The most interesting part of our DC trip was the visit to the National Arboretum, specifically to their Bonsai exhibit. Vlad asked us whether we would be interested, and we said yes, but then all the plans got mixed up because of the weather, and I guess Vlad didn’t want to pressure us. We still said we wanted, and it was great! Vlad and Dylon are a lot into bonsai, and they train several bonsias on their deck. Vlad’s knowledge on the subject is really impressive and he talks about it with real passion. I learned a lot of new things from him, like the fact that most often bonsais are found in nature, and then people keep training them and guiding their development. A lot of bonsais in the Arboretum are more than a hundred years in training, and for many, the date they were discovered is unknown. Vlad explained to us the differences in bonsai styles, and which species are used most often. When he was in Japan, he was gifted a catalog of the first after-WWII bonsai exhibit, and we looked through it:).
I took a lot of pictures; I will post a small portion of them, just to demonstrate the variety of what we saw.
Hettie's Reflections 