Bonsai and Penjing. Ann McClellan
Garden, Portland, Oregon
The “Specimens of the famous Japanese minimized trees, above 100 years in pots” featured in the Yokohama Nursery Co. Catalog of 1898 are similar to bonsai brought from Japan by Larz and Isabel Anderson.
A Yokohama Nursery Co. Catalog from 1903 features flowering cherry blossoms from Japan on its cover to entice overseas plant buyers.
When he visited Japan in 1901, renowned plant explorer David Fairchild photographed a man creating a bonsai at the Yokohama Nursery Co.
David Fairchild was another visitor to the Yokohama Nursery Co. in Japan where he photographed a bonsai being worked on. A plant explorer, he and his wife Marion played key roles in the 1912 gift of more than 3,000 cherry blossom trees from Tokyo to Washington, D.C., the precursor of the Bicentennial Gift of bonsai from Japan. Fairchild introduced many hundreds of plants new to the United States, including soybeans, mangoes and nectarines, and he was a leading proponent of the creation of the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.
Interest in Japanese-style gardens and in bonsai languished during World War II when anything related to Japan was considered suspect. Following the war, there was a resurgence of interest because Americans returning from Japan were eager to introduce their compatriots to the expressions of natural beauty they had experienced there. Bonsai enthusiasts who had hidden or given away their collections during the war brought them forward or reclaimed them. Some formed clubs while others taught bonsai techniques, leading to a broadening of awareness of the art form. Japanese-style gardens also enjoyed renewed popularity after the war, encouraged by Japan which sought to strengthen bonds of peace and friendship. Some of these gardens were developed privately and some were public, often created through “sister city” relationships.
A glass lantern slide by Francis Benjamin Johnston in 1923, 8.26 x 10.16 cm, shows The Huntington’s moon bridge five years before the gardens were opened to the public.
The Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is one of the oldest Japanese-inspired gardens in the U.S. It opened to the public in 1915.
Not every Japanese-style garden or arboretum could include bonsai because they require a major commitment of financial and personnel resources due to their need for daily care and skilled maintenance. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was one exception: it was given a bonsai collection in 1925. The Arnold Arboretum was another when it received part of the Larz Anderson collection in the 1930s.
Other major public gardens added bonsai to their collections after World War II. The Longwood Gardens bonsai collection began in 1959 with 13 trees purchased from Yuji Yoshimura, who also played a pivotal role in the development of the national collection at the Arboretum. The Huntington collection began in 1968 with the gift of a personal collection. The National Bonsai & Penjing Museum itself was founded to house the Bicentennial Gift of bonsai from Japan to the United States in 1976. A year later, the Chicago Botanic Garden opened its bonsai collection, followed by other major collections across the country and in Canada.
Today, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum is proud to show exemplars of the finest bonsai from around the world, brought together to allow visitors to experience nature’s most delightful and enchanting qualities as expressed in these living works of art.
SPOTLIGHT ON Dr. John L. Creech
Distinguished horticulturist and plant explorer, Dr. John L. Creech (1920–2009) was Director of the U.S. National Arboretum from 1973 to 1980. A Rhode Island native, Creech’s creativity and gardening skills kept him and 1,500 fellow prisoners of war alive in remote Poland during World War II. Returning to civilian life in 1947, Creech joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Foreign Plant Exploration. In 1955, he made the first official American plant-hunting trip to Japan after World War II, searching for plants to be used for food crops, pharmaceutical research or ornamental purposes. While there, he met Yuji Yoshimura, leading to Yuji’s eventual move to the U.S. where he played an important role in bringing bonsai to Washington, D.C.
An enthusiastic and successful plant hunter, Creech was involved in the introduction to the United States of new varieties of camellias, azaleas, daylilies, chrysanthemums and sedum. Most famously, he found and collected the seeds of a Crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia fauriei) on the remote Japanese island of Yakushima, which became the source of