Margaret Cheasebro

The art of shaping and caring for miniature trees in pots is known as bonsai. The material for bonsai trees can be collected in the wild, from landscape and nursery plants, or even cut from part of a full size tree.

If you have ever seen a beautifully crafted bonsai tree, its magnificence can take your breath away. They are often grown in fired earthenware pots that give good support to the tree but don't call attention to themselves. The main focus is the bonsai tree itself. More than one tree can be included in a bonsai creation. Every successful bonsai creation requires frequent and meticulous care by the artist. In Japanese, the word bonsai means a tree planted in a shallow container.

Bonsai is a historic Japanese art form derived from an ancient Chinese horticultural practice called penjing, which began during the Han dynasty perhaps 2,000 years ago. Japanese redeveloped it with influence from Japanese Zen Buddhism.

Successfully caring for bonsai trees requires an understanding of horticulture and art. Taking care of bonsai trees includes paying attention to the plant's water and nutritional needs, caring for it in case of injury or pests, and protecting it from harsh weather.

The best bonsai compositions seem natural and don't call attention to what the artist has done with the plant, according to Robert J. Baron, a Bonsai researcher and historian. You can read an article he wrote about bonsai trees at https://www.bonsaiempire.com/what-is-bonsai.

Bonsai artists spend much time shaping the miniature trees by doing such things as pinching buds, pruning and wiring branches. They may use less fertilizer so the plants will grow as they want it to. The ultimate goal is to make the bonsai creation look like a realistic part of nature. The art of bonsai continues to develop and improve.

Some bonsai artists grow an entire miniature forest in a pot. Long-time Japanese American bonsai artist John Naka and his tiny forest creation were featured in the February 2025 issue of National Geographic in an article written by Becky Little. By the time Naka finished nurturing it, part of it stood nearly five feet tall.

As a young man, Naka began his tiny forest creation by cutting off the top of a mature juniper tree (with permission) and planting it in a pot. He cared for and crafted the plant for many decades. Over time, he added 10 more trees, one for each of his grandchildren. He called his miniature forest Goshin, a Japanese word that is pronounced go-SHEEN. It means "protector of the spirit." In 1984, Naka gave Goshin to the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, part of the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. There, it is known as one of the world's best bonsai arrangements.

After that, Naka taught curators how to continue caring for his creation. Naka was 89 when he died in 2004.

Just about anyone with enough patience and the willingness to learn can work at creating an artistic, healthy bonsai tree.

A friend I went to junior high and high school with many years ago has led an interesting life. Her name is Lena Yacoumopoulou.

One of her experiences involved being part of a United Nations Peace Keeping mission in Haiti in 1990 and early 1991. The mission was called ONUVEH (UN Observer Group for Verification of Elections in Haiti). They worked with the Organization of American States as well as local police and military to register and conduct free and fair elections.

Once Jean-Bertrand Aristede was elected in December 1990 and inaugurated in February 1991, her peace keeping mission ended. But during the time she spent in Haiti, she did some sight-seeing. Among the places she visited was Le Centre d'Art in Port-au-Prince, the island nation's capital.

At the center, she took pictures of some remarkable works of art. Among them was a painting of a tree sculpted to look like a flying horse. The background included a manicured garden with trees and bushes. A white chair stood in front of the flying horse tree. Lena did not know the name of the artist. Two emails to the art center on January 28 and Feb. 10, 2025, went unanswered.

The art center was established in 1944 by the American watercolorist DeWitt Peters and a group of Haitian intellectuals and artists. Peters was its first director. The art center was recognized as a public utility in 1947. It promoted artistic creation in Haiti, according to the center's website at https://www.lecentredart.org.

I was hoping to learn if the painting survived a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. The earthquake badly damaged the art center. It reopened in 2014 on its 70th anniversary. In 2019, the center was able to purchase a large gingerbread mansion in the area of Pacot, Port-au-Prince with the help of many donors. In its new location, it continues to be an art center, art school and art gallery.

On the center's website, I could find no picture of the painting Lena photographed in 2010. I hope it survived. The artist's depiction of a tree almost magically sculpted to look like a flying horse is quite beautiful.

There is a small tree, a cockspur hawthorn, in a yard not far from my house. I drive by it every time I go shopping. It lost its leaves late last fall. Its thin bare branches are taking time to rest until they flourish again in the spring.

Though the tree has no leaves, it does have several clusters of small reddish brown berries that still cling to the branches. They look determined to hang on. It may be easier for them to keep their grip because this winter has been drier and warmer than normal. Even the wind has not dislodged the berries.

Trees have their own trials, just like we do. And just like trees, we sometimes struggle through tough times. I'm amazed that when I look back at those difficult times, the memories don't seem quite so bad. It's as though time took a paintbrush and used gentle brush strokes to soften those memories.

I remember the image of the paintbrush when I experience moments that are painful, exasperating, or sorrowful. If I can make it through those tough times, things usually get better.

I often use my Picture This app to learn the identity of trees, bushes and flowers. It's a great app to have if you want to learn more about nature around you. When I took a picture of the cockspur hawthorn tree, the app gave me its name and told me it looked like it wasn't in the best of health.

Last summer if I'd taken a picture of the tree, those berries would have looked radiantly healthy. It's those radiantly healthy times that we tend to take for granted. It's only when we get sick or have aches and pains or experience a deep loss or disappointment that we wonder if we have the strength and tenacity to hang on. Once we get better, once the aches and pains lessen and the sorrows fade, we start to feel stronger and more hopeful again.

When I drive by the cockspur hawthorn tree, I remember that before too long it will be sprouting new leaves and growing new berries in springtime. On days when I feel less than my best, I remember that if I give myself time to rest, soon I will feel better too.

Winter, trees, and sunlight sometimes combine to create memorable scenes. When I was looking through the picture file in my iPhone, I came across one I had taken years ago of a cottonwood tree north of Aztec, New Mexico, across the highway from where I used to live.

The sun created a circle of light behind a cluster of higher branches that stood bare in the winter weather. Something about the sunlight pouring onto the branches made me feel a little less cold and a little more hopeful that spring, leaves, and warmer weather aren't that far away.

The cottonwood has been known by several names over the years. First, it was just the cottonwood by the irrigation ditch. Then, over the years as the tree became more than just another tree, it became the Healing Tree. Standing near its trunk sometimes helped people feel healthier, nurtured and loved. Eventually, the tree let me know it preferred the name Grandfather Tree. Though it's only a guess, the cottonwood could have been about 200 years old.

It has since fallen over and no longer stands beside the irrigation ditch. But when I visit the place where Grandfather Tree once stood, I can still sense the essence of itself. I remember many experiences with that tree – feeling more energetic as I stood near it, watching a mother goose sit in a nest on eggs in a fork of the tree, standing for several minutes by it with a friend whose breathing challenges lessened.

Then there was the day I walked near the tree and saw sunlight form a circle behind upper branches of the tree. The ball of light held such promise for me. It will not always be so cold. The trees will sprout leaves again. Hold on to hope. More comfortable days are coming.

If you get a chance, find some trees to walk among. When times in your life feel most challenging, you may sense hope as the trees surround you with their welcoming presence.

Every year, my wonderful neighbors fill their yard with blow-up Christmas decorations of sleighs, reindeer, gingerbread men, Santa's helpers, snowmen, North Pole memorabilia, candy canes, Christmas trees, and so much more. On the roof over their front door sits a red Christmas helicopter with its propeller turning.

They decorate their yard to entertain their grandchildren and to bring holiday cheer to children of all ages. Every year I benefit from their magnanimous gift to everyone fortunate enough to see what they create. It takes them hours and hours to put up. The electric lights and motorized parts on some of their displays add many dollars to their electricity bill. But that never stops them.

Once they take down and store away their Christmas displays, they put up more for Valentine's Day, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, and probably a few other occasions I don't remember at the moment. I feel fortunate to live next to them.

One of their Christmas displays includes a blue dinosaur with a red Christmas hat. It picks up and sets down a Christmas tree many times throughout the day. When I take walks through the neighborhood, I always slow down as I walk by their yard so I can enjoy their colorful decorations.

We each celebrate Christmas in our own ways. I am happy to live next door to people who choose to celebrate by turning their yard into a delightful realm of Christmas magic.

For centuries, Italian agriculture produced an abundance of fruit. Today, Italy is still a major producer of pears, but only four varieties of them are still found.  A century ago, there were hundreds of varieties. Six centuries ago, many different kinds of fruit trees grew in the country, among them apples, plums, grapes, pears and cherries.

Isabella Dalla Ragione, who lives in rural Perugia, Italy, has made it her task to help restore the agricultural biodiversity of the abundant fruit trees for which Italy was once renounced. Though industrial agriculture has succeeded in creating a few productive varieties, they have a simple genetic pattern no longer capable of dealing with challenges such as drought and climate change.

Her father, Livio Dalla Ragione, taught art at a local university and was a pioneer of a rural farm and food movement in Italy that focused on planting local fruit tree varieties that had been abandoned. Together in 1989, she and her father founded Archeologia Arborea, which focused on researching the lost fruit tree species. Livio died in 2007, but Dalla continues their work.

In 2006, her research led her to a palazzo about 10 miles from her home that had housed the Bufalini family. They were major Umbrian landowners in the 16th century. There, she found boxes of old paper records that inventoried the Bufalini crops.

When she took a closer look at the ceiling of the palazzo that featured the 16th century fresco by Cristofano Gherardi, she found something even more revealing. The fresco showed Prometheus delivering fire to humans. Many ancient fruits she had been studying in the Bufalini archives were part of that painting.

In the November 2024 Smithsonian Magazine article The Fruit Detective by Mark Schapiro, Dalla is quoted as saying, "I put together that the art was at the same period of time as the documents. For me, it was an incredible connection." The fruit trees she and her father had spent much time growing were descendants of fruits from that centuries old time.

To help advance her work, Dalla earned a PhD in biodiversity from the University of Perugia in 2017. Her doctoral thesis involved analyzing the genomes of hundreds of pear varieties. In that process, she discovered that older pears from the 15th century and earlier had more genetic diversity than today's varieties have. Greater diversity helped the fruit adapt to shifting conditions through the centuries.

In his article, Schapiro wrote, "They might not produce as much per tree as modern varieties, but their traits helped them survive new pests and changing weather conditions, meaning they produced fruit more steadily over decades and even centuries."

Dalla continues to spot ancient fruit in centuries old paintings, and she is determined to continue her work of bringing back an abundance of the fruit that once thrived in Italy centuries ago.

Though the soil is starting to cool down as temperatures drops below freezing during parts of the day, soil may still be warm enough to plant a tree. When soil is still somewhat warm, trees feel less stress after you plant them. They have an easier time adjusting to their new environment.

During this time of year, trees in many parts of the country are in the process of going dormant. A newly planted tree this time of year will not have to share as much of its energy with budding blossoms and spurts of root growth as it would if it were planted in the spring.

If you're thinking about planting a tree this time of year, visit one or more nurseries near where you live. Ask the people who work there what kinds of trees grow best at this time of year in your locality. People who work in nurseries are very knowledgeable about plants, and they will be glad to share with you what they know about planting trees.

They can even tell you how big a hole you should dig for the tree, what kinds of soil enhancers to put in the hole, and a lot of other information that will help your tree survive well during the winter.

When you decide where you're going to plant the new tree in your yard, take time to thank the soil and your yard for welcoming the new tree. It may sound silly to express your gratitude in that way, but the essence of your gratitude will create a warm, loving energy. When people express their thanks to us, it usually lifts our spirits. The same is true for all living things, even soil and trees.

When you bring home the tree and place it in the hole you've dug for it, tell the tree how happy you are that it has become part of your yard. Express your gratitude to it. The tree will capture the essence of your emotions. It will help the tree to feel good about being in your yard.

Next spring when trees and other plants come out of dormancy, spend time near the young tree. Continue to express your thanks for it, and let it know how grateful you are to see it growing. If you do that, don't be surprised to see how well it thrives.

May all of you who plant a tree in your yard now discover how powerful gratitude can be when you express it to others, including trees.

Susan Aguirre grew up on a 25-acre farm in the lower valley of El Paso, Texas, many years ago. There, she learned from her wise grandmother and other relatives how to tell what the weather will do by reading the language of nature.

It seems fitting that for the last eight years, she has been the owner of Lil Aztec Flower Shop at the corner of Chaco and Main in Aztec. There, she is surrounded by beautiful flowers, part of nature's bounty. The first year she opened the shop in 2016, people took notice. She received the Spirit Award from the city of Aztec that year. In 2017 she was named Business of the Year by the Aztec Chamber of Commerce.

The things she learned during her years growing up on the farm have never left her, and she often chats with customers about what nature reveals to us.

"Have you heard the crickets lately?" she asked me one day when I visited her store.

I stopped to think. I'd heard them two weeks before that, but I hadn't heard them lately.

"That's because they've gone underground," she told me. "They're hibernating. Ants do the same thing." It isn't until spring that they reemerge. When you stop hearing the crickets, nature is announcing that fall is coming. When June bugs come out, she added, hot weather is coming.

If you get stung by ants, bees, or other insects, she has a remedy for that. Make a paste of baking soda and water thick enough that the paste will stick to your skin. "Rub the paste all over you," she said. "It will neutralize the poison."

She added a caution. If a brown recluse spider bites you, don't wait to do the baking soda treatment. Go directly to the emergency room. Time is of the essence to find treatment before the spider's poison overwhelms your system.

Pay attention to the smells of nature, she added. "Fall smells like dying. Snow smells clean,

crisp, cold." The smells of nature will tell you what's about to happen.

She had a lot to say about the moon, which is a pretty good weather forecaster. "You can learn a lot from the moon," she said. "The moon will never lie to you."

She enumerated some things the moon tells us. A rainbow around the moon is especially revealing. "If the rainbow is tight, close to the moon, it means ice crystals are coming," she said. "The tighter the rings, the colder and the more precipitation. If the rainbow is farther from the moon, it means wind. The moon will look blurred when the wind is coming. If there are particles in the ring around the moon, the closer together the particles are, the more snow will fall. When the moon is shaped like a bowl so it could hold water, it means it will rain."

She learned early in life that if you want to know what kind of weather to expect, pay attention to

the moon and the bugs. They're as good as any weather forecaster, maybe even better.

Wildfire smoke tends to have harmful particles and gases in it. People are often told to stay indoors to avoid breathing in those things. Trees, which have no way of going inside or moving somewhere else, have their own way of holding their breaths to reduce smoke intake.

In an Aug. 5, 2024 article in Atlas Obscura, authors Delphine Farmer and MJ Riches explained that plants have pores on the surface of their leaves called stomata. Delphine is a professor of chemistry at Colorado State University, and Riches is a postdoctoral researcher in environmental and atmospheric science at CSU.

The authors explained, "These pores are much like our mouths, except that while we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, plants inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. … Unlike humans, however, leaves breathe in and out at the same time, constantly taking in and releasing atmospheric gases."

A scientific study of trees in heavily polluted areas in the early 1900s revealed something interesting about the tree leaves. Those that had been chronically exposed to pollution from coal burning had pores clogged with black granules.

Because there weren't instruments available to explore the chemistry of those granules back in the early 1900s, scientists weren't able to study the granules. And they weren't able to discover what affects the granules had on the plants' photosynthesis.

Then, as now, wildfire smoke sometimes travels long distances. When it does, exposure to the heat of sunlight can chemically change the smoke. In addition to the effects of sunlight, smoke becomes mixed with volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. Together, they make ground-level ozone which can cause breathing problems in humans, Farmer and Riches wrote.

The ground-level ozone "can also damage plants by degrading the leaf surface, oxidizing plant tissue, and slowing photosynthesis," according to the authors.

All those things make wildfire smoke a growing concern. A study in 2020 of ponderosa pines and other plants in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado focused on the plants' leaf-level photosynthesis. The results showed that the tree's pores were completely closed. That meant they weren't breathing in the carbon dioxide they needed to grow, and they weren't breathing out oxygen along with the chemicals that the oxygen usually released. The trees, basically, were holding their breaths to keep from breathing in the wildfire smoke.

No one is certain how frequent wildfire smoke will affect trees and other plants. Time and additional studies may help to answer those questions. Perhaps the results will help scientists discover ways of protecting trees and people from the smoke.

A famous sycamore tree that grew along the remains of the ancient Roman defensive structure called Hadrian's Wall in England was chopped down in 2023 in an act of vandalism. However, there is reason for hope, because the stump is sprouting a few new shoots.

The non-native sycamore was planted about 150 years ago in front of Hadrian's Wall in a dip in the landscape created by glacial meltwater. The ancient wall rises on either side of the tree. Hadrian's Wall was built to defend the northern border of the Roman empire. It stretches for 84 miles from Wallsend on the east coast of England to Bowness-on-Solway on the west coast. Hadrian's Wall is now part of the "Frontiers of the Roman Empire" World Heritage Site.

For many years the well-loved sycamore was the backdrop for marriage proposals and weddings. It became a place where people spread ashes of their loved ones. It is located near Crag Lough in Northumberland and is part of Northumberland National Park.

When the tree was cut down with a chainsaw on Sept. 28, 2023, it caused an outcry. Eventually two men were arrested in October 2023 for the crime. In April 2024, they were charged with criminal damage to the tree and to Hadrian's Wall. Their trial has been set for December 2024.

The tree is sometimes called Robin Hood Tree because it was featured in a prominent scene near the beginning of the 1991 film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The tree has also appeared in a music video from a song on the soundtrack of the film, (Everything I Do) I Do It for You. It has been part of the TV crime drama Vera and was in the documentary series, More Tales from Northumberland with Robson Green.

In 2016, the tree won England's Tree of the Year competition. The prize was a grant of 1,000 pounds. It was used to pay for a survey of the tree's health and to protect its roots, which were damaged by so many people walking over them.

Seeds were collected from the tree and used to help grow new saplings. After the vandalism, the felled tree was cut up and removed by crane. It is being stored on property of the National Trust, a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organization in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The tree has been loved for so long that when signs of life and regrowth appeared on its stump, it was a cause for celebration. The National Trust said that eight new, fragile shoots have been discovered.

Many thanks to Wikipedia, from which I gleaned most of the information for this blog. The August 9, 2024 issue of The Guardian Weekly, a British publication, also provided information about the tree's signs of life and regrowth.