Janet Lanman discovered bonsai in a teahouse in the Japanese Alps over 40 years ago. The essence of the forest she had been hiking through with her husband was perfectly captured in “this horticultural poem.”   Bonsai has been a major part of her life ever since.

Soon after that fateful trip to Japan, she attended a lecture at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden given by Yuji Yoshimura, a prominent Japanese artist who helped train the first generation of American bonsai artists.  She had found her mentor.

Janet started volunteering at the Arboretum over 30 years ago to help care for the original trees from Japan - even before the Bonsai Museum was open!   When asked which is her favorite tree, she answers “The one I’m working on!” The variety of trees exhibited from her collection reflects the breadth of her training, as well as her poetic skill.

Jack Cardon has been helping to take care of the trees in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum for over 20 years.  He claims his  specialty is “doing whatever the curator tells me needs to be done – whether it be repotting, trimming, pruning, wiring, weeding, etc.”  He enjoys all aspects of maintaining the national collection.

Jack had always been interested in bonsai, but didn’t begin acquiring and working on his own trees until his retirement in the early 1980s.  After killing his first purchase, a little sprig of a juniper, he took former curator Bob Drechsler’s course on bonsai for beginners.  After his second tree died, he was more determined then ever to master the art.  He read bonsai books, subscribed to bonsai magazines, and joined Brookside Bonsai Society.

The trees exhibited from his collection reflect his love for working with conifers – pines, junipers, and cypress.

Bill Orsinger is a man of many hobbies:  Italian cooking, photography, mechanical tinkering, wood-working, traveling,  plants and bonsai.  During his19 years as a volunteer at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum he has enriched us with his “jack-of-all-trades” experience!

Bill’s bonsai collection numbers well over one hundred trees; however, he has yet to buy a bonsai!  He loves to nurture trees right from the beginning - from cuttings, seeds, and collected seedlings.  “I seem to be unable to stop rooting more cuttings and growing more seeds collected on my travels.”  He has English Oaks from Wales, European Beech from England, Larch from Nova Scotia, Vine Maple from Oregon – all from seeds.