Last weekend the San Diego Bonsai Club held their 60th anniversary celebration. The event was held at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park, home to the Bonsai Pavilion, a beautiful garden and bonsai collection built and maintained by volunteers in the club.
If you have a chance to visit, I highly recommend it! The team that maintains the trees does a great job of demonstrating how well diverse species can grow in the foothills northeast of San Diego. This is in large part thanks to Curator John Jackson (who led the construction of the Pavilion), Assistant Curator Dennis Wagner, Cathy and Mark Edgar, and the rest of the volunteers who come to learn and work on trees in the collection.
The Bonsai Pavilion
Curator John Jackson posing with an oriental sweet gum (that he started from scratch)
I’d expected to see species like olive, pomegranate, and California juniper that do well in warm climates, and the Pavilion had a good selection of each.
Giant pomegranate
California juniper
California juniper
Olive
What I didn’t expect was to see was a Japanese maple. The Pavilion uses an irrigation system to water the trees and shelters them with shade cloth. It’s a good combination that makes it possible to grow trees that don’t mind warm temps as long as they’re not in full sun.
Japanese maple
The rest of the collection was a mix of native species, including coast live oak, as well as exotic species such as bald cypress.
Coast live oak
Bald cypress
The bald cypress above was one of my favorite trees in the collection as it has great branch structure – the result of repeated pruning over a lot of years.
You can learn more about the Bonsai Pavilion at the San Diego Bonsai Club’s website or plan your visit by checking out the San Diego Zoo Safari Park website.
News & Updates
- We’re currently wrapping up production on the 2024 Pacific Bonsai Expo commemorative album with a plan to send it to the printer soon. Depending on their schedule, we hope to start shipping the book in 2-3 months. Our apologies for the delay!
- I’ve added additional trees to the sales page.