Guia do bonsai

THE BONSAI COLLECTION
The Chicago Botanic Garden’s bonsai collection is regarded by bonsai experts as one of the best public collections in the world. It includes 185 bonsai in twenty styles and more than 40 kinds of plants, including evergreen, deciduous, tropical, flowering and fruiting trees. Since the entire collection cannot be displayed at once, select species are rotated through a display area in the Education Center’s East Courtyard from May through October. Each one takes the stage when it is most beautiful.
To see photographs of bonsai from the collection, visit www.chicagobotanic.org/bonsai.

Assembling the Collection

BONSAI
COLLECTION
A remarkable collection of majestic trees in miniature

Predominantly composed of donated specimens, the collection includes gifts from local enthusiasts and Midwest Bonsai Society members. In 2000, Susumu Nakamura, a Japanese bonsai master and longstanding friend of the Chicago Botanic Garden, donated 19 of his finest bonsai to the collection. This gift enabled the collection to advance to world-class status.

Caring for the Collection
When not on display, the bonsai in the Chicago Botanic Garden’s collection are housed in a secured greenhouse that has both outdoor and indoor facilities. There the bonsai are watered, fertilized, wired, trimmed and repotted by staff and volunteers. Several times a year, bonsai master Susumu Nakamura travels from his home in Japan to provide guidance for the care and training of this important collection.

What Is a Bonsai?
Japanese and Chinese languages use the same characters to represent bonsai (pronounced “bone-sigh”). One character means “pot” or “tray,” and the other means “to plant.” Bonsai are ordinary trees and shrubs that have been trained in pots to grow into naturally beautiful shapes.

Most bonsai are small enough to sit on a table, and yet they are designed to look like full-sized trees, or groups of trees. To achieve this illusion, a bonsai artist must understand how a tree