NABF Newsletter #5

Feature #4

Bonsai Northwest - A Twenty Five Year Ride

By Sharon Muth

Just south of downtown Seattle, up on the hillside sits Bonsai Northwest. It is at once the most visible nursery in the west and yet is the most difficult to get to. Although the nursery is easily visible from the nearby highway getting to it requires a confusing series of turns. Once you are there however, you will find a two acre bonsai paradise that offers an extraordinary variety of plants and bonsai supplies.

One greenhouse loaded with trees.

This is a family business that I started in the late 70’s and is now run by my son John. Over the past 25 years (can it really be 25 years?), John and I have had quite a ride. Bonsai people have given us countless hours of hilarity and pique. There are the students who come back after four or five years with empty pots wanting to start again, convinced that this time their trees will live. Customers who come in February and March with the mall junipers that they got for Christmas, dead as a doornail, and asking if the tree can be saved. My all time favorite is the lament ”My relative gave me this as a gift. It died and they are coming for a visit. Can you replace it with another so they will not know that it died? Please!” But most gratifying are the numerous students who come back again and again. On each visit their trees are more mature and beautiful, and their bonsai skills clearly enhanced.

Outdoor staging area.

Our bonsai business has led us into many exciting travel adventures, especially to the orient. I remember on one trip, we purchased some trees in Japan. They were boxed and would travel with us as excess baggage. At Narita airport we found to our dismay that the boxes were too large and could not be shipped. So there we were in the middle of the check-in area, boxes opened, Styrofoam pellets flying all round, and the other travelers standing in line, amused and trying not to stare.

Over the years there were many more buying trips to Japan. At first, it was strange for me and the suppliers. I think the Japanese were uncomfortable dealing with a woman, but after three or four encounters, I felt at ease and I think they were too.

Fall foliage visible on many of the trees.

The business also forced us to be very creative. Over the years we had to become proficient at building greenhouses, installing security, misting, accounting and many other systems too numerous to mention. Then there were the hours; there is nothing like a forty hour week.

For a while before we got into importing pots from the orient, I produced bonsai pots myself. The production started out in a garage of our house, moved to a unit in an industrial park, and then back to the family home site where a 1600 foot square ceramics studio was constructed. Thousand of pots were made, though no one ever kept track of the exact number. For nine years the output continued, with four large electric kilns cooking almost every day, year round.

Pots ready for use.

When we had orders for large containers, up to 48 inches, we found no kiln manufacturer produced such a large model. So we commissioned a specially constructed kiln which we named the “coffin kiln”. It fired up our forty-eight inch pots we lovingly called the Big Berthas. That kiln is now a standard in the kiln line. I still see some of the Big Bertha pots in the northwest collections. The last pots we made were in the spring of 1984. It was time to move on, work less and import more.

In 1985 we purchased a two-acre site along Interstate 5. It came with a four story blue building, part residential, part commercial and contained a hillside covered with blackberries. The property has undergone quite a make-over, the blackberries are now gone, well most of them, and the hillside is now terraced and covered with greenhouses. But the original building is still there and still blue.

John Muth styling a Cedrus.

On display and for sale at the nursery are some bonsai that I started over 30 years ago. We have also collected trees from the mountains, imported trees from the orient and selected trees from private bonsai collections including numerous bonsai created by our resident staff artists, Glenn Gardner, John, and myself. We also have a large supply of plants in the pre-bonsai category and raw material for bonsai.

Starting out as a hobby and becoming a business is not a new story. However, I am told that the mortality rate of new businesses is over 80% in the first year, and fewer remain at five years. I feel very fortunate that our business is a survivor and still growing. Would I attempt this venture again? You bet! The best part of the story is that my son John, a very talented bonsai designer, is continuing the adventure. And best of all, he allows me to come in at any time and do bonsai. I still love creating bonsai and even though I am “retired” I am still there. It has been quite a ride!