SEC S17W1: "Let's Celebrate the Arts

As you said to be part of SEC S17W1: "Let's Celebrate the Arts." you want me to express myself through the art that I know.

I know how to write and take photographs of different places which attract tourists. So as a travel blogger, I would love to share a bonsai garden in Canberra, Australia that I visited a few days ago. I would like to invite @solaymann @waqarahmadshah and @yancar to join me in this contest, please.

  

I will take you to the arboretum, which is the heart of entertainment for visitors for its multiple uses and activities, but today I will show you exclusively the art of bonsai.

  

This bonsai garden is a monument to the people who lost their homes and lives in the infamous bushfires that are common in Australia.

The arboretum is spread over an area of several miles and contains over 100 forests, gardens, and playgrounds.

  

A large number of visitors come to this place for various purposes, but my purpose in taking you to this place is to show you one of the most unique arts of making bonsai trees.

  

We know that bonsai art was developed in Japan, so some of these trees have come from Japan as gifts, or some of these bonsai plants are on loan. As I read in their brochures at the moment, there are 70 trees on display, and a few are undergoing maintenance.

  

It's not easy to keep these trees in perfect condition as they belong to different temperature groups, but the curators have done their best to attend to their needs to keep them warm or cold as per the weather conditions or the demand of the plant.

  

During the winter, these plants need glass storage or even heaters to save them from minus-zero temperatures, especially as the nights are too cold in Canberra. As per the local Met Office records, Canberra temperatures go to minus 8 degrees Celsius or even less.

Now I will show you this bonsai tree. A smooth-barked apple (gum tree), this tree is 145 years old.

  

I wanted to share the art of bonsai, as not much is available on this topic in general. Hopefully, I am within the topic of this contest, whose theme is art. I hope to spark an interest in Steemians who might appreciate my effort in bringing this topic to your attention.

  

I have been watching these displays in the National Bonsai Collection since 2015 and have found something new every time, but when I visited this place last month, I saw a few differently arranged plants, so I decided to snap them, and today I am displaying them here.

  

You can see all the trees have been styled and grown artistically and kept in a way so visitors can see them, even though strict supervision is required to keep them safe from visitors, especially children.

I have seen a few other collections of bonsai trees, and I would like to mention my younger brother, who has a small collection of bonsai, but he does it for the sake of personal collection. What you see here is an expert job that needs special supervision.

This collection is going to be a true example of the art of bonsai anywhere in the world, but I should give it to Australians who know the art of keeping unique collections.

  

This collection contains trees from different bonsai artists, including Australian bonsai creators as well as artists from different countries.

Would you believe the oldest tree here, which dates back to 1880, was grown in a hedge for over 100 years before they shifted that tree to this collection?

Some of the curators keep visiting different countries, especially Japan, for further training and to locate the new trees for this collection.

The trees you see here have been mostly grown in Australia, but the curators and bonsai artists have learned the art from different European and Japanese artists, particularly when styling native species.

  

The arboretum

“As I must mention here, this process started more than fifty years ago when artists from different countries especially from Japan came for workshops, so the garden has Japanese influence, and naturally, this art started in Japan itself.

In the end, what looks little to you is a result of the hard work of the Australian bonsai community and the Australian government. Would you believe that to keep these 70+ trees healthy and in shape, sixty volunteers spend over 140 hours per week? That's true; to keep this collection for visitors, they leave no stone unturned, literally.

I hope you enjoyed watching bonsai art

ᴬˡˡ ᶦᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ ᵐᶦⁿᵉ ᵇᵘᵗ ᵃ ᶠᵉʷ ᵗᵃᵏᵉⁿ ᵇʸ ᵐʸ ʷᶦᶠᵉ