Thieves steal 45 years of bonsai brilliance
Greenhouse looted twice in three days, $65K in plants taken
Next to Tak Yamaura’s sprawling greenhouse in South Surrey stands a truck with the letters “happiness through bonsai” on the side.
But his bonsai business isn’t so happy these days. Twice in three days, thieves have broken through the chain-link fence, stealing about $65,000 worth of the exotic plants.
The stolen plants were 45-yearold trees that Yamaura grew with seeds brought from Japan when he moved here. He has nurtured them every step of the way, pruning and shaping them.
A native of Nagasaki, Yamaura says he is saddened by the breakins and can’t comprehend why thieves would want these plants that mean so much to him and presumably so little to them.
In an interview at his greenhouse, he described bonsai as his passion.
“It’s not like other merchandise,” he said. “We just love the trees.”
It’s not the first time bonsai growers have been targeted.
In the summer of 2005, a string of bonsai thefts were reported in East Vancouver.
Shigeru Endo lost the most when someone unearthed 50 bonsai plants from his yard.
That same year, another East Vancouver bonsai aficionado woke up one morning to find two of her plants, valued at $3,000 each, stolen from the front yard of her home.
Sam Law, owner of Sunny Bonsai Garden Centre, also reported about $10,000 worth of bonsai trees stolen.
In this most recent theft at Japan Bonsai, where 71-year-old Yamaura also makes his home, there are indications the thieves knew what they were doing.
Along with the bonsais, he said they also took a number of inconspicuous “mother trees” that he takes clippings from to create new bonsai.
That 45-year growing span appears like a blink in time compared with the 1,000-year-old mountain hemlock that sits on the grounds of his nursery, next to bonsai of every shape and description. The thieves spared that specimen, although they left empty shelves in their wake.
There is no mistaking his love of these tree sculptures. What he particularly likes about them, he said, is you can create a mini-forest, with all the wily shapes and graceful branch patterns of trees growing in the wild without having to travel to some distant mountain range.
He has no insurance because to obtain it, he would have to document each tree on the property, a virtually impossible task.
After spending two years studying horticulture in Tokyo, the Nagasaki native moved to the South Surrey area in 1970, introducing bonsai at a time when it was largely unknown in Canada. He has founded bonsai societies in B.C. and volunteered his time to teach the art to young people.
“Everybody knows my style,” he said, adding his specialty is growing bonsai in clusters as though they are part of a forest.
“It’s his passion, so he’s just devastated and just doesn’t understand,” his daughter Natalie Skye said.
He’s also donated countless trees over the years to be auctioned off for charity and some of his specimens are on display at the University of B.C. and the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver.
“He’s so willing help everybody, so it’s been more than a slap in the face,” Skye said.
Since Sunday’s break-in, the family has hired a security guard to watch over the property. They’ve called police, but say the officers who responded have mainly advised them to install surveillance cameras or get a guard dog.
Skye has bought some cameras, but she worried about how effective they will be on such a large property, especially if the thieves wear hoods.
Despite his misfortune, Yamaura is proud of what he has brought to B.C. In an industrial part of the suburban landscape, he has created a little corner of Japan complete with mini-pagodas, fountains and living art in the form of bonsai, an oasis of calm shattered only by the heartlessness of thieves.
Standing like a sentry at the front of the store is a giant imported statue. Called nio-sama, it is supposed to chase bad spirits away.
If only the thieves had entered past it, Yamaura said wistfully, then happiness through bonsai wouldn’t be just a saying on the side of a truck.