Guide
A museum of miniature trees is an odd thing to find in a Turkish province, and the reasoning behind the Yalova Bonsai Museum is set out in the decision that created it. The provincial general assembly resolved on 6 April 2021, in decision number 54, that the work needed to give Yalova a bonsai museum should be carried out — the grounds being that the province is sixty per cent forest and already home to what the account calls Türkiye's first living tree museum.
The preparation was done by looking at how it is managed elsewhere. A technical committee formed by the Yalova Special Provincial Administration examined existing examples on the ground and spoke to people and institutions working in the field, travelling to the bonsai museums of Madrid and Barcelona because Spain is described in the account as Europe's leading country in the art and the growing of bonsai. What the committee brought back was practical: how much the choice of species matters, how climate and plant work on each other, the quality of irrigation water, methods of watering, types of fertiliser, the equipment, and the styles.
The museum stands on 1,800 square metres of a parcel belonging to the Kadıköy municipality, allotted without charge to the Special Provincial Administration, which also drew the project. It was finished on 23 March 2024 and opened with Japan's Consul General in İstanbul, Kenichi Kasahara, present; the opening was dedicated to the hundredth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Türkiye.
Visit status for this record: open to visitors.
