By Christine de Kock
BONSAI enthusiasts welcome the winter as now is the time to pot their beloved trees before the October bonsai exhibition in Yarraville.
Lola and Peter are both members of the Yarraville-based Bonsai Northwest club.
“We’ve been in the club for 22 years,” Lola said.
“The club started in 1973, they had about five members, and they met in a house. We’ve got hundreds of members now.”
Lola and her husband are passionate about the art of bonsai.
It’s an enthusiasm that is shared by a variety of people.
“Our youngest member is 10, he doesn’t always come but we encourage him,” Lola said.
“I would say, though, that there are a lot of young men in the club, it’s always been like that.”
The 1984 film Karate Kid launched the art of bonsai on popular culture. But what most people do not know is that bonsai, an art of pruning a tree’s branches and root system, is not limited to small Japanese trees.
“We trim junipers, maples, Chinese elms and black pines, also Australian natives like gum trees and banksias.
“People expect little tiny things when you talk of bonsai but we can have a have a gum tree that is one and a half metres tall.”
The oldest bonsai tree is in Japan and is said to be 2000 years old.
Lola and Peter said bonsai plants can be expensive and are a temptation to thieves.
“Ours were stolen quite a few years a ago but bonsais in nurseries in the Dandenongs are often stolen,” she said.
It is for this reason that she does not want to be identified by her last name.
She said bonsai plants could range in cost from $7 for a small young plant to $400 for a “strong” plant. It depends on the quality and type of plant.
Lola said she had been involved in bonsai for such a long time because she found it relaxing.
“You can be working and pruning and forget everything else. It’s also pleasing to the eye and intriguing actually to see the trees coming to leaf, that is rewarding.”
Bonsai Northwest meets the first Monday of the month in Yarraville and offers a comprehensive library, reduced prices on pots, tools and wire.
Their exhibition will be held on 21 and 22 October, inquiries 0407 523 741.
