Mary Madison tends to a bonsai, courtesy of Orlando Bonsai.
What do you know about bonsai royalty?
In our new blog series, “Museum Donors and Their Trees,” we sat down with Mary Madison, known throughout the bonsai community as “The Buttonwood Queen” for her fantastic work on the buttonwoods, or Conocarpus erectus, native to the United States. Madison said the nickname comes from one of her mentors, Ben Oki, who introduced her off the cuff as “The Buttonwood Queen” at a demonstration in California years ago, and the title stuck.
She grew up helping her dad plant and work in the yard of their home south of Miami, where she first cultivated her love for growing plants. Madison also had a knack for drawing and other art forms, and she said a former boyfriend who served in Japan after World War II would send her pictures of bonsai. After looking at the pictures, she decided to try tree training for herself.
“The first tree I started on was a buttonwood,” Madison said. “I just kept on at it and couldn’t stop. I still can’t, and I’m 90 years old.”
After attending a few demonstrations at the Bonsai Society of Miami, Madison ended up studying under Oki and John Naka up until the two passed away in 2018 and 2004, respectively.
She had trained a group planting of cypresses to resemble the Everglades, and Naka had told her she had natural talent. From that day, a beautiful friendship of more than 40 years formed between Madison, her husband TJ, Naka and Oki.
She added that she was the first woman to join the private bonsai club Naka was a member of, and the group even named one of her trees – an honor in the bonsai community. Madison hosted a tea ceremony and open house to show off the tree, which the club named Sen Ryu, or “mystical dragon.”
Madison’s buttonwood – donated in 1990
The queen’s trees
Madison first donated a buttonwood to the Museum in 1990, a tree she dug up herself in South Florida.
She worked on the buttonwood for about four or five years before receiving a call from the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum asking her to donate a tree. Madison said someone sprayed her tree with Malathion on the trip up to the Museum, which she said is almost “instant death” for buttonwoods, so the tree had no leaves when first on display.
Luckily, Madison said, Museum workers took great care of the buttonwood. She said the tree is back to its full glory and maintains her original style but has grown quite a bit since she donated it.
Madison said she styled the tree keeping in mind the “odd” trunk shape, which she said likely formed because the buttonwood grew up through rocks.
“I just started following basic rules, like keeping the bottom larger than the top, until i figured out exactly what I wanted,” she said. “Then I eliminated a few branches and went on from there.”
Madison’s second tree at the Museum traveled around the world before landing at the Museum. She originally sold the tree – a buttonwood, of course – years ago, and it changed hands a few times, ending up under the wing of the Central Intelligence Agency in 2019.
“When I saw that picture of it at the CIA it tickled me to death, I thought that was so funny. People might start thinking I'm a spy or something,” Madison said. “But the CIA was afraid they might kill it, so they donated it to the Museum.”
While the Museum is not currently open, you can read more about the buttonwood from the CIA in our October Historical Tree Spotlight and see her first donated buttonwood among other North American Collection in our virtual catalogue.
Madison still holds demonstrations for the Miami bonsai group and private clubs around Florida to this day.
“I'll probably die out there working on a tree,” she joked. “That would be what I want.”