The new Bill Hosokawa Memorial Bonsai Pavilion and Tea Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens is now open. Here’s a little information about the ancient art of bonsai.

Despite their size, bonsai are not a species of dwarf tree, but the name of the art of growing trees in miniature. The Chinese originated bonsai over 2000 years ago, but it was the Japanese who popularized this method of cultivating a “tree in a pot.”

Although bonsai involves aspects of horticulture, this type of “gardening” is more like creating a sculpture instead of growing a tree. Each bonsai is grown in a specific style and shaped by careful pruning and wiring throughout the life of the tree. The goal is to reproduce the look of an aged tree on a miniature scale.