It’s not natural, but…

August 19th, 2010

   I’ve always been fascinated by bonsai, that combination of art, horticulture and contortion that somehow manages to grow shrunken trees in little pots.

George yakking to the plant geeks at the Bonsai Club Picnic.

   It’s unnatural and seemingly impossible. To me, it’s hard enough to get regular plants to grow in regular soil, much less in those skinny little pots. So bonsai fascinates me, but not to the point of actually doing it. I can’t bring myself to sacrifice the poor, innocent plants I know I’d kill.

   What kind of people DO bonsai? Well, I spent an afternoon with about 50 of them last weekend at the Susquehanna Bonsai Club’s annual picnic at George Gracey’s house in New Cumberland.

   They’re actually fun and reasonably normal people… OK, at one point one of the members put a potted mistletoe fern on top of his head and drew a near kiss from one of the club founders, whose name and Linglestown bonsai studio I won’t mention. But other than that, the oddest common trait seemed to be incurable plant-geekism.

   The ringleader of the bunch is Gracey, who’s now 87 and still a character. If you picture a bonsai-ist as a quietly focused, monk-like, white-robed Oriental fellow, this does not describe George even remotely.

   I interviewed him once for a Patriot-News garden column, and I remember him telling me that he was attracted to bonsai because he “likes to grow stuff.”

   He also said bonsai took more work than pet care and that “anyone that does bonsai and says he’s never killed a plant is a liar.”

   Every year, Gracey invites the whole club over to his fenced-in New Cumberland back yard for some pulled pork, a program (which was me this year) and an auction, which seemed to be somewhat of a mass reshuffling of everyone’s plant cuttings, excess bonsai pots and bonsai magazine collections.

   Dozens of George’s bonsai specimens ringed the fence – mini forests in pots, solo foot-tall trees that looked to be ancient and several conifers pruned to simulate being windswept.

   Very interesting. And definitely not as easy as George and crew make it seem.

   I also found out that some bonsai clubbers actually have healthy, living mountain laurels growing in their yards. Very few people manage to pull that off. Despite being our official state flower, mountain laurels are notoriously hard to cultivate in home gardens. They really don’t appreciate clay, subsoil, alkaline foundations, 99-degree heat in the full sun and the many other abuses typical to suburban midstate gardening.

   It adds up, though. If you can grow an elm tree in your kitchen in 1 inch of gravel, you can probably figure out how to keep a shrub alive in the back yard.

   If you’d like to test the bonsai waters, the Susquehanna Bonsai Club meets monthly at Nature’s Way Nursery, 1451 Pleasant Hill Road near Linglestown. Nature’s Way is the epicenter for all things bonsai around here, what with classes, supplies, speakers, plants, etc. For info on either/all, call 545-4555, email natureswaybonsai@comcast.net or visit www.natureswaybonsai.com.

   To read the column I wrote about George Gracey, click here.

   And to read a piece on bonsai-ing I wrote after spending some time with Jim Doyle at one of his Nature’s Way classes, click here.