”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!