Bonsai following blooming in Bonita

Procombens nana is a typical landscaping plant that was turned into a bonsai tree at The Bonsai Room Learning Center.

Renowned-bonsai artist Boon Manakitivipart will be making an appearance at The Bonsai Room Learning Center in Bonita Springs in May.

And, although the event is sold out, it marks the continuation of the spread of the art of bonsai (pronounced bone-sigh) in Southwest Florida.

“The United States is still a baby when it comes to bonsai because it hasn’t been around that long,” said Dorothy Schmidtz, teacher and part-owner of the Bonsai Room. “We don’t have a lot of plant material to work with in the United States.”

Schmidtz would know because she travels around the country buying plants and learning about bonsai. She teaches and also keeps up private collections for clients.

“People like bonsai to look at and I see it as art,” said Schmidtz, who decided to open the learning center with her business partner Ernie Fernandez after seeing interest grow in the area.

“There are 26 clubs in the state, so it’s not unknown, but people are slowly getting into it,” said Fernandez, who opened the shop next to his sign business on Bonita Beach Road because he owns the building.

The shop is only opened part-time for the time being because Schmidtz and Fernandez are busy running the Bonsai Society of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers and a similar club in Naples.

“To open a shop like this takes a lot of preparation,” said Schmidtz, about the shop that opened in January. “Plant material isn’t easy to come by and we just had to find the time.”

The learning center offers private lessons and group classes for all skill levels. The shop also sells bonsai supplies like trays and plant materials but they aren’t a nursery.

“You can take a tree you really like and make it a bonsai. You just have to manipulate it,” said Schmidtz, while explaining that bonsai trees are shaped by using wire and tools. “Bonsai is in the development of being accepted as art.”

And the trees can be shaped to look beautiful but they caution that it takes years of work and skill.

“Bonsai means tree in a tray so it has to look like a tree, not a bush,” Fernandez said.

Schmidtz likes to explain it like this: “this is high tech trees and you work the real beauty out of it.”