Thieves stole a rare 400-year-old bonsai from a Japanese garden. The grief-stricken owner offered care instructions
- Seven trees, worth US$118,000, were stolen from the garden of Fuyumi and Seiji Iimura, a fifth-generation bonsai cultivator
- Fuyumi Iimuri said the trees were as precious as children, and begged the thieves to care for them well
Fuyumi Iimura has a message for whoever broke into her family’s expansive garden outside Tokyo and made off with a small fortune’s worth of some of the planet’s most beautiful bonsai trees: please water them.
Over a period of several nights, a team of bonsai bandits stole the cream of Iimura’s collection, regarded as some of the most exquisite in existence, CNN reported.
It was like losing a child, Iimura said in a Facebook post. The only thing worse would be if the trees weren’t properly cared for and centuries’ worth of work withered away because of neglect.
“I want whoever took the bonsai to make sure they are watered. The shimpaku lived for 400 years. It needs care and can’t survive a week without water,” Iimura said in the grief-stricken post on her Facebook page, referring to a particularly rare juniper that was stolen, a celebrity in the bonsai world. “They can live forever – even after we’re gone, if they receive the proper care.”
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Clearly, the thieves knew what they were doing in last month’s heist. They stole a total of seven trees, but those were the most expensive in Iimura’s collection, according to CNN. The most prized shimpaku juniper alone was worth 10 million yen (US$91,000) and the combined haul was worth 13 million yen (US$118,000) but could fetch much more on illicit markets.
