The Art of Small Talk

Online bonsai course promotes the power of miniature  
BONSAI MASTER
Arthur Joura may share some of his secrets.
Photo used courtesy of the N.C. Arboretum/Abby Cantrell

In April 1990, after a “series of uninspired jobs,” Arthur Joura was hired by the North Carolina Arboretum. He was a nursery assistant — a “polite way of saying I was a tool that got put to work,” he explains lightheartedly. 

When bushes needed to be trimmed, Joura trimmed them. When trails needed to be built, Joura built them. He enjoyed the satisfaction of sore shoulders and sun-parched skin and the fact that most of his time was spent outdoors. But he never expected much from the job. Until he fell in love with tiny trees. 

Under Joura, the NC Arboretum’s bonsai garden has become known for its unusual emphasis on native Southern flora, like this pink azalea.

It all started in November 1992 when an elderly woman passed away and bequeathed her bonsai collection — an ailing gaggle of tropical plants — to the Arboretum. As the nursery supervisor surveyed the newly acquired ponytail palms, Joura averted his eyes and crossed his fingers. 

“I didn’t want to take care of them,” he says. “I liked doing physical work, and here were these little plants stuffed into little pots. I thought it was all so strange.”

Joura’s pleas fell on deaf ears, and he was soon enlisted to nanny the pocket-sized plants. Then, that following spring, he was sent to study at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum in Washington, D.C. Despite his initial resistance, something clicked at the museum. Joura saw what healthy, robust bonsai should look like and chatted with experts who spoke the language of all things bijou.  

“That prompted what turned into three decades of learning,” says Joura.

Today, as the Arboretum’s Bonsai Curator, Joura melds the principles of a 1,000-year-old Eastern discipline with the flora of these hills, creating an undeniably unique experience. In the Arboretum’s nationally recognized Bonsai Exhibition Garden, guests can explore an elfin forest of traditional Asian bonsai subjects like Japanese maple and Chinese elm. But they can also see species native to the Blue Ridge, like American hornbeam and Eastern white pine.  

“Most of my inspiration comes from the forests around here,” Joura notes. 

He reveals his various muses in The Curator’s Journal, an online course dedicated to the “simple truth about bonsai.” Revealed this spring, the year-long class looks less at the “how” of bonsai — which involves years of tedious pruning — and more at the “why.” 

“Every bonsai has two stories,” Joura writes in a post dated April 15. There’s a definitive story — its species, its age, who and what has contributed to its appearance, and so on. “The other story is the suggested one,” he pens. “It has to do with the impression the bonsai makes on the viewer, and involves both feelings and imagination.”

With all bonsai, Joura wants to spark a conversation of familiarity. He wants an Arboretum guest to observe a scene of red maple and shrubby St. John’s wort and think about that time they climbed Tennent Mountain in late autumn. Or that morning when they drank coffee on the Mendocino Coast. 

“What we’re doing is not something that celebrates exoticism or foreignness,” Joura explains, “but rather something that celebrates the human experience of nature.”

The Curator’s Journal, a monthly online course, contains regular entries along with supplemental materials, and provides opportunities to interact with the curator. Participants can subscribe any time during the year and have access to a full year’s entries. The subscription is $180 for 12 months, $90 for six months; Visit ncarboretum.org.

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