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Barberry trees are popular for people looking to develop bonsai trees. Sue Lauer has a finished example at her Laflin home.
DON CAREY/THE TIMES LEADER
Sue Lauer stands among the many bonsai trees she’s helped grow over the years. She keeps special versions lined up on the stairs of her home, which doubles as a garden center on the first floor.
MIKE McGINLEY/FOR THE TIMES LEADER
Sue Lauer loves showing off her bonsai trees, which she’s been growing for more than 20 years. She keeps a personal collection at her home, in addition to selling them at her business at the Midway Garden Center, Laflin. Here she holds a Japanese larch tree.
Sue Lauer has a red-leaf Japanese maple bonsai tree on display at her home for visitors to admire. While it may look like a towering tree, it’s actually no more than a foot tall in Lauer’s yard.
DON CAREY photos/THE TIMES LEADER
It doesn’t take long for Sue Lauer to get to work in the mornings.
That’s because her home is just above her business: the Midway Garden Center in Laflin.
“It takes me two minutes to get to work,” she said. “But it takes me forever to get away.”
With work and home so close together, it’s a given that some things may hold both professional and personal importance to her.
Take bonsai, an art form she took up more than 20 years ago after her husband, Ray, purchased a bonsai kit in Florida.
Besides selling shrubs, tools, fountains and other gardening necessities on her property, which is nestled behind a variety of plants and towering trees on Route 315, she also sells bonsai trees.
“It’s an art form,” Lauer, 53, a member of the Northeast Pennsylvania Bonsai Society, said of the sculpted trees that sit prominently on the steps of her home.
“I try to keep it more of a hobby than as a business,” she said.
It’s tough, though, because the front yard of her home is also the front yard of her business, where plants are constantly trading hands.
Lauer sells some of the well-manicured, sculpted trees at the garden center but saves those of special meaning for herself, such as a larch tree given to her husband by the youngest member of the bonsai society, a cypress she’s taking care of while her daughter is traveling, an azalea tree she got from one of the founding club members and a wisteria tree that “this spring bloomed beautiful.”
For those unfamiliar with the art form, popularized by the Japanese more than 2,000 years ago, it can be characterized like this: a process by which trees or shrubs are planted in special soil, sculpted using wiring and then take on various, aesthetically pleasing shapes. The term “bonsai” literally means “tree in a pot.”
The idea is to make small potted plants emulate larger trees found in nature. Bonsai can be developed from several different sources: seeds, cuttings of trees, young trees themselves or from stunted trees transplanted into containers.
“Sometimes you tell the tree what to do; sometimes it dictates its own shape,” said Carl Achhammer Jr. of Sugar Notch, who serves as the event chairperson for the upcoming Northeast Pennsylvania Bonsai Society Open House on Sept. 12 at the Midway Garden Center.
There, visitors can watch demonstrations, see the bonsai trees on display for competition and learn more about the container-grown, decorative miniature trees that can last for hundreds of years.
Achhammer himself has nearly 200 trees at his home that are in various forms of development.
One hemlock tree he has is between 30 and 40 years old, he surmises.
Achhammer is also quick to correct misconceptions about bonsai.
“Most people think it’s just a tree,” he said.
The process is much more special to members of the bonsai society.
“Our goal is to capture that moment in nature,” Achhammer said. “It’s a very relaxing, calming art.”
“It gives people a sense of enjoyment and accomplishment,” he said, noting he keeps his on his front porch and in his backyard and tends to them frequently.
“The Japanese used them to welcome people,” he said, referencing the historical importance.
Upon Lauer’s return from a vacation in Florida in the late 1980s, she and her husband discovered dwarf-size red maples in their yard, which they turned into their first-ever bonsai trees.
Trees don’t necessarily have to be purchased at garden centers, though, because pieces can be found out in nature, Lauer said, referring to a lovely tree she’s cared for the past 18 years after finding it near the Laurel Run Mountain.
Replant the tree or shrub in the proper bonsai-growing soil and be prepared to clip and sculpt them in the style you like: formal upright, informal upright, slanting, cascade or semi-cascade. And feel free to combine the styles, the experts said.
Lauer and Achhammer said there are many misconceptions when it comes to bonsai trees.
In fact, 90 percent are actually outdoor plants that need daily watering and care.
Still, after several years of practicing the art, he said, when he tells people about it many “have no idea what I’m talking about.”
IF YOU GO
What: Northeast Pennsylvania Bonsai Society Open House
Where: Midway Garden Center, Route 315, Laflin
When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sept. 12
More info: 654-6194