When eight miniature trees disappeared from the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt in Oakland in mid-January, a sense of despair descended on the volunteer-run exhibit.
The trees were living masterpieces, nurtured and cared for like family members. All of them had been donated to the Japanese-styled garden, and some were in the prime of their lives, blooming with delicate pink flowers. Volunteers had cared for these trees — pruning, shaping, and watering them — every day for decades. Suzanne Miller, the garden’s assistant director, said the thefts felt akin to a “kidnapping.”
A flowering quince at the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. Eight trees were stolen from the garden in mid-January burglary. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
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But perhaps even more disturbing than the loss of the trees was the calculated nature of the crime. The burglary appeared carefully coordinated, the trees specifically targeted.
“This was not a bunch of kids joyriding who decided to steal a tree,” Miller said. “This was a well-planned heist.”
As the news reverberated across the bonsai-enthusiast community, the thefts also served as evidence of a disturbing pattern emerging in California. For bonsai practitioners, the loss of the trees is further proof of an increasingly unsettling statewide trend in which the tiny living art pieces have transformed into a beacon for crime.
The thefts in Oakland began at about 10 p.m. on the night of Jan. 17, when one or possibly two men drove a car up to a grassy knoll behind the garden on the north side of Lake Merritt. Using an electric saw, they cut through a chain link fence. Then, slinking through the palm garden, the thieves kicked in two boards on the fence enclosing the bonsai display.
The garden contains over 80 bonsai trees of various sizes and values. But the thieves seemed to know exactly what they wanted, working quickly to carry eight specific trees — a contorted cherry, a Korean hornbeam and a Hinoki cypress, among others — through the hole in the fence. Later, at close to four in the morning, the thieves returned and attempted to steal a redwood bonsai tree, which they were unable to fit through the opening.
At first blush, the theft seems unusual. But bonsai thefts in California are becoming increasingly common. Although there is no national database for stolen bonsai trees, practitioners say that thefts have accelerated dramatically in recent years. Last February, a “priceless” tree was stolen from the Japanese Friendship Garden in San Diego. Eastern Leaf, a private retailer in Chino, was one of a number of nurseries targeted in Southern California in 2021. The Bonsai Garden in Oakland has been burglarized multiple times in the past five years. Just two months ago, the Clark Bonsai Collection in Fresno was targeted in a crime very similar to the one that occurred in Oakland.
There, as in Oakland, thieves cut through a chain link fence and broke through wood boards to enter a garden. And as in Oakland, the thieves seemed to target the most high-value, portable plants.
“These guys have really good taste, they’re not taking the junk,” said Bob Hilvers, the managing curator of the Clark Bonsai Collection. “We’re talking about professionals or semi-professionals that have learned to target bonsai.”
From a criminal psychology perspective, it makes sense that bonsai trees are an attractive target. Although the trees are often worth as much as the art displayed in museums, they are rarely stored under the same level of security. Because the trees are living entities, they must be kept outside, which puts them at greater risk. Curators are trained to create a serene viewing environment, not to approximate Fort Knox.
Still, although bonsais might seem like an attractive target, they also pose challenges. The trees require the specific, daily care of an advanced gardener. Unlike a painting, you can’t store a tree in a warehouse until the heat dies down. The trees stolen in Oakland, if not properly maintained, could be dead by now.
A photo marks the location of a stolen tree in the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. Eight trees were stolen from the garden in mid-January burglary. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Meanwhile, the market for bonsai is relatively niche, and there are only so many people on the hunt for a tree ranging in price from $20,000 to $40,000. According to Hilvers, stolen trees have turned up at flea markets or on eBay, but others may end up hidden away in private collections. Because of the publicity generated by the thefts in Oakland, it’s likely that anyone within the community would identify the stolen trees. Given the dollar value of these plants, if caught, the thief would face charges of grand theft — a felony.
Jason Chan, owner of Eastern Leaf, a nursery in Chino, said although there is an underground market, he believes many people steal the trees primarily for themselves.
“If you really want it, but it’s not for sale, that’s what you do,” Chan. “There’s an obsession element.”
Representatives at The Huntington, a museum, library and botanical garden in Los Angeles, said they too are concerned about the rise in bonsai thefts. Beyond bonsai trees, other exotic plants across the state have become targets for smugglers, including thousands of succulents smuggled from California state parks to Asia.
“It’s not business as usual,” said Susan Turner-Lowe, the museum’s VP for communications. “There’s real concern.”
Turner-Lowe said the museum treats its bonsai trees in the same way that conventional museums treat high-value art pieces. They have security guards, cameras and several redundant security systems. But even the Huntington was hit five years ago when a thief absconded with a bonsai tree under a blanket in a baby stroller.
For public gardens, like the one in Oakland, The Huntington’s safety measures are harder to implement. The Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary in November, is already looking for ways to beef up security, but it’s expensive, and they’ve asked for help on GoFundMe. There is no way to replace the lost trees, but at least they can try to protect those that remain.
Miller, the assistant director in Oakland, said there was no chance they would move the trees elsewhere. It took nearly 30 years for the garden to be created, and there’s no giving up now. Still, she acknowledged that it’s impossible to fully protect the trees.
“If someone really wants to get in, they’ll get in,” Miller said.
There is no doubt that the mood at the Oakland bonsai garden has changed since the burglary. A few weeks before the thefts, a docent remembers a man acting strangely in the garden. He spent a long period in the corner where the trees were ultimately stolen, sketching or writing in a notebook. He didn’t browse any other part of the exhibition. After about an hour and a half, he left.
Miller has now found herself scrutinizing the garden’s visitors more closely. Given the strange circumstances of the crime and the difficulty of selling the trees, it’s possible that it was, in fact, a bonsai enthusiast who stole the plants for a private collection. Perhaps it is even the same person who targeted the collection in Fresno.
But for Miller, a lover of bonsai herself, it is hard to imagine that a member of the community could be perpetuating these crimes. The practice itself is self-selecting — the type of people who would want to spend their lives caring for delicate, vulnerable, little wonders.
“It’s really hard for me to wrap my head around that,” Miller said. “These are jewels of Oakland.”
