BGuthrie Photos: DC -- U.S. Natl Arboretum -- National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

DC -- U.S. Natl Arboretum -- National Bonsai & Penjing Museum:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. ARBONS_210606_001.JPG: Welcome to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum As you enjoy the open-air museum, please remember that this is not a park or playground. We ask that you honor the following rules: * No pets allowed. * No food or drink. * No bikes. Museum closes at 4:00pm.
2. ARBONS_210606_020.JPG: Timeless Trees Centuries ago the art of cultivating trees in pots traveled across the sea from China to the island nation of Japan. There it slowly acquired a distinctively Japanese style. While the Chinese sought to capture the essence of their wilderness in miniature form, the Japanese chose to tame nature by standardizing styles and techniques. They believed that bonsai, like haiku poetry, should inspire mindfulness. The Japanese people's spiritual reverence for older trees led them to create bonsai styles that imitated the characteristics of age. Tapered trunks with flaring bases, dead wood, and branches bending with great weight all reflect the qualities of a tree's advanced years. Even a young tree might appear old when trained to develop these features. In Japan, bonsai has long been recognized as a fine art with the same seriousness of intent and depth of meaning as poetry, music, painting, or sculpture. We invite you to contemplate the masterpieces of this centuries-old art form displayed here. Shaped by human hands Nurtured becomes nurturing Slowly growing dreams
3. ARBONS_210606_023.JPG: Mastering Forms Japanese bonsai artists created idealized images of mature trees, taking inspiration from the trees around them. Observing the many ways that trees grew -- straight up or leaning, for example -- they created rules for shaping bonsai into typical forms. While each bonsai is unique, it may be classified according to the way its creator styled it. Look for the standard bonsai styles below as you walk through the pavilion.
4. ARBONS_210606_027.JPG: Priceless Gifts In honor of the American Bicentennial, a committee of experts journeyed through all four major Japanese islands to find the most noble bonsai to offer as gifts. When the United States turned 200 in 1976, it gratefully accepted 53 bonsai and 6 viewing stones from the people of Japan. The selection is included one bonsai for every U.S. State, plus three from the Imperial Collections. Members of the Nippon Bonsai Association assured that each tree represented the mastery of the art form achieved by generations of Japanese bonsai artists. The extraordinary gift of friendship became the National Arboretum's first bonsai collection. Inspiring A Vision His numerous collecting trips to Japan in the 1950s and 1960s exposed USDA plant explorer John L. Creech to the country's wealth of plant material used in bonsai. He learned to appreciate the horticultural expertise required to keep trees planted in pots alive for centuries. After becoming director of the U.S. National Arboretum in 1973, Dr. Chreech knew he wanted to showcase Japan's most honored form of plant culture. Through his efforts, the Japanese bicentennial gift cleared the diplomatic and quarantine hurdles required to bring 53 bonsai from their home in Japan to serve as cultural ambassadors living in the Nation's Capital.
5. ARBONS_210606_042.JPG: Japanese White Pine In training since 1625
6. ARBONS_210606_046.JPG: If trees could talk... ...this one would tell quite a story. It has grown as a bonsai for so long that it passed through five generations of a single family of bonsai artists in Japan before crossing the ocean to live here. The Yamaki family was well known in Japan for their dedication to the art of bonsai. Attached to the family's home in Hiroshima was an outdoor nursery filled with priceless trees, including this one. On the morning of August 6, 1945, the Yamaki family and their bonsai survived the atomic blast that led to the end of the war between Japan and the United States. Thirty years later, bonsai master Masaru Yamaki offered this tree, one of his oldest and most precious, as part of a gift from the people of Japan to the people of the United States in honor of the country's 200th birthday. Today, this remarkable tree and symbol of good will serves to welcome visitors to the nation's bonsai museum. Here it does what bonsai are meant to do: speak to each of us in a very personal way.
7. ARBONS_210606_056.JPG: Satsuki Azalea Training Age Not Known
8. ARBONS_210606_074.JPG: Trident Maple In training since 1918
9. ARBONS_210606_083.JPG: I thought the benches might have been removed for social distancing rules but the folks said the benches were removed because the wood had fallen apart.
10. ARBONS_210606_089.JPG: Ezo Spruce In training since 1925
11. ARBONS_210606_094.JPG: Sargent Juniper Training age not known
12. ARBONS_210606_110.JPG: Sargent Juniper In training since 1905
13. ARBONS_210606_118.JPG: Japanese Black Pine In training since 1895
14. ARBONS_210606_122.JPG: Japanese Yew In training since 1966
15. ARBONS_210606_129.JPG: Japanese Red Pine In training since 1795
16. ARBONS_210606_144.JPG: Chinese Juniper In training since 1953
17. ARBONS_210606_147.JPG: "There are no borders in bonsai..."
18. ARBONS_210606_164.JPG: Branching Out Though an ancient art in Asia, the practice of bonsai spread through the western world only in the 19th century. Today, all types of people, not just scholars and experienced masters, are learning about and practicing this living art. As artists from different regions, like North America, create bonsai for penjing with their native plants, unique interpretations will emerge. Some already have -- discover them in this collection.
19. ARBONS_210606_198.JPG: Pitch Pine In training since 1967
20. ARBONS_210606_204.JPG: Chinese Elm In training since 1970
21. ARBONS_210606_217.JPG: Trident Maple In training since 1976
22. ARBONS_210606_226.JPG: Buttonwood In training since 1975
23. ARBONS_210606_230.JPG: Parsley Hawthorn In training since 1983
24. ARBONS_210606_234.JPG: California Juniper In training since 1967
25. ARBONS_210606_240.JPG: Eastern Arborvitae In training since 1989
26. ARBONS_210606_246.JPG: Bald-Cypress, Pond-Cypress In training since 1988
27. ARBONS_210606_255.JPG: Satsuki Azalea Age unknown
28. ARBONS_210606_261.JPG: Bonsai Pioneer Yuji Yoshimura dared to do what no one had done before: He wrote the most complete practical book on bonsai in English and taught Westerners in his native Japan and in other nations to appreciate and practice this ancient art. Drawn to the potential for bonsai in the United States, Yoshimura spent the last decades of his life living here, helping to train the first generation of American bonsai artists. The creation of the National Bonsai & Penjin Museum fulfilled his dream of a place to preserve and display their best work. Yuji Yoshimura (1921 - 1997)
29. ARBONS_210606_287.JPG: Ponderosa Pine In training since 1966
30. ARBONS_210606_294.JPG: Ponderosa Pine Montana Stately Treasures 48
31. ARBONS_210606_298.JPG: An Art Form Is Born Over a thousand years ago, China's stunning landscape inspired its people to reproduce it in miniature. Using carefully selected rocks and plants, artists recreated the land's rugged mountains, vast horizons, and noble trees on trays and in pots. Enter through the moon gate to see our gallery of these poetic interpretations of nature called penjing.
32. ARBONS_210606_330.JPG: Inherited Wealth Yee-sun Wu (1904-2005)
33. ARBONS_210606_335.JPG: Trident Maple Training age not known
34. ARBONS_210606_345.JPG: Rock Penjing "Lijiang River in Spring" Gift of the Shanghai Botanical Garden, 2006
35. ARBONS_210606_364.JPG: Chinese Elm In training since 1946
36. ARBONS_210606_372.JPG: Chinese Elm In training since 1951
37. ARBONS_210606_375.JPG: Satsuki Azalea In training since 1987
38. ARBONS_210606_382.JPG: Chinese Elm In training since 1948 Rock Penjing "Autumn Winds" Gift of the Shanghai Botanical Garden, 2006
39. ARBONS_210606_392.JPG: Water Jasmine Age unknown
40. ARBONS_210606_399.JPG: Trident Maple In training since 2001
Wikipedia Description: National Bonsai Foundation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The National Bonsai Foundation (NBF) is a nonprofit organization that was created to sustain the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. NBF also helps the United States National Arboretum showcase the arts of Bonsai and Penjing to the general public. The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum is located on the 446-acre (1.80 km2) campus of the US National Arboretum in northeast Washington, D.C. Each year over 200,000 people visit the museum. Distinguished national and international guests of various Federal Departments are also among the visitors. ...

History

In 1976, the country of Japan gave a gift of 53 Bonsai trees to America for the United States Bicentennial. The trees were selected by the Nippon Bonsai Association, with financial assistance from the Japan Foundation. The trees arrived at the Potomac Bonsai Association, and volunteers worked with the staff of the US National Arboretum to keep the trees in display condition. In 1979, Janet Lanman talked with Dr. John Creech, Director of the Arboretum the possibility of adding American bonsai to the museum. Dr. Creech proposed this idea to well-known Bonsai teacher Marion Gyllenswan. An independent body of Bonsai authorities was assigned to review private Bonsai collections, possibly as a part of a national collection. These Bonsai authorities were called the National Bonsai Committee. In 1982, the National Bonsai Committee was reformed into the National Bonsai Foundation (NBF). The National Bonsai Foundation recruited people from all across the country to be directors. The members of the first Board were Marybel Balendonck, Larry Ragle, Melba Tucker, Frederic Ballard, and H. William Merritt. MaryAnn Orlando served as the Executive Director and principal fund raiser for the NBF. Marion Gyllenswan was appointed the first president of the NBF. (Frederic Ballard would be the second President from 1990-1996 and Felix B. Laughlin would be the third from 1996 to present).

In 1986, the ten-year anniversary of the gift from Japan, the National Bonsai Foundation announced that they would be building the American Bonsai Pavilion to complement the Japanese Pavilion, and to showcase a collection of North American Bonsai. This became a reality in 1990. That October 1, the American Bonsai Pavilion was dedicated to two American Bonsai Masters. The Yuji Yoshimura Educational Center is a work space and a classroom. The John Y. Naka North American Pavilion provides the display area for the North American Bonsai Collection.

With donations from the Bonsai community, the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum grew greatly in the early 1990s. The Kaneshiro Tropical Conservatory (named for "Papa" Kaneshiro, the father of Hawaiian Bonsai) was added in 1993 for delicate trees. A behind-the-scenes greenhouse was also added for trees in development. The Mary E. Mrose International Pavilion for Information, Education and Cultural Exhibits was completed in 1996. And the NBF website was launched three years later. Awakening the Soul: The National Viewing Stone Collection (2000) became the first book published by the National Bonsai Foundation. The following year the NBF sponsored the first North American Bonsai Pot Competition for ceramic artists, published The Bonsai Saga: How the Bicentennial Collection Came to America by former U.S. National Arboretum Director, Dr. John Creech, and published a translation into English of Forest, Rock Planting & Ezo Spruce Bonsai by the Japanese Bonsai Master Saburo Kato. Johann F. Klodzen was appointed NBF Executive Director. With significant funding from NBF, in 2003 the Maria Vanzant Upper Courtyard and the H. William Merritt Entrance Gate to the Kato Family Japanese Stroll Garden were dedicated. The NBF also became a membership organization that year, supported by annual dues as well as by contributions. A number of bonsai societies, related groups, and individuals then became members. The NBF, along with the U.S. National Arboretum and the Potomac Bonsai Association, hosted the World Bonsai Friendship Federation's 5th World Bonsai Convention in Washington D.C. in late May 2005. Also that year, John Naka’s Sketchbook and the Proceedings of the International Symposium on Bonsai and Viewing Stones (which was held in 2002) were both published by NBF. The completion of the Rose Family Garden and the paving of the lower courtyard were accomplished with NBF funds. In 2011 the Campaign For The Japanese Pavilion: A Gift Renewed was established to raise funds for the renovation and improvement of that Pavilion which had been damaged over the years from exposure to the elements. The much-needed restoration is planned for 2013 if necessary funds can be raised. Over the years funds have also been used on occasion to purchase select pots from Japan for some of the collection trees, and new periodicals and historical reference volumes from Japan for the museum library. Because the museum and National Arboretum are part of the USDA, these items become owned by the United States National Agricultural Library.
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