The Chambers’ Christmas Card, 1980. The message inside the card reads: “Whether giant or bonsai, the roots of the redwood spread and intertwine to anchor the majestic evidence that God intended, similarly do the roots of Christmas support our faith that man, too, can stand tall. Have a very Merry Christmas, June and Bob Chambers.”
“All I want for Christmas is a bonsai tree” is probably what June Chambers was singing in 1949. She got her wish – and that gift prompted a long life devoted to learning about and caring for bonsai. Chambers developed a beautiful collection, and since then she’s been sending Christmas cards with a different bonsai on the front each year.
One particular Christmas card stands out: the one with a beautiful redwood, or Sequoia sempervirens, on the front.
Peter Sugawara, a bonsai practitioner who owned Monte Bello Nursery in California, started training this coast redwood from a seedling in 1954. Chambers bought the tree from him in 1972, and Sugawara spent years visiting her yard to help her train the tree. Chambers donated the redwood to our Museum in 1990, and volunteers and curators have been caring for the tree in the North American Pavilion ever since.
“It’s interesting that Sequoia sempervirens is the tallest living thing in the world and the oldest one known of in the Redwood National Park is more than 1,000 years old,” National Bonsai & Pening Museum Curator Michael James said. “It’s likely that this is the smallest redwood that anyone will ever see.”
Caring for the coast redwood
James said the redwood produces shoots with two lateral rows of small needles that can be pinched to ensure the growth doesn’t elongate too much.
Trees in this species develop clustered, vegetative buds at the junction of branches throughout the growing season, he said. If left alone, the clusters will form a whorl, meaning more than two shoots grow from one location. But James said you can prevent that phenomenon from happening on a redwood if you regularly rub off additional buds with a finger or a pair of tweezers, allowing only two shoots or buds to remain at each branch division.
“If those shoots and vegetative buds are not selected down to only two from every location, then bulbus accumulations of callous cells start to form, which leads to an undesirable inverse taper of the trunk or branches,” James said.