A Profile and a Show Review
Editor’s Note — March 2021
A Profile on Toichi Domoto
Those of you who have been to our bonsai shows and other bonsai shows might know of Nancy Schramm. She is often a vendor at our shows and is the owner of Carman’s Nursery in Gilroy. You can find very interesting bonsai starters from her selection. I have gotten a few trees from her over the years, myself.
Nancy Schramm, a 3rd generation owner of Carman’s Nursery, holds a ‘Candy All-Purpose Yellow’ onion from her garden. Photo courtesy of Nancy Schramm.
Earlier this month, she wrote to me about how Eric Hsu, one of her clients on the East Coast, is doing research on Asian-Americans who have contributed to horticulture to write a profile and potentially a book on the subject. He wrote a very special guest article to share with us.
The person of interest is Toichi Domoto, who started the Domoto Nursery in Hayward. He made significant contributions to camellia breeding and was also a bonsai practitioner. Due to the pandemic, Eric is reaching out over electronic means to do this research, instead of traveling back here to the Bay Area. If you have known Toichi or know someone who does, please contact Eric with the contact information below.
The Maestro of Plants: Toichi Domoto
Guest Article by Eric Hsu — with photos courtesy of the Domoto Family
Those who resided in California long enough before Silicon Valley swallowed the Peninsula may remember the Domoto Nursery in Hayward. Its proprietor Toichi was the eldest son of Kanetaro and Teru Domoto who was raised at the Domoto Brothers Nursery, the largest of its kind in California before its abrupt closure during the Great Depression. Toichi sold nursery plants especially to a large clientele that ranged from home gardeners to large estate owners. The Gamble Garden and Filoli today have azaleas, camellias, and tree peonies from the Domoto Nursery.
Toichi Domoto and his bonsai on the Domoto Nursery. Circa 1960’s.
Although Toichi was better known for his breeding work with camellias, tree peonies, and other flowering shrubs, he cultivated an active interest in bonsai. His granddaughter Sachi noted that each morning he would read his bonsai magazines along with the newspapers. Tending his bonsai was a daily ritual that gave him tremendous joy long after he had retired from his business. At his nursery, he commissioned his friend and landscape architect Ernest Wertheim to design a sales enclosure for his bonsai, pots, and supplies. Toichi was not afraid to refuse sales to prospective customers who did not have the right conditions or the dedication. “To do bonsai, you have to have a state of mind…if you don’t have the patience you might as well forget the bonsai, and grow annuals so you can go from seed to flower in six months, and that’s it.”
One of the bonsai that came under Toichi’s care had been a ‘family heirloom’, having been purchased from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition’s Japan Pavilion. This bonsai, a trident maple (Acer buergerianum) survived the Domoto Brothers Nursery’s bankruptcy in 1930s and the neglect at the nursery during Toichi’s exile at the Amache internment camp in Colorado. Now 200-plus years old, the maple holds a prized location in the Pacific Bonsai Museum, Federal Way, Washington State. The story of the maple bonsai is told in greater detail on the 50 Objects/Stories: The American Japanese Incarceration.
On an interesting sidenote, Toichi’s youngest brother Kaneji who was a well known architect and an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright, took up bonsai late in life and even consulted for bonsai nurseries in the Chicago area.
If you have any personal experiences or materials related to Toichi Domoto, the Domoto Nursery, or the Domoto Brothers Nursery, the author welcomes any correspondence. He can be reached at eric.hsu03@gmail.com. 🌳
Baikoen Bonsai Club Winter Silhouette Show
The Baikoen Bonsai Club of Arcadia recently hosted their 57th Winter Silhouette Show. Due to the pandemic, they made a virtual show on YouTube as part of their Safer @ Home Bonsai Series.
The unique aspect about this show is that it showcases deciduous trees without their foliage. This gives us a fantastic opportunity to study the silhouettes and branch structure of these bonsai.
The show consists of a wide variety of trees. Some trees have been started many decades ago and have gone through much refinement, while others have just recently been trained. We can see how trees early in their development focus more on getting the right trunk line, whereas older, more refined trees have had the trunk line set and focus is on other issues such as pad refinement. One particularly impressive example with quite a bit of ramification is a Korean Hornbeam that started in the early 90’s. Another striking example of an interesting silhouette would be a liquidambar with a few fruit on it. The last tree showcased is a very twisted 10 year old Contorted Quince. Some interesting accent plants are also paired with the trees, though the show does not go into detail as to what they are.
This video is worth a watch, especially since Midori does not have a winter show. Many thanks to the Baikoen Bonsai Club for producing the short virtual show for all of us. 🌳
My Trees Need a Temporary Home
Hi everyone, your newsletter editor Tung here. I’m potentially going on travel at the end of March. Would someone be able to tend to my collection of about about 15-20 trees while I’m on travel? I will take care of transporting them to and from. If you have some room, I can share all the details with you, just send me a note! 🌳
Upcoming Midori Events
The next online meetings will be on March 4th and March 18th 2021 at 7pm. The zoom link has not changed yet, but will be noted here if it does.
Upcoming Northern California (and Beyond) Bonsai Events
Virtual Bonsai-A-Thon
February 27th, 2021 from 10am-3pm — San Marino, CA
The Huntington
The Golden State Bonsai Federation presents its annual Huntington Bonsai-A-Thon virtually this year (due to COVID restrictions). In the morning, Ted Matson, curator of the bonsai collection at The Huntington, hosts video tours of the bonsai courts, the Ben Oki Bonsai Nursery, and the “Lifelines/Timelines” bonsai exhibition. In the afternoon, Phillip E. Bloom, the June and Simon K.C. Li Curator of the Chinese Garden and Director of the Center for East Asian Garden Studies, introduces the garden’s new penjing court and discusses the history of this art form. Both sessions include time for questions from audience members.
The event is held online via Zoom at 10 a.m. (PST). Zoom link will be sent to attendees in registration confirmation email.
Editor’s note: The details of this event were emailed prior to the publication of this newsletter.
7th US National Bonsai Exhibition
September 11-12, 2021 — East Rochester, New York
US National Bonsai Exhibition
The world bonsai community will once again be enriched by the display of bonsai gathered from across the United States at the 7th U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition, September 12-13, 2020, in Rochester, NY.
Like Japan’s Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition, people from around the world attend the U.S. National Bonsai Exhibitions to appreciate and study the diversity of the unique and distinctive species displayed by accomplished bonsai artists from across the United States.
Towering bonsai from the Pacific Northwest, rugged bonsai from the Rocky Mountains, and tropical bonsai from the Southern swampy regions will be displayed alongside weathered bonsai from the Southwestern deserts and refined deciduous bonsai from the Northeast.
