Minnesota Bonsai Society
Bonsai Trees Provide Oakdale couple with Passion for Gardening
When it comes to plants, it’s never too late to acquire a new addiction. Just ask Jerry Johnson, who, after 43 years of gardening in Oakdale, has taken up bonsai big time.
Bonsai (pronounced bone-sigh) means tree-in-a-pot. But any potted tree isn’t a bonsai. It must be pruned and trained into an artistic shape and dwarfed by confining its roots to a shallow pot.
Bonsai grace many of the snug, leafy garden rooms Johnson and his wife, Jan, have created around their home. About 40 plants line walkways, sit on shelves and perch on specially built display stands. Many already are trimmed and potted, while others wait their turn for Johnson’s deft hands.
"I took my first bonsai class a year ago this spring," says Johnson, retired since 1997 after 38 years maintaining machines for Deluxe Corp. of Shoreview. "I had tried a couple of plants before that, but I hadn’t had much success keeping them over more than one winter. Now, some of these I’ve had for three years."
"People think they’ve got to plant a seed and wait 25 years to have a bonsai," says Mike Porcaro of Woodbury, Johnson’s teacher in a Cottage Grove community education class. "You can, but normally you get a bigger plant and cut it down so you can have a bonsai in a couple of hours."
Johnson also joined the Minnesota Bonsai Society, an organization of 200 members that offers monthly training for beginners (see box for details).
"There’s a high level of interest in bonsai here," says Pam Hempel of Hugo, an avid collector with her husband, bonsai society president Bob Hempel. "We fill our workshops every year, and many people come to our August State Fair show and Mother’s Day show at Como Conservatory."
Johnson’s interest in shape and form drew him to bonsai. He says he has always liked distorted plants, different shapes and branch structures.
Most of Johnson’s bonsai plants have familiar names — boxwood, Chinese elm, cotoneaster, hornbeam, Canadian hemlock, juniper and black olive. Some, like Ficus "Too Little" and Japanese maples called "Beni Ubi Gohan" and "Beni Otaki," are dwarf cultivars. Others are dwarfed by the bonsai process.
Johnson looks for woody plants with small leaves and short internodes. He collected the hemlock on Minnesota’s North Shore and dug a juniper and pine from his garden. But he bought most plants at the bonsai society’s fall and spring auctions and from mail-order nurseries such as New England Bonsai Gardens of Bellingham, Mass. (1-508-883-2842 or www.nebonsai.com).
Johnson grows "pre-bonsai" plants in regular pots until they develop strong roots. To create a bonsai, he trims the top off a plant, prunes the root system severely and plants it in a small, shallow bonsai pot. A favorite source is potter Sara Rayner in Red Wing, who makes hand-thrown stoneware bonsai containers (651-388-51330).
Johnson shapes some plants by trimming, others by wrapping branches with aluminum wire to force them into weeping or contorted forms.
Well-drained, gritty potting soil is critical. Johnson mixes his own, using one-fourth each of granite chips or No. 2 chicken grit, Turfus, Perlite and humus (bark chips or potting soil). Before mixing, he washes each ingredient in a sieve to remove dust. Plants need watering every day while they’re growing outside during the summer. They need repotting every three to four years, which involves pruning roots to keep them healthy and replanting in new soil to improve drainage.
To display bonsai in his garden, Johnson builds attractive platforms 3-feet to 5-feet tall. He mounts a 2-foot by 2-foot cedar frame with a plastic grid on a wood or metal fence post.
Ficus can be overwintered in the house and hardy juniper planted, pot and all, in the garden fall to spring. Most bonsai plants need cold, but not freezing, temperatures so they can go dormant. Johnson built a cold-storage shed on the back of his garage last year for those plants. Walls in the 5-foot by 8-foot room have 4 inches of insulation covered with a reflective silver-coated foam sheeting. Wire shelves hold plants. The room is kept at 38 degrees by an electric milk-house heater. Plants remain in the dark while dormant. If the daytime temperature rises above 50 degrees, a timer turns on two 40-watt spiral fluorescent bulbs.
Bonsai may be the latest plant passion, but it’s far from the Johnsons’ only gardening interest.
"There is not a square foot that hasn’t been dug up, moved, raised, lowered or planted on," Jan Johnson says. "The front yard has three planting areas, a concrete bench built by Jerry and the only remaining plot of grass in the entire yard, which can be mowed in about four minutes."
The side and back yards are divided by bamboo and cedar fencing and shrubs into small garden rooms, from a sheltered courtyard to a tree-top deck to a hillside pathway flanked by a stream and pond. Flowering trees and perennials embellish the garden. Collections of Japanese red maples, succulents, coleus, citrus and other tropicals thrive in pots. As Johnson says with a smile, ’’We collect everything."
Marge Hols is a Master Gardener with the University of Minnesota Extension Service. You can contact her at dmholscomcast.net.
Boning Up on Bonsai
Bonsai Show, Horticultural Building, Minnesota State Fair, Falcon Heights, Sept. 1-2.
Minnesota Bonsai Society meeting with bonsai artist Boon Manakitivipart from Oakland, Calif. No charge; open to the public. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 5, Hamline United Methodist Church, 1514 Englewood Ave., St. Paul. Annual society membership, $35, includes hands-on classes for new members the third Tuesday of every month. 651-653-9508 or www.minnesotabonsai.org.
One-day beginner workshops offered by the Minnesota Bonsai Society at Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in Como Park, St. Paul. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 16-17. $50 includes instruction, hands-on styling and a tree, pot and other materials. 612-339-8808 or www.minnesotabonsai.org.
Community education for bonsai beginners, five hours of instruction including design, care, hands-on training and a plant, taught by Mike Porcaro of Woodbury. Registration fees range from $29 to $49 plus $24 for supplies:
• Burnsville, Oct. 19, 7-9 p.m., and Oct. 26, 6 to 9 p.m. 952-707-4110
• Cottage Grove, Oct. 28, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. 651-458-6600
• Rosemount, Oct. 7, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. 651-423-7920
• Roseville, Sept. 27, 6 to 9 p.m., and Oct. 4, 7 to 9 p.m. 651-604-3770
• White Bear, Sept. 25, 6 to 9 p.m., and Oct. 2, 7 to 9 p.m. 651-407-7501
This week’s checklist
• Save used black plastic pots — recycling is coming! The Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association is setting up drop-off sites where home gardeners can recycle pots on two weekends, Sept. 23-24 and Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Black pots of any size will be accepted, but no colored ones.
• Dig and divide overcrowded iris if they didn’t bloom well this year. Lift rhizomes, cut away woody centers and any soft parts. Replant healthy rhizomes just below soil surface. Water thoroughly.
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