My name is Fred, I have been growing bonsai trees for around ten years, this experience has given me a sustained, hands-on experience in caring for trees. All trees are individuals; is the perspective I am bringing forward from my experience in growing trees. The first bonsai tree I was given to look after was a Sierra Juniper, which a member of Stourbridge Bonsai Club gave to me after another member had passed away. Their garden was being cleared out and their bonsai collection was dispersed amongst the members of the bonsai club. On my first day I was handed the Juniper, and felt as though the tree had chosen me. I was challenged: “See if you can keep that alive for a year!” It has been seven years since.
Below you’ll find a small publication of mine, written after the small Rowan tree I’d started training as a bonsai was stolen from outside the apartment my wife and I were living in at the time. The thief was in such earnest need of this tree, that they ripped it from the stand it was sitting on, along with the wires holding it in place against the wind.
Monetarily, this bonsai was of little value to any would-be collector. It held a special place in my heart, as it was a tree that I had very deliberately planted for its folkloric value. Clearly the thief had sensed this in their choosing - ignoring seven other trees sitting on the stand.
Rather than get angry about the loss, I decided a more productive use of my time would be to write a short guide to caring for the tree that I had lost; sharing some of the knowledge I had gained over the years of growing little trees in pots, which I now pass onto you.
Bonsai helps me to think about my own relationships with trees, with the ongoing care for living things, and an ongoing participation in caring for things. The ethical problems of bonsai are also not lost on me: why would I want to constrict a tree's growth? Keep it in a pot? Make it suffer? Sometimes I plant trees in the ground, sometimes in pots. I think coming to Birmingham TreePeople is also a coming together of some of these ideas. How do we care for a tree surrounded by concrete? How can a tree sit along a roadside? How do they deal with winter salt from grit lorries? How can they help us stay cool on a blistering July day? How can we start treating street trees as individuals and come to know them personally in a caring, loving capacity?
I look forward to sharing this journey with you.
