Aldridge Gardens hosts hands-on Bonsai Society workshop for members

A small bench session at Aldridge Gardens gave Alabama Bonsai Society members something books and screens cannot: a morning of direct, hands-on work with their own trees. The Bonsai Society Members Workshop ran Saturday, May 2, from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in the NaphCare Education Building, and the listing made the purpose plain, participants were asked to bring trees to work on with John.

That format matters in bonsai, where the biggest gains often come from one experienced set of eyes looking at an unfinished tree and helping decide what to remove, what to wire, and what to leave alone. A limited-size workshop with advance reservation is not just a registration detail. It is the difference between crowded observation and actual instruction, the kind that lets a member get immediate feedback on pruning choices, styling problems, and long-term maintenance instead of guessing through the next growing season.

The Alabama Bonsai Society says workshops are held the first Saturday of each month from February through November, usually from 8:00 to 11:30 a.m., at the NaphCare Education Building at Aldridge Gardens on Lorna Road in Hoover. The society says it was established in 1974 as an educational community devoted to developing awareness of Japanese bonsai in central Alabama, and that monthly meetings are held the second Tuesday evening each month at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

John Walker of Walking Tree Bonsai, who serves as curator of the Meyer Bonsai Terrace at Aldridge Gardens, has become one of the central hands in that local scene. Aldridge Gardens describes the terrace as a place created to display bonsai in more appropriate surroundings, and the setting backs that up: a torii gate entrance, a winding brick path, platforms for bonsai, and selected stones displayed alongside the trees. It is a proper bonsai space, not a decorative afterthought.

Walker’s role has extended beyond one workshop. The Alabama Bonsai Society previously said he gave a presentation on tropical bonsai at a July meeting, discussing care across different seasons, and that he assisted at an April workshop at Aldridge Gardens while bringing containers and supplies for sale from Walking Tree Bonsai. In 2023, the society said its show chair reported inviting around 1,000 visitors to a bonsai-related event, a reminder that these small technical gatherings sit inside a larger public interest in the club’s work. For members who made it into the May session, the payoff was simple: live instruction, real trees, and a chance to leave Hoover with better decisions than the ones they walked in with.