World Bonsai Day is a celebration of your community and all its nurturing aspects. 

“Although the online, digital connection on World Bonsai Days of the past two years had its pluses, being together face-to-face (or face-to-tree) this year has many more tangible benefits,” he said. “Come to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum to observe and see first-hand this living art form in person this year!”

MaryEllen Carsley, an artist hosting classes for the WBD celebration at the Arboretum, said she is excited to take part in the day’s festivities after growing up visiting the Museum. She hopes class participants adopt a deeper appreciation of the artistry and beauty of bonsai and the sense of mindfulness, peace and renewal that accompanies the act of drawing an emotionally moving object or scene. 

“It seems especially important and meaningful in these times, too, that this is a global celebration of peace, friendship, and beauty,” she said. “Whether a person is new to bonsai, drawing, or both, I hope picking up the pencil and sharing an hour together drawing among the beautiful trees inspires them to make more art in any form!”

MaryEllen added that the final drawing (or any artistic product) is not as important as engaging and reflecting on the beauty of life that is present in the day’s medium: for Saturday, that’s the bonsai.

“Saburo Kato spoke about how, through bonsai, you can learn to appreciate the beauty of nature,” she said. “Drawing is like that: it makes you engage with and reflect on life and nature's never-ending cycle. 

MaryEllen said she is looking forward to sharing the joy of drawing bonsai with those present and remembering all those around the world who will be appreciating the spirit of friendship.

Museum Curator Michael James said he is looking forward to seeing crowds strolling through the Museum to admire the bonsai and garden collections once again. He said the Museum has been a place of inspiration for the bonsai community and nature enthusiasts alike, especially on international celebratory days like World Bonsai Day. 

“It is uplifting to see the amazement in people of all ages,” Michael said. “To celebrate World Bonsai Day again in person after two years is exactly what the doctor ordered.” 

Stop by the Museum on Saturday, May 14, for docent-led personal tours, crafts, bonsai demonstrations and more!

Introducing the NBF Officers and Board of Directors for 2022-2023

Just as our trees are seeing changes of spring, so are we seeing changes to our Board leadership. We at the National Bonsai Foundation wish to thank Jim Hughes and Jim Brant who served as Chair of the Board and Secretary/Treasurer respectively over the last two years. Their long histories of dedicated support and fine leadership in these roles and beyond have been invaluable to NBF and the Museum over the years and we are forever grateful.

With their departure, we wish to offer a warm welcome and congratulations to newly elected Chair of the Board, Dr. Richard Kahn, PhD, Secretary, Ross Campbell, and Secretary/Treasurer-Elect, Daniel Angelucci.

We invite you to get to know these new leaders through their bios below. And hope you will leave a congratulatory message below.

Richard Kahn, PhD
Chair of the Board (2022-2024)
Richard Kahn, PhD, is an independent consultant/researcher and is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine since mid-2009. Prior to his retirement from the American Diabetes Association in June 2009, Richard was responsible for the scientific and medical affairs of the Association for nearly 25 years. He provided senior management oversight for all professional education activities, which consisted of all clinical and research conferences and symposia, and the largest diabetes-related clinical and scientific meeting in the world- --the annual ADA Scientific Sessions. Richard also oversaw the development of clinical practice guidelines and consensus statements, and he provided senior staff direction for the professional books and journals produced by the Association.

Under his leadership, the Association defined for the first time Standards for the medical care for persons with diabetes, introduced the concept of diabetes performance measures, redefined the diagnosis and classification of diabetes, started two major professional certification programs, introduced a new test for the diagnosis of diabetes, and produced dozens of guidelines and statements that have had a major impact on how diabetes and its complications are defined and treated. Before joining the American Diabetes Association in 1985, Richard was Chief of Scientific Affairs for the American Red Cross in St. Louis, Missouri, and an Associate Professor of Pathology at Washington University. In these positions, he established the first Tissue Bank in the Red Cross System and directed a large research laboratory concerned with the pathophysiology of blood cells and the prevention of transfusion-transmitted diseases.

Richard received his doctorate in physiology from Georgetown University and has published over 70 papers as well as numerous book chapters. He has received many awards and honors, including the 2009 Charles H. Best Medal for Distinguished Service from the American Diabetes Association and the 2009 Albert Renold Medal from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. Richard has been a member of the board of NBF since 2018. He and his wife, Michelle, reside in Chevy Chase, MD. He has served on the board since 2018.

Ross Campbell
Secretary/Treasurer (2022-2024)
Ross Campbell retired from the U.S. Government Accountability Office in December 2019 after 34 years of federal service. As a Senior Analyst for GAO, Ross led teams of analysts, attorneys, and other specialists in reviewing and evaluating programs across a wide range of federal agencies. As the analyst in charge of these reviews, he was the principal author of reports to Congress on topics including ecosystem management, invasive species control, the use of animals in research, honeybee health, and avian influenza.

Ross was introduced to the beauty of Japanese gardens, bonsai, and design during a four-week trip to Japan as an exchange student in 1979. He became reacquainted with bonsai while living near the National Arboretum in the 80s and soon thereafter joined the Washington Bonsai Club. Ross served as the president of the Washington club for nearly a decade before joining the Brookside Bonsai Society in Maryland. He began as its newsletter editor in 2017. Ross also served many years as the treasurer of 1the Potomac Bonsai Association and as the treasurer for the American Bonsai Society’s 2015 Learning Symposium. Continuing in the realm of botany, Ross has been a registered Weed Warrior in Montgomery County, Maryland since the early 2000s. In this capacity, he works with other volunteers to remove non-native, invasive plants from his local county park. Ross has served as a member of the board of directors of the National Bonsai Foundation since 2020 and also became Secretary/Treasurer- Elect in 2020. For over 40 years, Ross has been dedicated to squash, but in this case, it is the racquet sport and not the vegetable. Ross was raised in Detroit, Michigan, and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1985. He and his wife, Maureen Wylie, reside in Silver Spring, Maryland. He has served on the board since 2020.

Daniel F. Angelucci, CIMA®
Secretary/Treasurer-Elect (2022 – 2024)
Dan Angelucci joined Merrill Lynch in 1987 and became part of The Locniskar Group in 1990 with more than 30 years of wealth management experience. The Locniskar Group joined the Merrill Lynch Private Bank and Investment Group in 2000. Dan focused on equity trading, concentrated stock strategies, philanthropic planning, creating retirement strategies, and providing personalized investment advice and guidance. He was granted the Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) designation in 2008 through the Wharton Business School and is an active member of the Investment and Wealth Institute.

Dan has served on the board of directors of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Finance Committee, Pension Advisory Committee) and has been on the board of the National Bonsai Foundation since 2018 and as Chair-Elect since 2020. He is currently a member of the American Bonsai Society, Ann Arbor Bonsai Society of Michigan, and Pittsburgh Bonsai Society. He has practiced the art of bonsai for 36 years. He, also, served as Past-President of the Board of Directors of the Gowanie Golf Club and as a member for seven years. Dan and his wife, Rose, reside in Pittsburgh, PA. He has served on the board since 2018.

Milton Chang, PhD (2020-2023)

Milton Chang, PhD, has been an avid bonsai hobbyist since 1975, initially under the tutelage of Harry Hirao and later briefly under John Naka, when he was inducted into the California Bonsai Society. He broadened his perspective on bonsai through travel in Japan, China, Europe, and the United States. Milton’s collection is comprised of 100 trees, most of which he created from raw material.

Milton is an engineer, entrepreneur, and author of Toward Entrepreneurship. He was the CEO of two companies, which he built and led to successful initial public offerings. In addition, he has incubated over a dozen companies to successful exits. Milton has been active in professional societies and is a fellow of both the IEEE and the Optical Society of America (OSA). He has been on the boards of several private and public companies and served on the advisory boards of governmental agencies including the NIST and the SEC. He is a trustee of Caltech. His full bio can be found at www.miltonchang.com.

Chris Cochrane (1998-2025)

Chris Cochrane’s interest in bonsai began through the study of Eastern religions as his undergraduate major at the University of Virginia. He also holds a Master's degree in Public Administration. In 1988, the Richmond Bonsai Society (RBS) forever changed and challenged his appreciation of trees in miniature. Chris became secretary of RBS and later served as treasurer and president. In the early 1990s, he was an active participant on a listserv group that led to the formation of the Internet Bonsai Club (IBC). Discussion of stones on the IBC led to the formation of the Viewing Stone (web) Mail List (VSL, 1996-98) that Chris co-chaired. The VSL merged into a re-formulated IBC when it became a website discussion forum. He has served as a moderator (focusing especially on the "Stone Forum") on the IBC since it replaced the VSL.

In 1998, Chris joined the National Bonsai Foundation (NBF) as Secretary to the Board and helped construct the first NBF website. For a year (2003-04), Chris studied bonsai & suiseki in Japan at the garden studio of Kunio Kobayashi. In 1999, Chris became one of the founders of Potomac Viewing Stone Group (PVSG), a Potomac Bonsai Association club. Since 2005, he has served as president of PVSG. He has co-designed each annual exhibition for PVSG at the US National Arboretum. Chris is the Webmail Correspondent for California Aiseki Kai. He maintains a personal collection of bonsai as well as viewing and garden stones.

In 1999, Chris became one of the founders of Potomac Viewing Stone Group (PVSG), a Potomac Bonsai Association Club. Since 2005, he has served as president of the PVSG. He’s noted for co-designing the annual exhibitions for PVSG at the US National Arboretum. Chris proudly maintains a personal collection of bonsai as well as viewing and garden stones. Chris and his wife, Susan, reside in Glenn Allen, VA.

Charles Croft (Began term in 2018)

Charles (Chuck) Croft is a retired U.S. Air Force veteran, IT program manager, and consultant. He became peripherally interested in bonsai at the Brussels World’s Fair as an Air Force dependent but did not have the time or opportunity to pursue it as a hobby until the early 1990s. Chuck took up bonsai as a hobby in 1990 as a way to relax during a very high-pressure job situation and quickly became addicted. He was able to volunteer occasionally at the U.S. National Arboretum’s Bonsai and Penjing Museum until his retirement in 2007, which allowed him to then volunteer regularly.

During this journey, Chuck served as the President of the Northern Virginia Bonsai Society (NVBS) twice. He served as President of the Potomac Bonsai Association (PBA) four times and is currently serving in this role. He’s been serving in this capacity since 2018. He has also taught at various local club meetings, working as a mentor through in-person study groups and workshops at Merrifield Garden Center in Northern Virginia.

The PBA where Chuck has served as president since 2018 is an umbrella group consisting of local member clubs throughout Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Each of the clubs under PBA is focused on bonsai or, in one case, viewing stones. The purpose of PBA is to provide Bonsai-related educational resources and community-building opportunities by connecting mentors with bonsai practitioners at all levels. The PBA makes it possible for their member clubs to have access to great speakers, teachers, and useful resources consistently. They also allow members of one local club to attend another club’s meetings without the requirement of joining multiple clubs. Chuck and his wife, Verna reside in Burke, VA.

Julie Crudele (2014-2025)

Julie Crudele is an experienced fundraising and marketing professional with expertise in international development, environmental organizations, and national nonprofits undertaking capital campaigns and ambitious fundraising efforts. She recently concluded her tenure of almost 20 years as a partner consultant with Capacity Partners, based in Bethesda, MD.

Before that, she was the vice president of development and communications at CEDPA where she raised international funds for programs for women and girls. Other positions include executive vice president of the Jane Goodall Institute and vice president of communications and development at University Circle, Cleveland, plus many more. She is active in the Annapolis community and is a Board Member of Annapolis Green, Chairs the Events Logistics Committee for Anne Arundel Women Giving Together, and has been a member of the board of the National Bonsai Foundation since 2014. She has earned two master’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University in International Health and Medical Anthropology.

Mark Fields (Began term in 2018)

Mark Fields began his lifelong passion for the art of bonsai in 1968 at the age of nine. Since then he has learned from more than 60 bonsai artists from all over the globe. Over the years, has attended all but a few of Brussel’s Rendezvous. He is a past two-term president of the Indianapolis Bonsai Club and is currently the president of the American Bonsai Society.

His desire for more formal bonsai training led him to Europe. There he studied with Danny Use at Ginkgo Bonsai Nursery, located in Laarne, Belgium, in 2004, 2005, and again in 2009. It was there that he learned more about the horticultural aspects of bonsai.

Bjorn Bjorholm, a bonsai professional who was certified by the Nippon Bonsai Association, has taught at Mark’s nursey, Bonsai by Fields, LLC, located in Greenwood, Indiana, annually. Mark considers Bjorn to be his sensei. Bjorn urged Mark to study in Japan and in 2013 he traveled there where he visited several bonsai nurseries, including many of the nurseries in the Omiya Bonsai Village, Kyoto, and Osaka.

Mark also attended the 33rd Taikan-ten Bonsai Exhibition and the World Bonsai Exhibition in Saitama City, Japan, in May of 2017.

At Keichi Fujikawa’s Osaka bonsai nursery, Kouka-en, where Bjorn was a resident bonsai artist, he made arrangements to return to study at Fujikawa’s International School of Bonsai, where he studied for five weeks, in January and February of 2015. He received his certificate, for completing his studies there, in February 2015. It was during that trip that he attended the Gafu-ten Bonsai Exhibition in Kyoto and the 89thKokufu-ten Bonsai Exhibition in Tokyo. In April 2017, he returned to Japan to attend the 2017 World Bonsai Convention, held in Saitama City, Japan, as a guest. Mark built a new bonsai studio in 2018 and travels all over the Midwest where he teaches, lectures, vends, judges, and exhibits. He has served as an ex-officio member of the board of the NBF since 2018.

Carl Morimoto, PhD (2006-2024)

Carl Morimoto’s involvement with bonsai started in the early 1990s as a support role when his wife Helen started bonsai as a hobby. However, his interest piqued when he went to collect California Juniper with Harry Hirao in the mountains of Mojave, CA. Since then, he served for over nine years as editor/publisher for the Golden State Bonsai Federation’s bimonthly publication. He has been serving as a member of the board of NBF since 2006 (serving as Vice President from 2011 to 2020) and is currently a member of four local bonsai clubs.

Carl was born in Hiroshima to Hawaii-born parents. He immigrated to Hawaii in 1957 after completing middle school in Japan. After completing his doctorate in physical chemistry in Seattle, he moved to Michigan and Texas to continue some research work. Carl moved to California in 1975 and eventually retired from GE Nuclear Energy working on a safety instrument system development for nuclear power stations. Carl and his wife, Helen, reside in San Jose, CA.

Deborah Rose, BA MPH, SM, PhD (2004-2025)

Deborah Rose is a chronic disease epidemiologist with an interest in psychosocial epidemiology, demography, environmental health, and sustainable development. She has spent over 20 years designing and analyzing data from the US National Health Interview Survey focusing on 1990 Health Objectives, Healthy People 2010, tobacco use, Hispanic health, and advising the Ministries of Health of Hungary, Mexico, and Taiwan on best practices for their health interview surveys. She also was the first to advise the National Health Interview Survey of Mexico asking Mexican women about breast cancer screening practices. The resulting module uncovered the previously hidden epidemic of female breast cancer in that country.

Two of her projects were (1) co-chairing a conference on the formulation, assignment, protection, and use of national identification number systems, held at Harvard in November 2015 and (2) working with the University of Cape Coast, the Yale Alumni Service Corps, and the community of Yamoransa, Ghana, to bring computing, clean water, and sanitation to this crossroads village. In this capacity, she is enstooled as Nana Abena Nkosuo Hemaa (Queen Mother for Development). Deborah has a BA, MPH, and PhD from Yale University, and an SM in Population Studies from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

She has spent more than 20 years developing and analyzing data from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey. She focused on tracking progress toward U.S. health goals between 1990 and 2010, with an emphasis on monitoring tobacco use in the U.S. and health disparities among Hispanics.

Deborah has advised the Ministries of Health of Hungary, Mexico, and Taiwan on best practices for their health interview surveys. Rose is currently working with partners at Yale, the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, the Ministries of Education and Health of Ghana, and the Yamoransa Community Development Committee in an ongoing collaboration to enhance opportunities for computing, education, clean water, sanitation, and local health care for the people of the village of Yamoransa and the surrounding communities. At Harvard, she spearheaded an international conference on “21st Century Identification Systems,” which has become an ongoing project, in collaboration with colleagues at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights.

Stephen Voss (2018-2024)

Stephen Voss is an internationally recognized photographer based in Washington, DC. His clients include CNN, Time, Vanity Fair, Salesforce, and Audi. His work has been exhibited worldwide and is in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress. Stephen has been interviewed by the BBC, National Geographic, and Slate and writes regularly about photography. He has served as a member of the board of directors of the NBF since 2018. Stephen resides with his wife, Charlene Kannankeril, and family in Washington, DC.

NBF Helps Host Guests for Museum Tour

Photo from Tomas Eric Sales/Asian Development Bank

The National Bonsai Foundation was honored to host, and tour distinguished guests of Ambassador Chantale Wong (United States Director of the Asian Development Bank) from the Asian Development Bank, National Museum of Asian Art, the White House and Japan on a recent beautiful spring Sunday. NBF Board Chair Jim Hughes led the tour around the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum grounds. Those in the group picture above: 

• Jim Hughes, National Bonsai Foundation Board Chair

• U.S. Representative Mark Takano, (D-CA 41)

• Erika Moritsugu, Deputy Assistant to the President and Asian American and Pacific Islander Senior Liaison, The White House

• Masatsuga Asakawa, President, Asian Development Bank

• Ambassador Chantale Wong, United States Director of the Asian Development Bank

• Ross Campbell, Board Member, National Bonsai Foundation

• Frank Feltens, PhD, National Museum of Asian Art 

• Haruto Takimura, Chief Advisor to the President of the Asian Development Bank

• Laura Schwartz, Senior External Relations Officer, Asian Development Bank

• Mieko Kuramoto, Legislative Correspondent for Representative Takano

In the picture below, Assistant Museum Curator Andy Bello brought the tour to a close in the staff workroom with a brief explanation of his work on a Chinese Quince Orchard Forest. This tree was donated to the Museum by past curator, Warren Hill.  It was started from seed and has been in training since 1975.

 Photo from NBF Board Member

NBF is grateful to have spent time with the group remembering and celebrating the longstanding relationship between the United States and Japan, strengthened by the extraordinary Japanese gift to our country that formed the beginning of the Museum. NBF looks forward to bolstering those ties and hopes to welcome our guests for another visit soon. 

Welcome Henry Basile, 2022 First Curator's Apprentice!

Courtesy of Henry Basile

The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum would not be the treasured public accessory it is today without the dedicated team that cares for its collections. The National Bonsai Foundation (NBF) is pleased to introduce this year’s First Curator’s Apprentice, Henry Basile – a knowledgeable and dedicated individual excited to join an already deep bench of bonsai experts. 

The First Curator’s Apprenticeship honors Robert (Bob) Drechsler, the Museum’s inaugural curator who served in the position for more than 20 years. NBF established the apprenticeship in 2011 to pay homage to Robert’s decades of service to the national collection and to educate and train a new generation of American bonsai artists.

A recent Kansas State graduate, Henry said his introduction to bonsai was a pretty garden-variety experience: popular culture and mass-producing garden centers were his only exposure to the trees for most of his young life. 

“I vaguely knew about the historical significance and the horticultural prowess required to maintain the trees and held a significant amount of respect for the care and attention that curators and collectors paid them,” he said. “But I saw them as no more than ancient trees, valued only for their age.”

But then gardening gave Henry an escape route from an unfruitful year as a biomedical engineering major, sparking his near-instant switch into the horticulture tract. Having found his calling among the plants, a bonsai curation internship at the Denver Botanic Gardens piqued his interest. There he met his mentor, prominent bonsai artist and author Larry Jackel, who taught him about each facet of the Denver collection. 

“Larry spoke about the designs from an artist’s perspective – using the principles and elements of design to hammer in the concepts,” Henry said. “It was then I realized I had found something special.”

That internship blossomed from an intriguing career move to a flourishing understanding of horticulture and artistic expression. He delved into the works of notable artists like Bjorn Bjorholm, Michael Hagedorn and Bill Valavanis, and he studied the styles and techniques described in John Naka’s texts. Though Henry was first drawn to bonsai from a scientific standpoint, his internship in Denver helped him root his work in purpose and pride. 

“It is seldom that a career path can offer development of one’s understanding of nature and history, artistic capabilities, as well as one’s mindfulness,” he said. 

Henry first learned about the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum through acclaimed writer and former NBF Board Member Ann McClellan’s “Bonsai and Penjing: Ambassadors of Peace and Beauty,” available for order at the NBF bookstore. He picked Larry’s brain about the national collection and staff members involved in maintaining its prestige and vitality. When the apprenticeship opened, he knew he had to throw his hat in the ring.  

During Henry’s first trip to the Museum as an apprentice – during his spring break week earlier this year – he helped staff move trees from their winter accommodations to the pavilion display benches and in the courtyards, repot multiple trees and develop new bonsai using U.S. National Arboretum cultivars. He delved deeper into the design principles and horticultural needs – like sunlight levels and visual movement –  considered when presenting bonsai and penjing. 

One of the most impactful tasks, Henry said, was repotting and styling a cryptomeria forest planting by Eisaku Sato, one of the 53 bonsai in the bicentennial gift from Japan to the United States, which marked the start of the Museum.

“Though I spent much of the time analyzing the process, it quickly acclimated me to the gravity of the work I will be participating in during my apprenticeship,” he said.

Henry is eager to interact with Museum visitors and capitalize on any opportunity to share the nuggets of wisdom he receives as an apprentice with fellow bonsai lovers and artists. He hopes that offering insight even just for small tasks, like wiring or pruning, will increase the accessibility of bonsai and penjing – and horticulture in general. 

“Having a mentor that makes you feel welcome and connects with you as an individual is a deeply important part of the learning process,” Henry said. “I certainly hope to put myself in a position to be that mentor for others.”

Already, he has recognized the gravity that accompanies the role of a Museum staff member, serving as a steward of the historic trees. Henry aims to develop a more thorough understanding of the maintenance a bonsai or penjing requires throughout the year, not just during the growing season, and familiarize himself with the species diversity found in the national collection.

“The bonsai and penjing housed in this Museum are masterpieces that will cease to exist if under improper care,” he said. “It is now partially my responsibility to provide nothing but the proper care so these beautiful trees and landscapes will continue to exist for generations to come.” 

Henry said he is honored to have been accepted into the apprenticeship and is grateful for the experience he will gain as an artist and horticulturist. 

“I sought out the National Bonsai Foundation’s First Curator’s Apprenticeship to learn and grow from the knowledge and experience of the talented curatorial team and draw from the artistic vision of the numerous artists who have contributed their masterpieces to the Museum,” he said. “I have quite a long way to go in my bonsai journey, and the apprenticeship is a paramount step in realizing it.”

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​​NBF is pleased to provide complete financial support for this apprenticeship, thanks to the Foundation’s generous donors. Without your help, this one-of-a-kind apprenticeship that helps to usher in the next generation of horticulturists wouldn’t be possible. Make a tax-deductible gift today to support the future of bonsai artistry. 

NBF World Bonsai Day 2022

It’s official: The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum is hosting in-person festivities for World Bonsai Day once again!

After two years of virtual celebrations, the National Bonsai Foundation is thrilled to welcome everyone to a creative and informative day of bonsai appreciation the Museum is putting on Saturday, May 14. Observed on the second Saturday of May every year, the World Bonsai Friendship Federation established this international day of celebration to pay homage to bonsai Master Saburo Kato's mission to promote peace and friendship through the art of bonsai. 

Here’s a quick rundown of what to expect on May 14. 

Get crafty

Visit Bonsai Technician Rose Behre at the children’s arts and crafts table to get your hands on some botanical coloring pages, stamps and origami. For those of you who attended our origami class, be sure to stop by and show off your skills!

Sit in on a demonstration

Museum volunteers will demonstrate bonsai pruning techniques and answer questions from the public. Pending weather conditions, visit their station under the arbor in the Lower Courtyard from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 2 p.m.

Explore your inner artist 

As a bonus this year, register for one of artist and art educator Mary Ellen Carsley’s bonsai drawing workshops! In each of her hour-long sessions (11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.), Mary Ellen will review fundamental sketching techniques and the principles used to properly translate bonsai to the page. All artists will be provided with a drawing pad, pencil and eraser at the Yuji Yoshimura Lecture and Demonstration Center.

We can’t wait to celebrate with you!

Spring Flowering Bonsai

Prunus mume 'Kobai' flowers blooming at the entrance to the Dr. Yee-Sun Wu Chinese Pavilion at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. Photo by Steven Voss

It is peak cherry blossom time in Washington, D.C., and the beginning of a new growth ring. The birds, the bees and the humans are all swarming at the National Arboretum. The flowering cherry tree is the pinnacle angiosperm– that’s a fancy word for “flowering plant.”

The United States National Arboretum is a Clonal Germplasm Repository for the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. Let’s just say it is a plant DNA library, but instead of books on shelves there are collections of plants in Arboretum gardens. 

The U.S. National Arboretum has more than a thousand cherry trees in their prime for viewing. While their twigs are still naked of leaves, hard wood branches are covered in delicate blossoms. Bees wiggle between the petals and pull out clutches of gold pollen. Humans put their backs against the flowers, smile at cameras, and click. Eagles are soaring and songbirds sing above it all! 

One exceptional specimen of cherry tree DNA is in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. Check it out by strolling past the masterpiece bonsai and penjing in the Museum’s central courtyard, behind the massive red doors of the Yee-Sun Wu Chinese Pavilion. Rising from the corner, with branches that partially eclipse the moon gate entrance, is a cherry tree named Prunus mume ‘Kobai’. Less than a month ago icicles were dripping from its hot pink petals. 

This spring, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum is displaying collections of flowering plant DNA in the form of bonsai and penjing. The Museum’s azalea bonsai special exhibit will be May 21st to June 5th. Some other spring flowering bonsai to admire are quince, maples, crabapples, firethorn, pomegranate and privet. The maple flowers will be small and subtle. They are often too high to see in the wild, so they are overlooked in the landscape. When viewing the blossoms in the Museum’s Japanese Pavilion, they are accessible, a perfectly sized ornament for miniature trees. There is nothing subtle about the flowers on azalea bonsai. Branch pads are pruned to such exaggerated forms that individual plants sometimes appear to be dancing for attention. Within the John Y. Naka North American Pavilion, when the breeze is right, perfume from privet bonsai flowers may be smelled before they are seen. 

One reason bonsai trees appear to be so small is because the size of leaves can be reduced by human intervention. Humans may withhold water or fertilizer to decrease their size. Or large leaves may be plucked and grow back smaller. Roots are constrained by high fired glazed earthenware, but the size of flowers cannot be reduced. Their function is to make future plants. As reproductive elements of plants, where and when they form on bonsai is controlled by reproductive hormones. 

In 1920, two United States Department of Agriculture essential employees named Garner and Allard discovered that many plants flower in response to changes in day length. So, some of the bonsai flowers being adored this spring first began to grow almost a year ago. Last summer and autumn when the days were getting short, spring flowers were microscopic. They were hidden within sheaths of dormant buds for their protection. Growth slows in the winter, but it rarely stops. As flower buds endure the chill they swell faster with every increasing degree. 

Specimens prepared for the Museum’s spring flowering bonsai displays receive countless judicious pruning sessions between flower formation last year and peak spring bloom.  Established silhouettes have been preserved with care not to revert century old bonsai back into a flower-less juvenile state. The common bonsai technique of pinching, or as an arborist would call “header cuts,” are used with reservation. The resulting branch ramification may not allow enough sunlight into canopies to disinfect the diseases flowering trees are prone to. The culture of masterpiece flowering bonsai by pruning is both selective and reductive. The strongest branches are often removed while leaving the little phototropic lateral ones. Those lateral branches, or “spurs,” as an orchardist may say, are where flowers are born. 

With all the help they are receiving from birds, bees, and humans at the U.S. National Arboretum the flowers are sure to be pollinated this spring. Another growth ring will form, flowers will become crabapples and exhibitions will change. This year, the Museum’s fall fruit and foliage special exhibit will be held from October 29 through November 13th. It will highlight bonsai and penjing from the collections at peak autumn color and ripeness. The seasonal nature of bonsai ensures that there is always something to look forward to.

Historical Tree Spotlight: A Cork Bark Collaboration

Parent and child style cork bark Japanese black pine. Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Arboretum.

For this iteration of our Historical Tree Spotlight series, we unveil the history and creative process behind a special cork bark Japanese black pine ( Pinus thunbergii ‘Corticosa’), which is truly a rare specimen. It is a variation of the conventional Japanese black pine (P. thunbergii) found in coastal Japan and South Korea. The cork bark variety of black pine has an overly active cork cambium that makes an already rugged barked pine a novel wonder. The tree prefers mild climates and makes for a popular and aesthetically pleasing choice for bonsai enthusiasts.  

You can check out the cork bark bonsai above at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. It is in a parent and child style configuration that has been in training since 1980, when two prunnings from another cork bark pine bonsai in the Museum’s collections were grafted to a Japanese black pine rootstock. The trees represent a mature parent tree in the wild that has given rise to a younger succession which has thrived under the larger tree's protection, yet reaches toward the light to become its own presence in the woodland. 

Read more about the Japanese Black Pine here in our Species Spotlight.

The textured bark of the cork bark variety provides an enhanced and unique look to this bonsai classic.

“The overall ruggedness of black pines in general is valued in bonsai culture, but the cork bark has the next level of barking that really makes this rare and prized,” says Museum Curator Michael James.

One of the cork bark Japanese black pines in 1989  after being grafted by Robert Drechler. Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Arboretum.

The origin of this tree begins in 1980 with the Museum's very first Curator, Robert Drechsler, who passed away late last year. Since cork bark black pines are difficult to propagate, Drechsler used his skills as a talented horticulturist to graft a branch of the cork bark variety onto a conventional black pine rootstock. Dreschler placed the graft low on the base of the trunk, as the difference between black pine and cork bark is so dramatic that a high graft will cause an undesirable inverse taper due to the thickness of the corky bark.

The addition of a second tree was performed in 1999 by the Museum’s second Curator, Warren Hill, creating the parent and child, or twin trunk style we see today. A later curator transplanted the bonsai into a round container made by the American ceramicist, Ron Lang.   

“This tree is a good example of the collaborative art that bonsai is,” says James. “The media is a living organism and has a lifespan longer than the average human. It requires multiple people in continuum to care for, shape and form.”

The main tree in 1989 before its current multi tree configuration by Warren Hill. Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Arboretum.

The Cork Bark Black Pine exemplifies a core mission of the U.S. National Arboretum, as it is a rare specimen of plant DNA. The arboretum collects, conserves and distributes plant germplasm, acting as a library of sorts. Their repository of genetic information benefits both the scientific community and the public good. 

James also credits the impact of this flourishing tree to the work and influence of Robert Drechsler.

“Robert Dreschsler said, ‘we can only hope we've left something behind that will live on,’ and I think it's definitely true in his case,” says James.

Drechsler’s grafted cork barks were originally a part of the Museum’s Education Collection. What started as a bonsai experiment and tool of education has become a collaborative artistic expression. The bonsai has been removed from the Education Collection and placed into the more permanent North American Collection.

The Ever-Evolving Art of Bonsai

The centuries-old craft is thriving as both a hobby and an art form, with contemporary practitioners around the world asking what lessons it can impart today.

In 1913, A shipment of plants from the Yokohama Nursery Co. in Japan arrived in the port of San Francisco, among them a seven- foot-tall trident maple destined for the Japanese Pavilion at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to be held two years later. More than a century old, the tree was an exemplar of the Imperial style, a type of bonsai developed for shoguns and feudal lords and named after the Imperial court during the 19th-century Meiji Restoration, an era of cultural transformation that arose following the country’s 214-year-long period of isolation. Evenly spaced branches reached out from a trunk twisted into gentle contrapposto, its clusters of spring green foliage suggesting the outline of an isosceles triangle. Like most bonsai from that time, the maple expressed an ageless ideal of the natural world wrested into equilibrium.

When the exposition ended, the maple was purchased by Kanetaro Domoto, a Japanese immigrant who arrived in Oakland, Calif., in the 1880s and co-founded with his brothers what would soon become the largest Japanese-owned plant nursery in the country. When the Domotos lost their property — which once spanned 48 acres — during the Depression, Kanetaro’s eldest son, Toichi, brought the trident maple to his own nursery in nearby Hayward, but by 1942 the family was imprisoned at Colorado’s Amache internment camp.

In the camps, bonsai artists — those forced, like the Domotos, to give up their collections — made trees and flowers from paper and wire, makeshift manifestations of their own heartbreak. After the war, when the camps were closed, those practitioners started local clubs as private spaces for Japanese American hobbyists, eventually welcoming a broader public fascinated by Japanese aesthetics. Toichi Domoto returned to his nursery, which had been left in the care of an employee, and began the long process of restoring his family’s prized maple. In his absence, the tree had grown scraggly, its wooden container rotted and its roots broken through into the soil below.

In the decades that followed, the Domoto Maple, which now stands nearly nine feet tall and is a centerpiece of the permanent collection at the Pacific Bonsai Museum outside Tacoma, Wash., became a living symbol of struggle and survival — and an inadvertent precursor to a new movement of contemporary bonsai. By training native species into sculptural forms that express their unique ecological and cultural climates, bonsai artists from East Asia to South America are proposing a new, expressionist style that both questions and embraces the constraints of this centuries-old botanical tradition, exploring the immensity not just of nature but of human experience itself.

A Rocky Mountain juniper created by Ryan Neil of Bonsai Mirai outside Portland, Ore. Chris Hornbecker, © Bonsai Mirai

The Practice of miniaturizing plants is thought to have come to Japan from China sometime around the seventh century, when the two countries formally established diplomatic ties. By that point, Chinese gardeners had likely been creating potted landscapes, or penjing (“potted scenery”), for hundreds of years, bringing nature into the homes of political elites, painters and calligraphers. Penjing, as it developed over the centuries, didn’t idealize nature but rather portrayed — or, as some bonsai scholars suggest, exaggerated — its strange, expansive beauty. Until the 1970s, when the Chinese government began codifying five regional schools of penjing, each with its own approach to styling local species through cutting, wiring or pinching, there were few rules: Early guides published in the 16th and 17th centuries suggested that practitioners should attempt to imitate values like vigor and austerity represented in classical landscape painting, says Phillip E. Bloom, the 38-year-old curator of the Chinese Garden at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif. Often, the principles were abstract — an artisan might have aimed, Bloom says, “to somehow create heaven in the tree” — which left penjing open to poetic interpretation.

As early as the 12th century, Japanese craftspeople and monks had likewise evolved the art into a controlled, observational form that later came to be known as bonsai (“potted planting”); while the term itself had existed for centuries, it was not until the Meiji era (1868-1912) that it took on its modern meaning. By then, scholars had begun to classify elements like trunk shapes, branch placement and preferred species — any locally grown, woody-stemmed perennial with true branches and relatively small leaves, including pine, maple, juniper, beech, elm, cherry and plum. Bonsai could range in size from just a few inches tall to Imperial trees that could exceed six feet. Regardless of size or species or age, each tree distilled the sublime beauty of an ancient forest. Today, the Kyoto-based bonsai curator and scholar Hitomi Kawasaki, 41, compares the ideal form of classical bonsai to the kamae posture of Noh theater, with the actor’s knees slightly bent and arms held away from the body. “If you’re in that stance, it’s the most stable point, and if you can let go, it’s almost like floating,” Kawasaki says. “With bonsai, it’s similar: There’s a point of balance, you strengthen that point and everything comes into being.” When practitioners succeed in this, their trees can outlive them by centuries, their growth slowed, but never fully halted, by confinement; if the specimens are off balance, they eventually wither. Poised between control and abandon, creation and destruction, life and death, the art is, as Kawasaki writes in a forthcoming essay, “an attempt to find a middle way out of dualism.”

Though European missionaries encountered penjing and bonsai as early as the 16th century, these crafts were then practiced exclusively in East Asia by masters who largely tended the collections of aristocratic patrons or government officials. But during the Meiji period, bonsai specimens were displayed at world’s fairs in cities like Paris,

Vienna and Chicago, helping spark a craze for the aesthetic movement known as Japonisme, which influenced the French Impressionists and countless European fine jewelry and furniture companies. By the mid-20th century, though, both bonsai and penjing temporarily stalled in their home countries; in Japan, most nurseries were asked to grow food during World War II, and in China, the discipline was purged in the Cultural Revolution as a relic of the feudal past.

Neil’s Yatsubusa elm for Bonsai Mirai. Chris Hornbecker © Bonsai Mirai

Neil’s vine maple for Bonsai Mirai. Lani Milton © Bonsai Mirai

Despite that, the art form flourished in the West thanks to teachers like Yuji Yoshimura, who taught bonsai to foreign diplomats and American G.I.s stationed in Japan after the war, and the charismatic, Colorado-born John Naka, who introduced the practice into households across the United States. Working in Southern California from 1946 until his death in 2004, Naka made extensive use of native trees such as California junipers and coast live oaks, a departure from traditionally favored Japanese species like black pine, cedar and maple. He published a pair of seminal technical guides and mentored students around the world, inspiring new clubs to form in Australia and South Africa and across South America. Though Naka’s trees were formal — in his most famous work, a miniature forest of 11 Foemina junipers held at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in Washington, D.C., tufts of foliage levitate around a cluster of pin-straight trunks — his cosmopolitan view of bonsai set him apart from some of his peers who, in the 1950s, argued that bonsai should be taught exclusively in Japanese. “There are no borders in bonsai,” Naka once said. “The dove of peace flies to palace as to humble house, to young as to old, to rich and poor.”

Then, in the 1980s, the Japanese practitioner Masahiko Kimura, now 81, rose to global prominence with large Shimpaku junipers contorted into clouds of foliage swirling around ghostly deadwood bases. If Naka described bonsai in the utopian language of 1960s California, then Kimura, who often gave workshops in Europe, espoused a vision for bonsai that was as vivid, muscular and ego-driven as Modernist painting, recasting the master not as a craftsperson but as an auteur.

A bantigue tree created by the Filipino bonsai artist Bernabe Millares. Courtesy of Susan Lee

Today, Naka’s and Kimura’s students continue to redefine the field: Take, for instance, Ryan Neil, who founded his studio, Bonsai Mirai, outside Portland, Ore., in 2010 after a six-year apprenticeship at Kimura’s garden in the Saitama prefecture, home to Japan’s most venerated bonsai nurseries. Neil, 39, combines his teacher’s formal daring with Naka’s open, idealistic approach, sculpting Rocky Mountain

junipers into pale white streamers or rugged bursts of deadwood reaching out from plumes of foliage. These trees, he says, “allow people to see their place in the native environment.”

On Croatia’s Dalmatian coast, Marija Hajdic, 45, celebrates seasonal transformation with wild plum trees that blister with pale pink blossoms in the spring, and deciduous hornbeams that drop their leaves each winter to reveal branches that seem to claw at the air. Like Neil, Hajdic works principally with foraged trees — known as yamadori in Japan — often gathering ones that are dynamic and wild rather than calming or geometric. “When I go to nature, I want my heart to start pounding,” she says.

In Japan, where classical bonsai still predominates and young people view the craft primarily as a hobby for the elderly and the rich, the 40-year-old artist Masashi Hirao, based in Saitama, has turned public demonstrations in which he plants, prunes and wires his trees for live audiences — a common source of income for bonsai professionals — into performance art, complete with live music, a practice that traditionalists have denounced as antithetical to bonsai’s meditative intent. In his displays for retail spaces and fashion shows, Hirao has suspended wispy junipers in tiered ceramics and trained variegated landscapes over precarious stacks of stone. “The trees themselves are not about self-expression. I’m a servant to the tree,” he says. “The way I put the trees together is how I express myself.”

Then there are Filipino artists, like Bernabe Millares, who work with the mangroves that fringe their archipelagic homeland, while their counterparts in Brazil, like Mário A G Leal, work with fruiting pitanga trees from their country’s tropical coast and gnarled calliandras from the northeastern bush. In China, WeChat groups dedicated to penjing have proliferated, introducing species and styles from regions that previously had no formal tradition, while a new generation of oligarchs has spent small fortunes collecting penjing, sometimes investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single plant. The venerable Seikouen nursery in Saitama teaches hobbyists to make playful, accessible bonsai using inexpensive materials — similar to the “pop bonsai” described by the author Lisa Tajima in her 2004 book of the same name — while the increased exportation of classic species, says Kawasaki, the Kyoto-based scholar, has led young artists to experiment with nontraditional plants like gajumaru, a banyan from the island of Okinawa, in the south, that is rarely used by older masters.

For enthusiasts who have taken to bonsai during the Covid-19 pandemic — Bonsai Mirai saw a 27 percent increase in registrations for online classes from March through May of 2020 alone — the art form has become a ready metaphor for days spent in confinement and has offered solace from the monotony of modern life, much as it did for its early practitioners. In a world shadowed by death, it proved that life would carry

on, even under difficult circumstances. “When I look at a tree, my troubles are gone,” Kawasaki says. “Humans worry. The tree keeps growing.”

Source: The New York Times

The Beauty of Bonsai: How Artistic Potential Inspired a Lifetime of Bonsai Appreciation

Sketches courtesy of Mary Ellen Carsley

Bonsai has great artistic potential both as an art form itself, and as an inspiration to other artists. Artist and teacher Mary Ellen Carsley exemplifies this potential by developing a thoughtful connection between bonsai and her artistic practice. A life-long visitor of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, she has frequented the Museum since its inception in 1976. She maintains this bond by engaging with bonsai to cultivate mindful artistic experiences both for herself and her students.

The National Bonsai Foundation spoke with Carsley about her connection to the Museum and how her appreciation for bonsai is exemplified through her career.

Carsley sets the example for individuals seeking to pursue their passions. A trained architect, she left her own practice to begin a career as an artist and teacher. Carsley illustrated eight books before taking on a job as a full-time educator. She now shares her appreciation of bonsai, penjing and Asian art with her students at Severn School, where she remains a practicing artist.

Carsley fully embraces the opportunity to use artistic expression to stimulate cross cultural experience and personal reflection. 

“In the Western world, we're going really fast all the time, and there are some aspects, particularly in Asian techniques, for drawing, painting and printmaking, as well as calligraphy, that slow people down and make them more introspective about themselves and their process,” she said.

She and other instructors at her school began bringing students to the Museum’s collections to paint images of the trees and write poetry on the bonsai of their choice. After conducting the program for six years, Carsley and her students were interrupted following the Museum’s closure during the pandemic. She has since returned to bringing more of her students to experience the natural artistic beauty inherent in the Museum's collections.

“I really love making that hand-eye-mind-heart connection through the art for the students to give them that quiet, safe place, and time to contemplate and be in nature,” Carsley said.

While the museum remained closed, Carsley felt the absence of the place she had connected to nature and sought respite in since childhood. She frequently checked on the Museum's reopening status in anticipation of her return, not only to enjoy the reflective atmosphere of the collections but also to continue her work illustrating the bonsai.

“I was so starved for bonsai during the pandemic, I actually started my own collection,” Carsley said. 

Beginning with a tree gifted by a student, Carsley and her husband, Perry Carsley, now maintain a small collection in their home. She began her bonsai practice in isolation, studying bonsai books and making the insightful connection between creating conventional two-dimensional art and cultivating bonsai.

Photo courtesy of Perry Carsley

“As an art teacher, we teach using the elements of art and the principles of design,” said Carsley. “As I was reading these books, they actually used almost the exact same elements and principles in bonsai as I do when I teach drawing and painting. The whole artistic mindset is there, but the actual material of the art is alive and that's really fascinating.”

Carsley’s upcoming project involves tracing the progression of trees at the Museum that inspire her through the changing seasons (keep an eye out for her future works to find out which bonsai will be featured). Her artistic depictions of bonsai reflect a deep appreciation for shape and form, as well as Asian culture, with a skill she refined throughout her lifetime.

“When I'm thinking about my trees, my attitude towards them considers not what I wanted them to be but how to encourage them to be their best selves,” said Carsley. “There is something to be said for how you approach bonsai and teaching because your investment doesn't come right back to you right away. You hope to help both the students and bonsai grow into their authentic selves.”

You can enjoy more of Mary Ellen Carsley’s portfolio of work on her website www.maryellencarsley.com.