The most impressive bonsai garden only accepts donations, never spends money to buy bonsai

If there were a bonsai garden with hundreds or even thousands of bonsai, but not a single one was bought with money - all were donated by others, and every single one is a masterpiece. And it is not just anyone who wants to give it a couple of trees that it will accept. That is how proud it is. Do you believe it? Anyway, I do.

There is such a good thing in the world? I am also planning to set up a bonsai garden like this.

This bonsai garden is the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in Washington.

This bonsai garden was established in 1976, when the Americans celebrated their 200th anniversary of independence. The Japanese presented tribute, and among the tribute items were more than 50 trees. There was nowhere to put them, so this garden was built. It seems the garden was also built with Japanese money, which shows how devoted the Japanese were as vassals. I heard that what the Japanese gave were all masterpieces collected from all over the country. Later, a Mr. Wu from Hong Kong, China gave them about 30 trees, and they built a Chinese garden. Later still, as more and more Americans took up bonsai, those who were pretty good sometimes picked a couple of trees and sent them over, placing them there to advertise themselves. Just think, if you displayed two of your works in this place, with a sign next to them bearing your name, you would immediately become world-famous, and the price of your work would at least double. This is exactly the same as how many master craftsmen in China want to put a couple of their pieces in the Palace Museum. As there were more and more native American bonsai, they built a North American garden.

There are many things inside, and it really can be said that every single piece is the cream of the crop.

The most famous among them should be this Japanese five-needle pine donated by the Japanese, a survivor of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing, nearly 400 years old.

There is also this most famous American juniper forest, Goshin, donated by the American local enthusiast John Y. Naka. Cultivation began in 1953.

There are really a great many fine pieces in this bonsai garden. I will pick a few at random to show friends.

Americans also collect unusual stones, so this bonsai garden has also collected some stones.

This stone comes from Indonesia. It is not bad, but its color is rather monotonous, far inferior to Songhua stone.

I will not say much about this one. At a glance, it is a Taihu stone.

The following two stones are native to the United States. I did not know before, and only later learned that Americans like this kind of unusual stone in the style of mountain ranges or isolated islands. The upper one is in the shape of a mountain range, and the lower one is in the shape of an isolated island.