COSTA: The Australian Capital Territory has many highlights,
but is also home to one special place.
Created in the aftermath of the bushfires
that decimated south-west Canberra in 2003,
the National Arboretum has welcomed over a million visitors
since officially opening 10 years later in 2013.
It's an undeniably beautiful site,
showcasing more than 44,000 trees from around the world,
including many rare and endangered species.
And while tall trees are naturally what an arboretum brings to mind,
this site has a surprising collection on a slightly smaller scale.
Over 1,000 years ago, a Japanese author wrote,
"A full-size tree that is left growing in its natural state
"is a crude thing.
"It's only when it's kept close to human beings
"who fashion it with loving care
"that its shape and style acquire the ability to move one."
The writer was referring to bonsai,
and in this part of the arboretum,
curator Leigh Taafe is in charge of some very valuable examples.
Lee, how exactly do you define bonsai?
Costa, 'bonsai' literally translated means 'tree in a pot'.
It's the Japanese form of the art.
What a lot of people don't know is that bonsai actually began in China
and predates bonsai in Japan by around 700 years.
The term for bonsai in China is actually 'penjing'...
..literally translated to 'tray scenery'.
With a bonsai, the artist is creating the illusion of a big tree
just in miniature.
Penjing, on the other hand,
would encompass the whole scenery,
so it could include rocks
that depict mountains,
water that depicts the streams and lakes,
animals and figurines and birds that are included as well.
The one that we have here is a cascade,
so depicting something that might be growing from the side of a cliff
and weather or elements - snow, possibly -
have weighed the trunk downwards.
Here, this one, we have quite a lot of deadwood within the tree.
Often, the artist will depict what they see in nature
and often trees will have the deadwood here
and we refer to that as the 'shari'.
As we move over to the next one, this is a semi-cascade style.
And the one a little bit further over,
we would call that an informal upright.
That's actually the oldest bonsai here.
Dates back to 1937.
Wow! Yeah.
What sort of soil mix are you using for your bonsais here?
Well, here at the collection, we don't have to use soil at all.
In fact, we're using an inorganic mix
and the components of which allow us to have a little bit more control
over the growth of the trees.
Leigh's colleague in bonsai, Sam Thompson,
explains more about that magic mix.
We use New Zealand pumice,
which has an amazing capacity to hold water,
but also provide aeration.
This Japanese fired clay is called akadama,
and akadama holds water,
but it also splits in half and breaks down,
and as the akadama breaks down,
those roots begin to divide and multiply.
Here is zeolite.
Zeolite holds onto a lot of nutrients when you are fertilising
and it also holds onto a little bit of water as well.
This component here is scoria.
Scoria's amazing for those trees
like Japanese black pines, junipers.
Anything that needs to provide aeration for the tree,
we'll use some scoria.
And this little soil here -
you can barely even notice it -
this is for our smaller trees,
our shohin trees.
My suggestion for the home grower of bonsai
is to probably use a more commercial mix -
something that's open and sandy
but does have some of that composted material.
Sam's primary role is the ongoing maintenance of the collection.
Bonsai will take a lot more care than a regular plant.
There are two different types of pruning.
The first one is structural,
and this will give you the shape that you're looking for.
It gives you the definition of the branches and the placement.
What we see Sam doing here is our maintenance pruning,
so Sam is maintaining the elongated growth
that comes from our subsequent fertilising
and this will help to give the overall silhouette of the tree.
Definitely time-consuming, isn't it? (LAUGHS)
There's interest in bonsai in all seasons.
Spring, we often have a lot of flowers through to early summer.
Summer, of course, the beautiful green foliage of the trees.
Some of the native flowers come out at that time.
And autumn with the beautiful colour of the exotics,
the deciduous trees that change to pink, red, oranges,
and then, of course, the leaves fall away
and that's the time when you can really appreciate
those deciduous trees.
In fact, in Japan, that's the time that they have their annual shows,
when all of the deciduous trees are bare
and you can see the structure of the fine, intricate branching.
There's been quite a push for Australian bonsai artists
to use the native material
and at the moment, we have some great specimen of banksia...
..melaleuca...
..tea trees...
..some of the Ficus species like Port Jackson fig.
It's clear to see the calibre of bonsai you've got here,
it's way beyond what you're going to find in your local nursery.
Yes, the trees here do tend to blow people's minds.
It's fun to watch people walk through the front door
and just see the expressions on their faces.
It's a real pleasure to share what we have in the collection here.
Hopefully it will inspire some new bonsai artists into the future.
It's like having a whole garden in one pot.