A Special Message From Our Partners at the U.S. National Arboretum

I’m very pleased to be able to tell you that Andy Bello will begin his permanent position as Assistant Curator of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum on June 21, 2020.  Andy finished his internship as our most recent First Curator Apprentice in March. Since that time, he has served as a temporary technician and will continue to do so until June 21.

Andy has a deep commitment and true passion for bonsai and penjing. He is very engaging and is always ready and willing to share that passion with visitors and volunteers alike. We are very fortunate to have him in this permanent position. Andy hails from Illinois and has spent time in Arizona and Oregon. He’s worked with koi in a previous job, so he knows his fish, too.

Because the bonsai and penjing require daily care, Andy will work a Sunday through Thursday schedule, but this schedule has been somewhat disrupted by the current coronavirus situation. He and Michael have been working overtime to tend the plants with help from Pat Lynch and Brad Evans to make up for all the lost volunteer help while that program is on a pause for safety reasons.

Please join me in congratulating Andy on his new appointment. He is a great asset to our bonsai team.

Scott Aker

Head of Horticulture and Education

U.S. National Arboretum

Thank You Essential Workers!

Dear Community,

In these unprecedented times, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum and U.S. National Arboretum are unfortunately closed to the public. We wish we could be sharing our blooming trees, luscious greenery and bonsai history with you all right now! 

Luckily, a handful of Museum employees are still hard at work – safely distanced and wearing masks – to ensure our trees are in healthy, thriving condition when we can welcome visitors again.  

Thank you so much to these five essential workers for your dedication to the preservation of our Museum’s trees! We wish for your safety and good health as you continue to take care of our fields, gardens and displays.

Sincerely,

Jack Sustic, Felix Laughlin and Bobbie Alexander, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the National Bonsai Foundation

Scott Aker, Head of Horticulture and Education, USNA

Michael James, Museum Curator

Andy Bello, Garden Technician, Museum

Patrick Lynch, Garden Technician, Asian Collections and Holly & Magnolia Collections

Brad Evans, Horticulturist, Introduction Garden

Museum Donors & Their Trees: The Buttonwood Queen

Mary Madison tends to a bonsai, courtesy of Orlando Bonsai.

What do you know about bonsai royalty?  

In our new blog series, “Museum Donors and Their Trees,” we sat down with Mary Madison, known throughout the bonsai community as “The Buttonwood Queen” for her fantastic work on the buttonwoods, or Conocarpus erectus, native to the United States. Madison said the nickname comes from one of her mentors, Ben Oki, who introduced her off the cuff as “The Buttonwood Queen” at a demonstration in California years ago, and the title stuck. 

She grew up helping her dad plant and work in the yard of their home south of Miami, where she first cultivated her love for growing plants. Madison also had a knack for drawing and other art forms, and she said a former boyfriend who served in Japan after World War II would send her pictures of bonsai. After looking at the pictures, she decided to try tree training for herself.  

“The first tree I started on was a buttonwood,” Madison said. “I just kept on at it and couldn’t stop. I still can’t, and I’m 90 years old.”

After attending a few demonstrations at the Bonsai Society of Miami, Madison ended up studying under Oki and John Naka up until the two passed away in 2018 and 2004, respectively. 

She had trained a group planting of cypresses to resemble the Everglades, and Naka had told her she had natural talent. From that day, a beautiful friendship of more than 40 years formed between Madison, her husband TJ, Naka and Oki.

She added that she was the first woman to join the private bonsai club Naka was a member of, and the group even named one of her trees – an honor in the bonsai community. Madison hosted a tea ceremony and open house to show off the tree, which the club named Sen Ryu, or “mystical dragon.”

Madison’s buttonwood – donated in 1990

The queen’s trees

Madison first donated a buttonwood to the Museum in 1990, a tree she dug up herself in South Florida. 

She worked on the buttonwood for about four or five years before receiving a call from the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum asking her to donate a tree. Madison said someone sprayed her tree with Malathion on the trip up to the Museum, which she said is almost “instant death” for buttonwoods, so the tree had no leaves when first on display. 

Luckily, Madison said, Museum workers took great care of the buttonwood. She said the tree is back to its full glory and maintains her original style but has grown quite a bit since she donated it.

Madison said she styled the tree keeping in mind the “odd” trunk shape, which she said likely formed because the buttonwood grew up through rocks. 

“I just started following basic rules, like keeping the bottom larger than the top, until i figured out exactly what I wanted,” she said. “Then I eliminated a few branches and went on from there.”

Madison’s second tree at the Museum traveled around the world before landing at the Museum. She originally sold the tree – a buttonwood, of course – years ago, and it changed hands a few times, ending up under the wing of the Central Intelligence Agency in 2019.

“When I saw that picture of it at the CIA it tickled me to death, I thought that was so funny. People might start thinking I'm a spy or something,” Madison said. “But the CIA was afraid they might kill it, so they donated it to the Museum.”

While the Museum is not currently open, you can read more about the buttonwood from the CIA in our October Historical Tree Spotlight and see her first donated buttonwood among other North American Collection in our virtual catalogue.

Madison still holds demonstrations for the Miami bonsai group and private clubs around Florida to this day.

“I'll probably die out there working on a tree,” she joked. “That would be what I want.”

World Bonsai Day’s Impact Around the World

World Bonsai Day was Saturday, May 9 this year and although we couldn’t celebrate in person, we certainly all celebrated together. If you missed the virtual celebration, click here. Check out the record-breaking numbers of engagement we saw on our website and social media on World Bonsai Day alone:

• 1,000+ website visits

• 16,000+ Facebook accounts reached

• 70+ posts used #WorldBonsaiDay or #WorldBonsaiDay2020

• 179,000 social media users that saw posts with #WorldBonsaiDay and #WorldBonsaiDay2020.

A History of World Bonsai Day: Around the Globe and at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

This tokonoma display was featured in the 2017 World Bonsai Day celebration. Spot the World Bonsai Friendship Federation logo on the scroll in the background!

When Master Saburo Kato gave a moving speech at the International World Bonsai Convention in Hawaii in 1980, he emphasized the idea of “bonsai no kokoro,” or the “spirit of bonsai.” National Bonsai Foundation Co-Presidents Jack Sustic and Felix Laughlin said the Japanese term expresses the idea that practicing the art and horticulture of bonsai raises one’s awareness of the beauty and fragility of nature and opens up one’s consciousness to the wonders of the natural world.

Then-assistant curator Aarin Packard and intern Danny Coffey lead a demonstration at the 2013 World Bonsai Day celebration.

 Kato would go on to repeat this sentiment in many speeches, inspiring bonsai artists around the globe. In Japan 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 bonsai. 

 “Kato believed from the bottom of his heart that more peace would exist in the world if everybody practiced the art of bonsai,” Sustic said. 

 After Kato passed in 2008, WBFF established an international day of celebration called World Bonsai Day to pay homage to Kato and his efforts to promote 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, around the time of Kato’s birthday, May 15. 

Sustic said the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum and U.S. National Arboretum generally celebrate the day with demonstrations, tours of the Museum and a special display of one of Kato’s trees. Some years the Museum raffles off the tree volunteers work on during the festivities. Sustic said the most memorable part of World Bonsai Day for him is seeing the excitement and amazement on the face of the person who wins that tree.

“Hopefully that leads to another person doing bonsai who otherwise wouldn't be doing bonsai or would never have been introduced in the first place,” he said. 

Laughlin said WBFF established centers around the globe to link public collections together, and a criterion for centers is to recognize World Bonsai Day.

 “Some people who first get into bonsai might think it's just a hobby, but it has a much deeper meaning,” Laughlin said. “In celebrating Saburo Kato's legacy, we're reaffirming what it truly means to practice bonsai. Kato really was such a great person, poet and teacher, and he could put the meaning of bonsai into words better than anyone else.” 

Former curator and current NBF Co-President Jack Sustic leads a tour in the upper courtyard at the 2015 World Bonsai Day celebration.

Museum Curator Michael James said the most memorable World Bonsai Day celebration for him was when he and Museum volunteers spent the day working on a forest planting donated by NBF Honorary Director Chase Rosade. He said the group’s goal was to incorporate Kato’s concepts and principles of forest plantings into the design. 

The National Bonsai Foundation translated Kato’s book, “Forest, Rock Planting and Ezo Spruce Bonsai,” into English and published it in 2001.

Rosade had arranged zelkova seedlings he brought home from Japan into a forest planting. The groupings are planted in odd-numbered groups of three or five and up to 17 to emulate the spontaneity of how seeds are dropped and grow in a naturally occuring forest. But Rosade’s grouping had so many zelkova that the arrangement appeared symmetrical and planned.

Saburo Kato stands next to one of his famous forest plantings at his nursery Mansei-en in Omiya, Japan.

In the public demonstration for that year’s World Bonsai Day, volunteers removed seedlings to thin the forest, accentuate the primary trees and emulate the randomness that occurs in nature – a concept Kato developed and taught about. 

“Kato was a total master of forest arrangements and compositions,” James said. 

Last year’s World Bonsai Day attendees gathered to watch Bonsai Master Michael Hagedorn direct work on five Museum trees in the Arboretum’s auditorium.

James added that the celebration helps promote international camaraderie around an activity generally recognized as a solitary endeavor between the practitioner and the tree. ”World Bonsai Day is not only enjoyable for that person practicing by themselves, but it brings them together with everyone else who enjoys it,” he said. “When you enjoy doing bonsai, it’s only natural to want to spend and appreciate it with other friends.”

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NBF is glad we could share World Bonsai Day with you this year. Use #WorldBonsaiDay2020 and tag us in the photos you post on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to help us encourage unity and peace. 

Now, test your knowledge with World Bonsai Day Trivia!

A Thank You from Our Co-Presidents on #GivingTuesday

May 5, 2020

Dear Supporters of the National Bonsai Foundation,

We hope this message finds you and your family healthy and safe. 

On this Giving Tuesday, as America focuses its attention on supporting charitable and social organizations, we wanted to reach out and thank you for your previous support. In times like these, we pause to reflect and appreciate your generosity and the tranquility that you have helped create here at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.  

Like you, those of us at the National Bonsai Foundation are adjusting to how the coronavirus pandemic has transformed our lives and our work. Gratefully, nature and art are still ours to enjoy, and bonsai is a deep and inspiring source of tranquility as we weather this crisis together.

The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum’s doors may be temporarily closed, but our mission continues. Here are some updates on the Museum and NBF from these last few weeks:

• A small team of Museum staff led by Curator Michael James is working to care for all the bonsai—while practicing proper social distancing. We’re especially appreciative of their efforts to keep these invaluable trees thriving this spring. Take a virtual stroll through the Museum’s extraordinary collections.

• The world-famous Yamaki Pine was repotted, keeping healthy this nearly 400-year-old bonsai that has survived generations of travel and travesty including the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. Learn how it was done. 

• We have taken steps toward much-needed capital improvements that will secure our natural treasures for generations to come while also positioning the Museum as an even greater draw for visitors to the U.S. National Arboretum. Look for more information on the new master plan for the Museum, coming soon.

• NBF is further embracing digital media to engage our supporters and visitors. Through our blog, Facebook, and Instagram we have curated stunning photo and video content for you to enjoy from home. 

• Please also plan to join us for World Bonsai Day on Saturday, May 9! In lieu of our usual Museum events, we’re moving the celebration online so people all over the world can celebrate the art of bonsai together. Visit our homepage and follow #WorldBonsaiDay on social media for never-before-seen articles, videos, and photos from NBF.

On behalf of our Board of Directors and staff, thank you for all you have done with us and for us. We also extend appreciation to all those working on the front lines during this challenging time.

We look forward to the day when the Museum can re-open and we can catch up with you in person. Be well.

Felix Laughlin Jack Sustic

Co-President Co-President

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If you'd like to support our efforts, you can make a donation here. Thank you.