The Little Bonsai Forest That Could

My husband likes to garden. Digging in the dirt. Planting seeds. Propagating. Culturing. Um... Hoeing. And he does well with it. I've learned from past plant-killing experience that whenever someone decides to gift me with some sort of organism belonging to the vegetable kingdom, I immediately turn it over to my husband. Because I'd like to see it flourish. And I know that I'm not the one to accomplish that.*

A few years ago, when we were first dating (well, when we were first dating for the second time around) he decided on a whim (My assumption is that it was a whim, since I'm not always aware of all the goings on inside his head. This could have been a long-planned event, for all I know.) that he wanted to grow some bonsai trees. Now, my knowledge of bonsai trees was pretty limited to what I'd managed to glean from repeated viewings of The Karate Kid, so I just thought, "Little trees? Cool. I can vacuum around those." Little did I know that his plans would soon begin to... grow. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

First, he began to search. This wasn't going to be your traditional bonsai, a centuries-old gnarled little conifer that could've been transferred from some rock approaching the summit of Mt. Fuji. No, he wanted it to be more locally oriented. So, he went with Maple trees.

He brought home a few small saplings, their roots still tucked into moist clumps of soil. (My husband brings home odd plants and things like other boys will pick up stray dogs.) There were about a half dozen of them in all, chosen because their trunks were oddly shaped or just because he liked them. But he needed a planter. Something from a local garden center simply wouldn't do. He had to keep it home-based. So he took our fireplace pit from the patio, dumped out the previous year's ashes, and tucked his plants into its depths.

Every year, when the time was right (I honestly don't know when the time is right. He has books about this stuff, telling him what soil to use and when to water and fertilize, or when he should massage their trunks while singing "Time In A Bottle" under the dim light of a gibbous moon.) he would trim the branches and clip the buds and... do plant-y things. And he landscaped. He added rocks, and a stream bed, and a path, and moss. It became a complete world, only two feet tall and never expanding beyond the confines of the fire pit.

And now, four years and some odd months later... It is this:

I can even fit the broom under there!

Of course, it's when you're playing with the zoom function that it starts to become a lot of fun.

Smurfette, Strawberry Shortcake, and a limber German boy recreate the Blair Witch Project.

This one is my favorite. A little bit of blurring, a Karmann Ghia, and you could almost believe that a Sleestak is ready to jump out from behind one of those rocks.

*I can kill any plant. It doesn't matter if I follow the directions. It doesn't matter if I talk to it, or love it, or give it ample amounts of sun and water. Even Chia Pets and various types of cacti will find their demise beneath my thumb of death.