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Bonsai at the North Carolina Arboretum
Established in October 2005, The North Carolina Arboretum’s Bonsai Exhibition Garden is a world renowned garden that displays up to 50 bonsai specimens at a time. Represented are traditional Asian bonsai subjects, tropical plants, and American species.
Of particular importance are the plants native to the Blue Ridge region, such as American hornbeam and eastern white pine, which enable the Arboretum to bring the thousand-year tradition of bonsai home to the mountains of Western North Carolina. This regional interpretation is what makes the collection unique. Visitors will find the Arboretum’s bonsai collection of more than 100 specimens carefully cultivated with a Southern Appalachian accent. The collection draws inspiration from the traditional roots of bonsai, but takes the form of a contemporary, Southern Appalachian influenced American garden.
The Curator's Journal
The Curator’s Journal by Bonsai Curator Arthur Joura offers the ultimate insider’s view of bonsai at The North Carolina Arboretum. Regular entries chronicle growing an art and growing an enterprise. Some journal entries will be long and others more brief; some will be mostly words and others mostly pictures; some will be close-up studies of detail and others will step back to take in the wider scene.
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History of the Collection
In 1992, Joura was a utility worker at the arboretum – then a single empty building and no gardens – when he was assigned to take care of about 100 bonsai the arboretum had received as a donation from a woman in central North Carolina. Many had already died or were not salvageable before the arboretum received her donation.
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Joura previously bore no knowledge of bonsai or interest in the art, but he eventually studied at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum – where he formed a close friendship with former Arboretum Director Dr. John Creech – as part of an experience with the Nippon Bonsai Association and trained in New York State under Yuji Yoshimura.
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The Bonsai Exhibition Garden was completed and opened in 2005 with Arthur Joura leading the design team and overseeing construction. Up to 50 bonsai specimens are shown in the garden from May through November.
