Tree Theft Heartbreaking For Bonsai Masters
It sure isn’t your typical, garden-variety Spokane crime.
Some fiend crept onto Blanche and Merle Halsted’s North Side property in the dead of night. When dawn broke, the horrified Halsteds discovered their 25-year-old maple and two other prized trees - valued at close to $1,400 - were stolen.
Neither the couple nor their neighbors heard so much as a twig snap.
This was the silent theft of Lilliputian lumber.
All three of the Halsteds’ missing trees could have been spirited away under two arms. “We were devastated,” says Blanche, who recently celebrated her 52nd wedding anniversary with Merle.
“I’ve fought tears for days. Trees like this are more expensive and time consuming than raising kids, I’ll tell you.”
The Halsteds are masters of bonsai, the centuries-old practice of cultivating tiny timber.
For example: Their missing maple, although 25 and fully mature, was scarcely 18 inches high. It grew on the front porch in a blue-gray pot Merle made.
Another abductee, a 12-year-old Oregon juniper, was scarcely a foot tall. Yet, it somehow thrived in the back yard on a piece of slate. “It’s like trying to grow a tree on your kitchen counter,” adds Blanche of the difficulty in mastering bonsai.
The Halsteds’ entire orchard of some 35 adult trees fits in a 4-by-8-foot raised bed of earth. It’s a wonderland of miniature tamaracks, hemlocks, maples, junipers and alpine firs.
As you might imagine, it takes years and incalculable patience to create such living masterpieces.
Bonsai roots reach all the way back to 2,500 B.C. China. The Japanese later embraced bonsai as a perfect Zennish way to enlightenment.
The Halsteds discovered the hobby in 1971. They were among the very first in Spokane to do so.
Our extreme variations in climate complicates growing these pint-sized trees. The Halsteds, however, love the challenge.
“You lose yourself,” she says. “It’s wonderful therapy.”
Bonsai devotees pour themselves into their craft, which is as much an art form as agriculture.
They learn how to use special tools and when to apply fertilizers in precise amounts.
The tap root is carefully cut. Buds must be nipped back in the spring. Branches often are wired so they will grow in a desired way.
There always is some niggling detail to attend to as the tree takes its eventual stunted size and shape.
It’s no wonder an intense camaraderie exists between bonsai enthusiasts. They share the pain and the satisfaction. There is even a bonsai news group on the Internet - rec.arts.bonsai.
“If somebody loses a tree we hold a wake,” says Blanche, who has met regularly with a group of bonsai growers for years.
Perhaps the most troubling thing for the Halsteds is realizing that their loss was no random rip-off or act of vandalism.
Whoever snatched the trees knew exactly what he or she was doing.
The Halsteds believe they know who the culprit is - a fellow bonsai lover. Yes, a low-down worm slithers in Spokane’s fractional forests.
That person has been inside the Halsted home. He knew the exact spots where the trees were growing.
How else could a thief have located such tiny plants in the black of night?
Only dumb luck kept this from being a leafy massacre. Hours before the theft, Merle took all but the three trees indoors. “If they had been out he’d have cleaned us out,” he says.
Insurance paid the Halsteds, but the couple wants the plants back. As with any foul kidnapping, a reward will be given for a safe return. Anyone with information can leave a message with me at 459-5432.
“These are like family members,” says Blanche. “When you come outside and work with the trees your whole world disappears.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Clark The Spokesman-Review