No End to Bonsai
David Easterbrook and His Passion for Bonsai
“Bonsai is like an onion. You learn bonsai superficially and you think, ‘Oh, I know a lot about it.’ Then you find out there’s a whole other layer underneath… that’s even deeper and more profound. There’s no end to bonsai.” — David Easterbrook
“This is a 30-year-old Nejikan,” David Easterbrook says as he holds up the twisted trunk pomegranate bonsai tree so I can see it close up.
He points to the roots of the tree that he has been caring for since the mid-nineties while handling the bright blue pot and tree with the care and love of a musician tuning a beloved instrument.
“The wonderful thing about this tree is that as it gets older, all the wood cells in the trunk turn counterclockwise,” he says, “and the trunk gets more and more twisted.”
The camera zooms in as miniature, twisted roots fill up my screen. The tree is no bigger than the length of his arm, each feature honed to perfection within its diminutive scale.
“It’s an amazing cultivar, a favorite of Japanese bonsai growers.”
It’s no doubt a favorite of his, too — as well as the hundreds of thousands of viewers who have fallen in love with his videos on social media showing the beauty of bonsai.
I am one of them. Bonsai have always held a special place in my heart. Growing up, my father’s parents were, from what I could tell, not just passionate about bonsai. They were obsessed.
They traveled the country to go to bonsai conferences — yes, those are a thing — and even as a small child, I could tell that bonsai and the community around it were a way of life for them. I have such fond memories of being on their back porch in Longview, Washington and marveling at these miniature, miraculous-seeming trees as my grandparents tended to them, pruning a branch here, and adjusting a wire there, always with such love and care.
Discovering Easterbrook's videos and teachings sparked a deep curiosity in me. This went beyond just another interview for On Fire — it was a deep dive into understanding the passion that had added so much joy to my grandparents’ lives. In Easterbrook's dedication, I saw an opportunity to understand and perhaps even rekindle that same inner fire that had once illuminated their world.
Since his interest in bonsai started over fifty years ago, David Easterbrook has became a kind of legend in the bonsai community, both as a practitioner and an educator — especially while serving as the curator for the Montreal Botanical Garden’s bonsai collection. There he was instrumental in developing many of the techniques for proper care and maintenance used in bonsai practice in North America today at a time when bonsai resources in North America were scarce.
Even after retiring from his formal role at the Montreal Botanical Garden, Easterbrook continues to influence the bonsai world through workshops, social media, and public appearances, sharing his vast and cosmopolitan knowledge around the art of bonsai.
Easterbrook was 19 the first time he learned about bonsai. His mother left their hometown of Montreal to visit his aunt, who lived in San Jose, California, and by accident, they stumbled upon a bonsai exhibition in San Francisco.
She brought a book back by the bonsai master Kenji Murata. From the moment he laid eyes on it, Easterbrook was instantly hooked. This is recuring pattern I’ve seen across many On Fire profiles — chance childhood encounters with something simple but, to young eyes, miraculous… leading to lifelong obsessions.
“It just totally fascinated me,” he says.
Inspired by the book, which he still has today, Easterbrook started collecting wild trees right away to begin his own bonsai collection. But this was over half a century ago and bonsai was still fairly new to the West. He couldn’t find the right tools needed to shape the trees — which include things like specialized wires, wire cutters, and rakes — so he had to mail order a request from Japan to get what he needed. Bonsai also require special pots to help keep them small and healthy, but since none were available in North America at that time, he improvised by drilling holes in clay saucers. Clues of the bonsai innovator to come were already showing themselves.
“I sort of fell into bonsai almost haphazardly,” he says, reflecting on the early days of his passion. “It was such a strange thing. I was doing it for myself with no intentions of becoming a bonsai professional. Maybe I was just the right person at an opportune time in life. Who knows what life brings.”
It wasn’t until years later that he was able to get some real bonsai pots from a Japanese woman he met at the Expo 67, a world’s fair held in Montreal. She had an import business and arranged to buy some pots for Easterbrook. He was thrilled to get some real pots. Eventually, however, he decided he wanted to choose his own and ended up accompanying her to Japan and Korea to do so.
“That’s how difficult it was to get started in bonsai in those days,” he says. “Now people do everything by the internet. Everything’s available. But then, it was a long, hard slog.”
Still, Easterbrook wasn’t deterred. He kept finding a way. After he found his first teacher, Jerry Stowell, he would make the drive down to New Jersey every so often to learn from him. One thing led to another, and soon he had secured a one-year apprenticeship in Japan. Although he was more of just a helper — traditional bonsai apprentices work for 15 years with just room and board for pay — the experience taught him about the traditions of bonsai care by the masters who created it. He learned by watching other apprentices and by rote — by doing the same thing over and over again — from dawn to dusk.
He learned better than to suggest there was a faster or better way of doing something. “There was no arguing with your sensei,” he says. The process taught Easterbrook discipline and patience.
When he came back from Japan, he had his first exhibition, where he displayed the things he had carefully collected from the gardens and woods at his country home. Before long, people started asking him to teach them the art of bonsai — which he did for a few years until starting the Bonsai society and becoming its president. It was while drawing crowds to the Montreal Botanical Gardens that they asked him to stay on as curator. His days have been filled with bonsai — cultivating, teaching, and spreading the word about it — ever since.
So what about bonsai has kept Easterbrook’s interest for so many years? Easterbrook says that he feels like an amateur compared to a lot of the incredible Japanese bonsai masters. There’s always more to learn.
“It’s so profound,” he says. “Bonsai, I tell people, is like an onion. You learn bonsai superficially and you think, ‘Oh, I know a lot about it.’ And then you find out there’s a whole other layer underneath that, where you realize that you haven’t really understood anything. And then when you peel that back, there’s another layer of bonsai that’s even deeper and more profound. There’s no end to bonsai.”
This is how he feels when he goes to Japan, where bonsai has been a tradition for over a thousand years. The term bonsai itself is derived from the Japanese words “bon,” meaning ‘tray,’ and “sai,” meaning ‘planting,’ which together refer to the practice of growing miniature trees in containers. This art form is deeply rooted in the principles of Zen Buddhism and embodies the qualities of harmony, balance, and simplicity. There are many different styles of Bonsai. Some of the main types include formal upright (Chokkan), windswept (Fukinagashi), slanting (Shakan), and, of course, twisted trunk (Nejikan). “The trees in Japan are so incredibly beautiful,” he says. “The foliage is so dense. The shapes are so incredible. The trees are so old and the trunks are all barked up.”
He loves the way that bonsai calms us.
“The Chinese say that bonsai helps remove the dust of the earth,” he says. “Meaning that, when you go to work during the day and come home frustrated, tired, and fed up, your bonsai are waiting for you. They don’t talk back. You can just sit and relax with your bonsai. You can remove the dust of the day and establish a communication with nature through your bonsai.”
And he loves its cyclical nature too.
“There is something that has to be done at each time of the year,” he says. “In the winter, at this time, I’m wiring bonsai. In the spring, you’re candle pruning. In the summer, you’re watering and fertilizing and spreading insecticides and fungicides.”
Easterbrook has transitioned recently to his own new season — now officially retired. But, of course, his days are still full of his passion.
He tends to his own trees, teaches classes, and more recently, shares his love for bonsai on his various social media channels for hundreds of thousands of new and old enthusiasts to enjoy.
I ask him if this was his idea, and he laughs and shakes his head. It was the idea of his youngest son to create a platform for Easterbrook to share his passion with even more of the world. His son will see his dad in his studio or outside working on a tree, ask him what he’s doing, and then coach him through the process of making a video.
“He’s so good at it,” Easterbrook says, referring to his son. “He knows it all. It sounds totally spontaneous, but often he’ll make me do it over and over again.”
But while the outlet might be new for him, Easterbrook is clearly in his element teaching and sharing his passion. From the very beginnings of his days founding the Bonsai society, his intention was to spread the word about bonsai and to teach bonsai to other people so that they could enjoy it too.
“In French, we say, ‘Le retour d’ascenseur,’ which means the elevator goes up — and it has to come back down. And so, I've always believed in giving back.”
But it’s not just the trees that drew Easterbrook — and my grandparents — in… it’s the people too.
“Bonsai is a world in and of itself,” he says. “Almost all of my friends are bonsai people. My doctor is a bonsai person, my dentist is a bonsai person, and my former accountant was a bonsai person. Almost everybody I know are bonsai people… it’s like a cult almost!”
They meet at bonsai classes, work on their bonsai together on Saturdays, and go to each other’s homes and birthday parties. They enjoy the whole ambiance of bonsai.
“It’s about connecting with people, connecting with trees, and connecting with the people that grow them,” he says. “That's what I like so much about bonsai.”
Takeaways
Here is one big thing I learned this week about passion, one exercise you can do to stoke your own inner fire, and one aspect of Easterbrook’s intense enthusiasm that rubbed off on me — and that I now want to learn more about, too!
One Lesson: The Transformative Power of Connecting with Nature
Bonsai, as an art form, requires one to listen, observe, and cooperate with the natural world. Easterbrook's practice of bonsai offers a lesson on the importance of nurturing our relationship with the environment, showing us that engaging with nature can lead to profound personal growth, peace, and a deeper appreciation for the world around us. It reminds us that in caring for nature, we also care for ourselves, fostering a sense of well-being and balance in our lives.
One Exercise: Cultivating Your Personal Bonsai
Choose a personal project or hobby that requires ongoing attention, patience, and care — your "personal bonsai." It could be anything from learning a musical instrument, mastering a new language, or even developing a new skill. Dedicate a small, consistent amount of time each day or week to this pursuit, treating it with the same care Easterbrook gives to his bonsai. Observe how this dedication over time not only improves your skill but also teaches you about patience, growth, and the beauty of gradual progress. This exercise aims to mirror the rewards of bonsai cultivation in your own life, highlighting the value of persistence, care, and attention to detail.
One Curiosity: Getting Started with Bonsai
How can beginners like me get started with bonsai? The first step, Easterbrook suggests, isn't to seek out the most expensive or elaborate bonsai but to immerse yourself in learning. Joining a local bonsai club can provide invaluable hands-on experience and community support. Clubs often offer classes that can help you understand the fundamentals of bonsai care, from selecting the right tree to mastering pruning techniques. Once you've gained some knowledge, begin with relatively inexpensive plants. Look for ones that are more mature than seedlings but not yet fully shaped bonsai — perhaps something in a one-gallon container. And most of all, enjoy the process of discovery. Bonsai is meant to be relaxing, not stressful.
A beautiful expression of patience and commitment - thanks for sharing David's story Krysta.
Patience, or playing the long game, has been such a recurring theme in my atmosphere of late - like all signs are pointing toward patience in a time when we almost have an epidemic of impatience or immediate reward. It's something I want to lean into more or build my capacity for and I love the idea of the personal bonsai for exactly that...