Bonsai master finds the soul of the tree at Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Kathy Shaner, the first non-Japanese and first woman certified as a professional bonsai artist and instructor by the Nippon Bonsai Association of Japan, doesn’t have much time to talk.

The tiny trees are calling.

The internationally renowned bonsai master was making last-minute adjustments to the display of 78 bonsai trees that will be open to the public on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., May 20-21, in the main auditorium at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Shaner, who studied in Japan for six years with contemporary Bonsai Master Yasuo Mitsuya, hopes newcomers to bonsai will stop by the exhibit this weekend and find a love of nature in the art of creating tiny trees.

“I want them to see up close how beautiful trees are,” said Shaner, who has been taming trees for 30 years. “Here you can see things up close and how things work.”

Shaner has been curator of the Golden State Bonsai Collection-North at Lake Merritt in Oakland, California, but she recently moved to Alabama and now has a home in Florence.

The art of bonsai is the love of trees, and in a broader sense, a love of nature, she said.

“It’s a love of trees, but most of all it’s an appreciation of nature,” Shaner said. “I learned that in Japan.”

The bonsai exhibit is free to the public, and visitors are asked to vote for their favorite tree. Last year, 1,523 votes were cast. “I’ve seen people come in and spend two minutes and I’ve seen people come in and spend two hours,” said event coordinator Anika Paperd.

Shaner will be giving demonstrations throughout the day. Avid bonsai artists and newcomers are welcome to watch and ask questions. “People can sit and listen and see how it’s done,” Paperd said.

“That’s what we’re here for. We love to talk about it.”

Paperd wandered into the show 10 years ago at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and got hooked.

Bonsai is a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese term penzai and has become an umbrella term in English for plants kept in shallow pots and pruned to stay dimunitive in size, artful replicas of full-grown trees.

At their largest, bonsai trees top out at no more than four feet, eight inches tall. Trees must be kept in pots.

Joining a bonsai club is the best way to learn the techniques, Paperd said. There are bonsai clubs in Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville.

The Alabama Bonsai Society in Birmingham, with about 20 to 30 members, hosts monthly workshops demonstrating the art of pruning and cutting a bonsai tree.

Japanese maples are a favorite for bonsai because the trees can be shrunk down and the leaves shrink with it. Sargent junipers, azaleas and Chinese privets are among the favored trees.

“The whole point is to miniaturize trees,” Paperd said.