Historical Tree Spotlight: Quince forest planting

The quince forest planting, photo by Stephen Voss 2021

One alluring aspect of bonsai is the ability to recreate an entire forest from a far away place all in a single pot. In this month’s Historical Tree Spotlight, we draw attention to a planting of Chinese quinces (Pseudocydonia sinensis) at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum that does just that. 

Former curator Warren Hill began this arrangement in 1975, growing the centermost and now-largest tree from nursery stock to produce quinces – a yellow, apple- or pear-like fruit (pronounced “kwins”) that is usually not eaten raw but is used in desserts or teas. He then collected seeds from the fruit of that parent tree to grow the surrounding trees.  

Hill combined the parent and offspring trees to create the planting in 2002 and donated the arrangement to the Museum in July 2013. 

Museum Curator Michael James said the trees are relatively similar in age, but Hill grew them to different sizes and shapes by paying special attention to his thickening technique.

“It’s really about how much foliage each tree is allowed to have,” James said. “Allowing a tree’s branches to really extend before cutting them off allows the trees to thicken faster, but trimming branches fairly often keeps a tree smaller. 

Now that the forest planting is fairly developed, Museum staff keeps the foliage throughout the forest planting at a similar vigor to balance the leaf size with the trunk sizes and ensure the trees are proportional to each other. 

“Maintaining this difference in height and thickness really drives home the true representation of how trees look in a natural forest environment,” James said. 

He said the deciduous planting requires a lot of sun and a fair amount of water compared to other trees in the collection. The trees in Hill’s planting are some of the first to flower in the spring, and the quinces’ bark changes colors and textures throughout the year. But James said the planting peaks in the summer, when the bark exfoliates.

Warren Hill and the Chinese quince forest planting, photo credit to Walter Pall

“The smooth bark in the winter and early spring is a mixture of grays and tans and different browns, even greens,” he said. “But when that exfoliates and those colors flake off, it gives way to rosy oranges and pinks that look as if someone lit a match inside the heart wood.”

In the fall, if the flowers are pollinated, the trees grow their quinces, which are so large compared to their branches that Museum staff rarely leave more than one fruit on the composition each year. 

First Curator’s Apprentice Sophia Osorio said the planting is protected in the greenhouse during the colder months, so the quinces don’t always have access to pollinators. Museum staff have to manually pollinate trees, taking a soft, bristled brush from flower to flower to transfer the pollen. Osorio said they will pick a few flowers to enlarge throughout the year and eventually grow fruit, but that takes some extra planning. 

“We have to be careful that the branch we allow to flower is in the right place in the composition and will be able to support that fruit, yet not swell too much from developing,” she said.

Osorio added that the branch often has to be supported with wire because a fruit could easily snap a bonsai branch off by the time it matures in fall.

“The fruit draws tons of nutrients up from the roots, through the trunk, through the branch and to itself,” she said. “Due to that immense transfer of water and energy, the branch with the fruit is going to thicken a lot more than the others.”

Photo by Stephen Voss, 2021

Museum Curators: Warren Hill

Warren Hill at his one-man show at East Tennessee State University in the late 1990s. Trees (from left to right): American Hornbeam, Bald Cypress and Ginkgo Biloba, also known as Chi Chi Ginkgo

Not many people can recall experiencing a specific, life-altering moment. But Warren Hill attests that his personal and professional paths completely changed after he walked into a bonsai exhibition hosted by the California Bonsai Society (CBS) in 1960. 

For this final edition of Museum Curators, we spoke with Hill, who presided over the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum from 1996 to 2001. Though he didn’t practice bonsai growing up or in school, Hill always had a deep interest in Japanese culture and said he was immediately hooked on the art of bonsai after walking into the CBS show.

“I had no idea what I was looking at, but I knew it was magnificent,” he said of the exhibition.

But Hill’s adoration for bonsai didn’t come totally out of the blue. In college, he majored in engineering and horticulture, his affinity for which stems from his Scandinavian parents. His father was Finnish and his mother was Swedish and held a passion and talent for gardening. Hill was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which shares a cold climate with Scandinavian countries known for their appreciation of the arts, including horticulture. 

“Horticulture is in my background and my heritage,” Hill said. 

Left: One of Warren Hill’s Satsuki Azalea in Informal upright-bunjin, propagated by cutting

Right: One of his trident maples in the yose-ue style, propagated by seed

He was working in the engineering industry when he stumbled upon the CBS exhibition that piqued his interest in bonsai. Hill immediately started collecting business cards from professionals present at the event and got to know bonsai masters like John Naka through a mutual love for nature and Japanese art.

“There are many similarities between the cultures of Scandinavia and Japan,” Hill said. “Every place you go in Japan it’s all about the art. In the simplest house you’ll find it’s almost a shrine to the art, which is kind of the way the Scandinavians feel.”

He began to read everything about bonsai he could get his hands on and studied with Naka and other masters like Saburo Kato and Frank Nagata. In 1974, Hill started to teach and give bonsai lectures, demonstrations and workshops for local and international practitioners and groups. 

Left: Hill critiquing a black pine of Jack Fried, a former president of the Midwest Bonsai Society. Right: Hill helping a student at a bonsai workshop work on their Shimpaku Juniper. Hill traveled around the world to style trees at student workshops. 

After one class on trident maples, Hill was invited to tour around East Tennessee by a friend of his who needed someone to practice bonsai with. Hill was sold on the area and moved from California to Tennessee to work on trees and, coincidentally, meet his future wife.

Shortly after, he received a letter from the U.S. National Arboretum that the Museum curator position was open and they wanted him to apply. He sent in his application, interviewed, and secured the job as the Museum’s second-ever curator. 

“It was an honor to even be asked to be interviewed for the job,” Hill said. “It was a rich position, and I really enjoyed it.”

He said the nicest part of the position was meeting and working with the collection of Museum volunteers to take care of the Museum’s masterpiece bonsai.

“All those nice people who helped out all loved the art as I did,” Hill said. “You meet so many talented people like them and masters like Kato and Naka who were all special and of exceptional quality. When you know the background of people like them and know how gifted they are, you’re kind of in awe when you’re around them.”

California State Convention – Hill is holding a workshop for students in Anaheim, California. They are working with olive trees. 

After Hill retired from the curatorship, he and his wife moved back to Tennessee. He opened Tree-Haven, a bonsai school that taught students from all over the world, and he fell in love with teaching again.

“I like watching the students’ eyes light up when you tell them the answer to a question,” he said. 

For his years of excellent teaching, the Golden State Bonsai Federation awarded Hill the Circle of Sensei Award in 2013. Other distinguished recipients of the award include Ben Oki, John Naka and Harry Hirao. 

Hill remembers sharing with bonsai students that, to be a successful bonsai practitioner, you have to hold a deep love and passion for nature – that will guide you in the right direction. 

Warren used his own drawings of different bonsai styles to show students an idea of what the style looks like. This is Chokkan, which has a formal upright trunk. The majestic appearance represents a large, tall tree standing in the mountains or on a vast low-land plain. Usually the tree's outline is in a pyramidal form.