Tiny Things


Tiny Trees, Tiny Essay.
During our trip to the Arboretum on Memorial Day weekend, we visited the bonsai. John thinks they're pretty cool. I look on them as my mother does - as a form of horticultural foot-binding. While I appreciate the effort and the craft, after the 47th tiny tree or landscape, I start to get both a little freaked out and a little bored. The high-maintenance aspect is also daunting (my much-documented tendency towards geraniums is not purely aesthetic - they're easy and I can be lazy).

Our differing opinions on bonsai also reflect our different aesthetics. John is definitely more in the minimalist vein than I am, and the image of quiet and precise clipping of tiny limbs in a spare, airy room is probably appealing to him. Conversely, we both share the desire to one day live somewhere with a fair amount of land where we can have lawns and gardens and inevitably drive ourselves nuts with the amount of work we will have taken on.

So I was highly amused yesterday, when John came in from mowing our postage-stamp of a yard and announced, "I don't need a bonsai tree: I have a bonsai yard!"
Posted: Wednesday - June 08, 2005 at 08:50 AM         | |

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