We are excited to provide you with an update on the progress of our garden construction at Tree House Bonsai. Since our establishment in 2018, we have been collaborating with a landscaping company to create a captivating space for bonsai enthusiasts. Our initial focus was on building bonsai benches and creating an area where guests could immerse themselves in the beauty of these trees.
In February 2023, we embarked on stage 2 of our garden construction, marking a significant milestone in our journey. While many of you have been following the updates through my Instagram account (@adamjones_bonsai), we wanted to take this opportunity to share further details about this ongoing phase.
Inspiration for a Bonsai Garden
We are creating something original but not foreign to the aesthetics of both bonsai nursery and Japanese strolling garden standards. Yes, it is rare, not to say unique, to combine those two visions. A bonsai nursery is first and foremost a place of business. Professionals grow and nurture bonsai in a nursery. It is a place designed for ease of functioning that organizes itself under space constraints. If you have ever visited Omiya, you understand the compactness of traditional Japanese bonsai nurseries. Those places are small and packed with masterpieces.
On the contrary, Japanese strolling gardens are larger, landscaped spaces where visitors wander freely. Subtly guided towards sceneries for contemplation. Nature is omnipresent, and potted trees are seldom seen.
At Tree House Bonsai, we have created a place where we combine those two feelings. It is an experience for your senses. Discovery between natural paths and carefully crafted viewing spots where visitors are invited to contemplate the beauty of nature. The land is surrounded by trees giving you the feeling of a secluded private place where serenity is almost tangible. We jokingly call it the mountain fortress.
Designing the garden
The garden's original idea was drafted back in 2018, when the property of 3.3 acres was acquired. This is a very, very large piece of land by Japanese standards. With plenty of room to play. The garden currently represents about one-third of the total land. The rest is dedicated to quarantine facilities, future projects, and of course forest.
The vision at Tree House Bonsai
The Tree house team is full of future plans that with good fortune and hard work we hope to bring into being. But for this current second stage of expansion and landscaping, we decided to tackle the hardscaping of multiple water features and landscaping between the workshop and the house as well as add two more areas for bonsai benches to the layout of the space. The intention with this landscaping was three fold. First to connect the, until now, visually disconnected bonsai areas and home into one large incorporated space. Second, to create more areas of benches for bonsai, and third and most functionally to utilize the water feature to deal with the large amount of water that flows across the property during the rainy season and during typhoons.
With these new areas of benches the total capacity for clean, readily enjoyable bonsai displays in the garden will be close to 300 trees when this step is finished. That is not including the stockyard and quarantine areas.
The “hardscaping” of such a place involves large amounts of large stones. Luckily for us, the property came with a huge pile of granite boulders ranging from 50 lbs to over 10 tons. All we needed to do was select and move them to the proper place to create a landscape that felt natural.
Our garden construction at Tree House Bonsai has been a remarkable journey of collaboration. By blending the aesthetics of a bonsai nursery and a Japanese strolling garden, we are creating a space where guests can immerse themselves in the beauty of nature. Stay tuned for more updates as we embark on the next chapter of our garden's evolution.
