For a local bonsai expert, hobbies are more fun when you can share them with others.
Lowell Tilley has been pursuing his hobby for years and is now bringing it to the University as part of a leisure arts course.
“I probably have about a thousand plants in the backyard,” Tilley said. “I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say a thousand plants.”
Tilley said the goal of his workshop is to foster a community of like-minded people who can partake in the art of bonsai together.
“It’s an art thing, and I know people that do bonsai and they never belong to any club or anything,” Tilley said. “And they won’t hardly show you their collection, you know? They’re their own worst critic.”
However, this is not the only reason Tilley chose to take his hobby to the next level and begin teaching. He said teaching is another way to learn even more.
People may think of bonsai as a slow practice that takes a lot of patience. But not only is bonsai a fun activity for some, but Tilley said it also helps builds character.
“It takes perseverance, and you learn patience doing bonsai,” Tilley said. “We don’t want to wait a hundred years for it to look like it’s a hundred years old. We’re not patient at all.”
Bonsai is not a quick hobby one can complete in a single day — a bonsai tree takes years to grow.
“It’s kinda like learning to ride a bicycle, and only practicing 30 minutes a month,” said Tilley. “You can cut it off, and you gotta wait for it to grow back. That’s when it starts teaching you patience.”
To combat the long months of waiting for a tree to grow, many people keep more than one bonsai tree.
“I have about 75 that could go into a show,” Tilley said. “John Naka — you could consider him the father of American bonsai — he used to say ‘Make 100, keep one.”