The Art of Bonsai

 It is a humbling thing, to start a tree from seed, put it in a small pot, and care for it for 37 years. This is not something that you can accomplish by wishing you could do it, by talking about doing it, or by having the good intention to keep it alive and thriving. You have to BE there for the tree. You have to remember to water it; you have to knock it out of the pot and make a safe place to overwinter it for 37 Novembers to Aprils. You have to dig it back out and repot it in the spring, trim the roots and top back just so, get it through the dog days of summer, sometimes watering twice a day. You can't wink out on your watch or it will die.

And so a bonsai tree 37 years in the pot speaks of commitment, it speaks of constancy and good care. I used to look at pictures of elderly Japanese people, wrapped in kimonos as they watered their bonsai, and read how the trees are passed from generation to generation, because they outlive their caretakers. All this I started, when I started some tiny two-leaved seedlings I dug from under some trees 37 years ago, when I was fresh out of college. My 40th reunion is 2020. These trees have seen me through two relationships; they pre-date my marriage to Bill; they've been with me since I was 24, moving from Connecticut to Maryland to Ohio, and staying for good with me in Ohio.

I asked Liam to sit next to them for a photo on his sixth birthday, November 8, 2005. He was into trains and pumpkins. Ahh, he melts my heart, with his fingers laced tightly together, the yellow "fantana" he picked out to wear so he'd look like a real conductor. That sweet boy.

 Now look at the biggest tree, in the middle. It's been in the pot for 23 years. It's in peak fall color. It's already a specimen. I also notice that the mandevilla clinging to the house has escaped the frost. The columnar blue juniper to the right has long since died and been replaced with a golden chamaecyparis, but the bonsais, and Liam, go on.

  

I wish I'd thought to take this shot every year, but opportunities go by every minute of every day. I did decide to recreate it on Liam's 17th birthday in November 2016, and I'm so glad I did.  Same trees in the same arrangement. Everyone has grown. There's Chet Baker, 11, hoping for a piece of maple cake. There's the cake, decorated with leaves from the same tree, now 34 years in the pot. There's beautiful Liam with his happy smile and the world stretched out in front of him. A morning glory has replaced the mandevilla. He carved the pumpkin. Mom just stood back and watched.

  
You'll notice that this tree has a split trunk. That happened in 1993, right after our wedding. A raccoon knocked it off the porch railing. It was dumb of me to keep it on the railing, in a beautiful midnight blue round that also broke in the accident. When I picked it up the next morning the trunk was split in two.

I called my dad. I still had a dad then. I could ask him what to do. He and I had stood on that porch at my wedding, looking at the young bonsais, only 11 years in their pots. He had been so thrilled to see them, so impressed that I could keep them going through all my life changes, all my moves. He loved trees so very much, and he'd been my guide and mentor in growing things since I was in kindergarten, and I brought home my first purple petunia in a paper cup.

"Tape it together. Keep it watered. It'll live." And I did. I slathered it with white artist's tape and I think I dripped some candle wax on the wound, to keep the bugs out.  The trunk was cleanly bifurcated, and after it healed and the tape came off, it was more beautiful for the coon's careless act.  Man, it was beautiful. I love to think that I have something my father saw and touched. I love to think of the times when I could still call him for advice. He died April 10, 1994.  The tree went on.

 Here it is when Liam was just nine, and the house was grayish-green, and Baker was a shiny wasp-waisted masterpiece.

2008

2008

Liam was helping me put the bonsais to bed, when they still fit in a little cinderblock-lined pit I'd dug under the back deck. Jeez, I look like a kid, too.
 

2008



 This was always our largest tree, and it was awesome even in 2008. Imagine it now, 11 years hence. Imagine us all.

2008

2008

Our subject in 2013, in its prime, in best fall color.

 Snow caught me before I was able to put it to bed in 2013. The bifurcated trunk, neatly highlighted in white.

2013

2016. It's the one in the blue pot. See how leggy it's gotten? 

 
 I bumped it up into the red-brown pot in 2017. It's lost most of its leaves, and you can see it's way outgrown that pot, at least by my standards, and it's time to give it more foot room.

2017

4/19/18

Spring of 2018,  above, with the bluebells from my sweet friend Jen a-blooming. Our tree is the center one, silhouetted against the boxwoods. It's got no lower branches coming at all. It's just going for broke, heading up and out.  I've given it a bigger pot, and that's helped with its general health, but it still has a lanky shape and, short of totally beheading it, I can't figure out how to reshape it so the top is in proportion to the roots and trunk. I don't want to behead it.What to do? This tree was becoming No Longer an Asset. This is my coded phrase for house plants that have outgrown their beauty and usefulness. But this is no houseplant. This is a tree, a spirit, a thing I revere, a thing of permanence. After so many years being bumped from tiny, to small, to medium, to large pots, it was tired of confinement. When a tree is just DONE with being subjected to the art of bonsai, it lets you know. 

I had begun to think about planting this Japanese maple out in 2015.  By "planting out," I mean setting it free. Letting it be the tree it is trying to be. I had no idea where I’d put it. There were already two liberated bonsai in the yard, and they offer delightful deep maple shade now, being tall enough to allow us to set up lawn chairs beneath their splendid tiny leaves and fine, fine branches. So we do. It’s lovely to take a cool drink and your laptop or the phone or a good book and go outside and sit under what was once a potted bonsai. It’s like having a room of your own, outdoors. Sitting under a liberated bonsai makes you think about growth and constancy, time and the power of trees.

 

 And the fall color is still incredible.

When Bill died, I knew what I wanted to do. I now had a new place and a  perfect spot to turn this fretful tree loose. I'd plant it near his grave, where it would eventually give us shade to sit under when we visited him. It took me a good while to get around to it, though, because it isn’t a trivial thing, planting a tree that stands waist-high. I decided to start schooling it for release in April, moving it from its usual partly shaded spot to full sun, because it was going to have to get used to baking out in the open meadow. 

I’ve had a heck of a time keeping all my trees adequately watered in the brutal heat waves this summer. When their trunks get as big around as your arm, they drink a lot! Here's the bifurcated trunk of this tiny but massive tree in 2018. Thank you, Long-dead Raccoon.

 Truth be told, I was happy to contemplate letting Mother Nature and its considerable root system take care of this largest of my bonsais going forward. I’ve been watering this tree for more than half my life! 

To be continued... 

Sorry about the antic type sizes in this post. I've been beating my head against Blogger's wall for an hour, trying to get everything to a readable size. I think I've effected a change, and it reverts back to caption size text when I publish. Pbbbbbt!