1994 --  Elandan Gardens opened to the public on six acres of a former landfill for the City of Bremerton, WA.  During the previous three years, over 3,000 cubic yards of sandy fill dirt and over 1,500 tons of granite were used by three generations of Dan and Diane Robinson's family to create a landscape of old mossy logs, pristine ponds, waterfalls and streams.  Japanese influences are blended with a recreation of the wilds of the Northwest surrounded by the Puget Sound. This is the naturalistic setting for creatures and human visitors to study more than 150 world class bonsai -- maples, pines, cedars, hemlocks, and cypresses -- from Dan's private collection.  A 3,500 square foot greenhouse has been transformed into a gallery for rare and unusal plants, bonsai, tools, antiques, gifts and garden arts. ("Elandan Gardens" by Dan Robinson, Bonsai, BCI, May/June 1996, pp. 16-20; RJB telephone conversation with Diane Robinson, Apr. 15, 2000)   SEE ALSO:  Jan 26

1995 -- The Shanghai Botanical Gardens opened a new penjing display pavilion.  For several centuries the garden has been regarded by the Chinese as the center of the best penjing cultivation.  It was established on the site of the Longhua nursery after 1974 and the garden was opened to the public in April 1978.  The masterpieces therein come from many regions in China although the trees predominantly conform to the Shanghai School of Penjing.  The extensive new outdoor display area has expansive pathways and generous use of space in the staging of the trees, each on its own stone pedestal.  The window and skylight-filled octagonal indoor display building holds many smaller trees.  [The Longhua nursery was established in 1954 to raise ornamentals for planting in and around Shanghai municipality.  Of its 175 acres, 125 were devoted to raising almost two hundred thousand saplings of  more than 240 species of trees.  It had also been a site for long and arduous training in the ancient and highly specialized art of penzai.  Student-gardeners there spent up to ten years learning the theory and practice.  In order to reproduce regional styles they needed to be able to read classical literature and therefore studied language and calligraphy.  They learned to draw and to paint -- Longhua had the services of several visiting artists as well as its own resident treacher of painting -- and the student-gardeners, of course, also acquired the techniques of tree-breeding, grafting, and propagation, in addition to the specialized practices of manipulation.] ("Shanghai Botanical Gardens" by Carl Morrow, Bonsai, BSI, Jan/Feb 1997, pp. 32-36; Forestry in Communist China by S.D. Richardson; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press; 1966, pp. 75, 155, which spelled the nursery's name as "Lon Wha"; a photo of a corner of the garden is shown on pp. 136-137 of Yunhua Hu's Penjing, The Chinese Art of Miniature Gardens)