Inside a big bonsai show filled with tiny trees from Pennsylvania to Connecticut [photos, video] | Home & Garden

In the right spot, Japanese white pines can grow 50 feet tall with branches spreading even wider.

Bob Hunter has spent 40 years caring for a Japanese white pine: pruning, training, picking the right soil and watering it twice a day. Under his constant care, the tree has grown to 4 feet tall. Perfect for a bonsai tree.

Hunter fell in love with the art of bonsai after seeing the tiny trees on TV as a teenager in northern New Jersey.

“They look like nature, nature that you can carry around with you and control,” he says.

Hunter’s 75-year-old pine was the tree with the longest resume at MidAtlantic Bonsai Societies’ Spring Festival. The annual event brought master artists to a Holiday Inn in Grantville to share their techniques and critiques last weekend. Each of the society’s bonsai clubs from the region also picked a few trees to display. These …