Bonsai garden trees at U-M’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens range up to 800 years old

The bonsai garden is almost tucked away, in the back of the University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens, in the northeastern corner of Ann Arbor. With a wooden fence around it, one opening with a narrow walkway brings your attention straight toward a beautiful azalea tree full of pink blooms, when this story was photographed. If you visit now, a Chinese elm tree may catch your eye.

Bonsai is a Japanese word that means "planted in a pot." It originates from the Chinese word “penzai,” with the same meaning. "Penjing" is a Chinese word, meaning "art planted in a pot."

The bonsai collection at U-M dates to the late 1970s, after the school received a donation of 163 trees from Dr. Maurice Seevers, chair of the University’s Department of Pharmacology for nearly 30 years. The collection was not open to the public until about a decade ago, when the bonsai and penjing garden was created at the Botanical Gardens, with help from the local bonsai society.

The garden now has more than 160 trees, ranging from azaleas to Chinese elms to Japanese beeches, black pines, Korean hornbeams and Rocky Mountain junipers. The age of the trees at the garden ranges from 40 to 800 years old, and styles range from broom, exposed root to forest on rock to leaning to root over rock.

After the dedication of the bonsai garden, the collection has continued to grow, and includes donations from alumnus Melvin Goldstein, a well-known sociocultural anthropologist specializing in Tibetan society. According to Jack Sustic, bonsai specialist at the botanical gardens, the quality of Goldstein’s donation has made the bonsai collection at this garden one of the best in the United States.

The Matthaei Botanical Gardens is open year-round, and the bonsai garden is open from May 1 to Nov. 1.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Bonsai garden at U-M’s Matthaei Botanical has 800-year-old trees