He has human children at home, but to hear the gentlemanly Arthur Joura talk about his beloved bonsai charges at the North Carolina Arboretum is to know that his fatherly feelings also accompany him to the greenhouse. Curator of the facility’s influential Bonsai Exhibition Garden, Joura is a master of miniaturist horticultural art and also its regional ambassador, one of the first and few to emphasize native specimens. He spoke to Carolina Home + Garden shortly before the Arboretum’s 15th annual bonsai showcase.
2010
You try to shift emphasis from the age of the trees to process and artistry. Why? Early on, it struck me that the common perception of bonsai as ancient little Oriental trees was not only misconstrued, but actually a hindrance to people discovering what makes bonsai worthwhile. We try to get past that clichéd idea and present bonsai as an enjoyable horticultural activity with artistic possibilities.
Since you’ve transformed the bonsai garden, you’ve hosted many national and international experts and guest speakers. Any standout moments? Robert Drechsler, who was the curator of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum in Washington, D.C. for its first 20 years, visited shortly after the Bonsai Exhibition Garden opened in 2005. He walked through slowly, studying everything, saying nothing. At the end I could not stand it anymore, so I asked him outright what he thought. He paused a moment and then replied, “I have only one comment, this should be in Washington!”
What do you consider a good bonsai for beginners? Common garden junipers make good beginners’ material for bonsai. These plants are easy to find, generally inexpensive, take well to bonsai culture and can produce pleasing results in a relatively short span of time.
Your work at the Arboretum focuses on native Appalachian specimens — definitely a new frontier. What are some of those trees? How does this practice speak to the importance of regionalism? They include Red Maple, American Hornbeam, American Beech, Pitch Pine and Eastern Hemlock. The challenge in using them is breaking away from the standard design ideas of Japanese bonsai, because many of our native plants do not fit so well in that mold. The reward is the satisfaction of using a small living piece of our Southern Appalachian environment as a medium for expressing our admiration of the beauty of nature around us. Not enough of this is happening in bonsai in our country.
What wrong ideas remain? Besides fixation on the age of the tree and the assumption of an Asian influence, the most common misconceptions involve the horticultural requirements. Some people think bonsai are a certain variety of tree, or that the miniaturization is a result of some sort of mistreatment of the plant, such as denying it water, or fertilizer, or sufficient room for its roots to grow. All of these ideas are false. I like to think that the N.C. Arboretum is slowly changing the public perception of bonsai.