Common Name: AMERICAN LARCH, TAMARACK
Botanical Name: Larix laricina
Year first potted as a bonsai: 2003
Estimated age when first potted: 3 years
Initial styling: Bill Heston assisted by Jack Wikle
Donor: Bill Heston
When visitors come through the Hidden Lake Gardens bonsai collection, it’s very common for them to say, “Well, these trees are interesting, but that one, the Heston larch forest, is really nice”; often declaring it their favorite. Of course there are other favorites mentioned at times, but most often it’s this planting.
Its history is that a man who lived south of Jackson, Michigan owned a fen, which is an alkaline bog, as part of his property.
And, there were American larch (also known as tamarack) seedlings coming up profusely in that fen. Well, in this unusual environment, there were some quite rare wild flowers growing there too, very uncommon plants being crowded out by the tamaracks. To the property owner, these tamaracks were weeds.
When some of the members of the Ann Arbor Bonsai Society found out about this opportunity, we made it clear we would be very happy to help the owner out by removing young larch trees. So a small group of us from the Bonsai Society, including Bill Heston, went over and collected several hundred that were maybe two, or three year old seedlings. Almost all were vigorous growing, and healthy with pencil thick trunks or a bit larger.
About a year later we conducted a workshop for Bonsai Society members helping them create larch forests using as many trees as they wanted. At that time Bill Heston already had a group which he had picked out and planted in a nursery flat just to get them going.
In the meantime, at a bonsai convention up in Milwaukee, Bill met a man who was selling large concrete trays he had formed in a mold made over a natural piece of stone. Thinking it might work for the planned large larch forest, Bill bought one of these containers.
So it was the next year 2003, when Bill and Jack put together the current arrangement of trees during the Bonsai Larch Forest Workshop conducted for members of the Ann Arbor Bonsai Society.
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