Zombie Parent's Guide: Visit to the National Arboretum 2021

We went to the National Arboretum over the Christmas holiday, mistaking it for the Botanical Gardens where they set up an outdoor train display. That's what we really intended to see. Since we were already at the Arboretum, we decided to stay.

Our first stop was the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum, a display of plants from China and Japan.

A nice sign

Bonsai trees are typically highly sculpted and some live for hundreds of years. The first one we saw was a Japanese White Pine (pinus parviflora 'Miyajima').

A good size tree

Other plants in the garden are more modest, like this Himalayan Mayapple (podophyllum hexandrum).

Has some cover

A nearby plaque shows various ways to cut a bonsai tree.

Styles, like at the barber shop!

A lot of the trees were much larger than I anticipated based on my pop-culture understanding of bonsai.

Very tall tree

Bigger than bushes

Not pine trees

The most interesting tree was one that dates back to 1625. It was handed down in the family for generations. A disaster almost befell it--the family lived in Hiroshima when the Americans bombed the city during World War II. The garden was protected by a concrete wall, so the plants (and family) survived. The tree is styled as a mushroom cloud in commemoration of the event. The family donated the tree in 1976 as part of the American bicentennial celebration.

Looking good at almost 400 years old

One striking display in the Arboretum is not a plant. Twenty-two columns are set up in the middle of a field. They are from the U. S. Capitol. The columns were installed in 1826 on the building's east central portico. Many presidents were inaugurated in front of them. A 1958 extension of the east wing caused the columns to be removed and replaced. The columns were eventually set up in the Arboretum, in 1990! The location even has a little reflecting pool, which was not full since it could freeze over in the winter months.