Page 94 - Tài liệu Ebook cây cảnh Bonsai and Penjing

chapter six

A Vibrant Museum

The U.S. National Arboretum is a living museum where trees, shrubs and
herbaceous plants are grown in fields and woodlands for scientific and
educational purposes. The Arboretum’s National Bonsai & Penjing Museum,
however, is set in a complex of buildings that could be mistaken for a “regular”
museum except that several of its exhibit areas are open to the sky. Bonsai as a
rule are not house plants, tropical trees being exceptions, and the small trees
need light and air just like the large trees growing beyond the museum’s walls.
Also like the big trees, bonsai and penjing need water. Watering is so important
and varies so much from tree to tree, depending on the species, age, soil and
location within the museum’s complex, that on hot summer days much of the
museum’s staff time is spent watering.
For most of the year, visitors can view the bonsai, penjing and viewing

stones on benches and tables that bring them to eye level, as the artists intended.
Each living work of art has a front and back, and its container or platform is
chosen specially to enhance the visitors’ experience of the tree or rock. The trees
on view in the museum’s pavilions are not on “formal” display. The museum’s
curator is constantly evaluating the trees to identify when the bonsai and penjing
are at their peak, and only then are they put on formal display. For these special
presentations, the trees are prepared by covering the soil with moss while their
trunks and branches are cleaned and trimmed. An appropriate stand is selected
and, if needed, an accent plant is also chosen. They are on view indoors for four
days at most, then the process of preparing another tree begins again so the trees
can be exchanged.

Water jars for spot watering are located throughout the museum. All bonsai require careful
watering, some several times a day in the summer.