Bonsai collection kept alive at museum

Fourteen bonsai trees of late Turkish environmentalist Hayrettin Karaca, nicknamed "Grandpa Earth," in the Yalova Bonsai Museum — Türkiye's first and Europe's largest — are being passed down to future generations.

The Yalova Bonsai Museum, located in the Kadıköy neighborhood in Yalova city center, exhibits 180 miniature trees of 80 species. The display, which includes Türkiye's most important bonsai examples, which is the art of growing trees in pots by pruning, dwarfing and shaping them with special techniques, fascinates its visitors with its unique beauty.

Bonsai artist Hasan Şimşek stated that some of the most valuable trees in the museum came from the collection of Karaca, who founded the Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion (TEMA), the country's largest environmental non-profit organization, in 1992.

Şimşek stated that when he first started the art of bonsai, he learned that Karaca also had a collection and that he frequently visited the museum and took inspiration from those trees.

"In the following years, I started to make progress in the art of bonsai. Due to his age, Karaca was not able to take care of his trees as much as he used to in the past. We tried to support him and took care of some of his trees. Later, his trees were neglected because he passed away. We took over some of them. We especially tried to take over the trees that had memories and a certain story. Periodic maintenance of these trees is currently being carried out in our museum. The history of these trees is also explained to visitors," he said.

Şimşek stated that the Scots pine uprooted from the Taurus Mountains by Karaca and his friends in 1974 is one of the most valuable works for the museum.

"It has been in a pot for 50 years and...