If you're here, its clear, you're back for more... So welcome to the Nursery Tour Part II. This is another shot of the entryway to our nursery. The shot was made in the fall after frost had taken all of the leaves off the crab apple and left it with a myriad of tiny yellow/orange apples... which the birds quickly ate.

This garden spider had built a web inside the shade house. I couldn't bring myself to knock it down even though it was in the way. Summer pickings must have been good because a month later she had a tummy about the size of a quarter.

This is a shot of the area where we winter store our bonsai. It is an old carport under which we have built 4 x 8 foot frames that are about 10 inches high. These are filled with bark chips and when the serious cold of winter finally sets in in North Carolina (around Thanksgiving), we bury all of our bonsai in these pits up to the rim of the pot in bark chips. The chips protect them from the extremes of the often shifting Carolina winters and the car port keeps them from drying out in the winter wind and sun. On average we have to water this area about every two weeks in the winter months.

Here's a shot of some of our growing benches with plant material for sale. The Bonsai Learning Center trys to specialize, not in finished bonsai, but in pre-trained plant material for customers and students to finish themselves.

Here's another shot of some of the growing benches. We keep several water pots throughout the garden for spot watering jobs during the hot summer, but the bulk of our watering is done with a regular garden hose and a fine watering rose. We use regular water provided by the city system.

This is one of our favorite Trident maples. The trunk base is about 7 inches across and the tree stands about 18 inches high. It was created from a field grown specimen obtained from a nurseryman in Pennsylvania.

In the foreground is a Cedar of Lebanon (showing the back of the tree) and to its left is its cousin, a Blue Atlas cedar shaped in the bunjin or literati style.

A view of the new Japanese lantern which graces the center of our garden. The pine in the ground is a Banshoho Japanese black pine which was a candidate for bonsai material until we discovered it had reverse taper on the trunk. It still makes a beautiful addition to our garden.

You probably noticed this satsuki azalea in one of the earleir photos. It's one of our favorites...especially in May.

Here's a shot of the entrance to the studio building. Bonsai Learning Center owner, Randy Clark, can be seen standing at the left. The studio offers a wide range of bonsai products including an excellent selection of books, tools, containers and soil.

Another interior shot of the studio which shows the new shelves and tokonoma which we built this past year. Classes and workshops are taught in this area.

Yet another shot of the interior of the studio building. The Bonsai Society of the Carolinas holds its regular monthly meetings at our facility.

We carry a wide variety of tools for the art of bonsai including Kiku, Yagimitsu, Ryokoh, Dojin, Joshua Roth and Okubu Japan Co-op.

Enough of the pictures of the interior of buildings... Back to the trees. This is a newly acquired Japanese black pine... mikawa vareity. Its very large, about 3 foot tall, and has a massive trunk. Its an import from Japan and we just transplanted it this past spring. That's over a year to recover, so this spring we are planning to get out the wire and clippers and create great art.

This is the greenhouse. It is only used during the spring, fall and winter months and has no ventilation fans. The walls and vent in the top of the building are long balloon type tubes which are controlled by thermostats inside the greenhouse. When the temp is too cold inside, the tubes inflate and when it becomes too hot, they deflate. This allows for a natural air movement of cooler air from the outside to come in and (since heat rises) carry the warm air up and out the vents in the tops of the house. Pretty clever Huh?

Here's an interior shot of the greenhouse. It is divided into two sections. One side contains tropical plants and is kept at a minimum of 60 degrees even on the coldest winter nights. This side however is used to winter temperate trees which are difficult to put into our cold pits (rock plantings, cascade bonsai and the like). It has no heater, but the ambient heat escaping from the hot side holds it at just above the freezing mark. The floor is about 4 inches of crushed rock.

Here's an interior shot of the tropical side of the greenhouse. In includes many trees for sale as well as personal plants and plants which our customers and students have us winter over for them. This is a wonderful place to be in January.

Well, here's the entrance to our garden again... so you must be leaving. We're glad you came and invite you to stop by again sometime... and we hope that the next time you visit with us, it will be in person.