Thieves steal prized bonsai: Heartbroken owner offers care instructions
TOKYO — A Japanese woman has a message for the thieves who broke into her family’s garden outside Tokyo and ran away with “a small fortune’s worth of some of the planet’s most beautiful bonsai trees: please water them.”
According to a report in Washington Post on Sunday, Fuyumi Iimura reported to the police that a team of bonsai bandits stole the cream of her collection, regarded as “some of the most exquisite in existence.”
“It was like losing a child,” Iimura said in her Facebook post.
“The only thing worse would be if the trees weren’t properly cared for and centuries’ worth of work withered away because of neglect. I want whoever took the bonsai to make sure they are watered. The shimpaku lived for 400 years. It needs care and can’t survive a week without water,” Iimura said in a post on her Facebook page, referring to a particularly rare juniper that was stolen, a celebrity in the bonsai world. “They can live forever — even after we’re gone, if they receive the proper care,” the Washington Post reported, quoting CNN. “Clearly, the thieves knew what they were doing in last month’s heist. They stole a total of seven trees, but those were the most expensive in Iimura’s collection,” according to CNN. The most-prized shimpaku juniper alone was worth 10 million yen ($91,000) and the combined haul was worth 13 million yen ($118,000) but could fetch much more on illicit markets. “We treated these miniature trees like our children,” Iimura said. “There are no words to describe how we feel. It’s like having your limbs lopped off.” Iimura’s husband, Seiji Iimura, is a fifth-generation bonsai master whose family has been cultivating bonsai since the Edo period, which ended in 1868. Fuyumi Iimura’s Facebook profile is full of pictures of bonsai trees: mature trees in their garden, younger specimens and pre-bonsai seedlings at a greenery fair.