INFO
| Name | Steven Yin (he/him) |
| Country of Birth | China |
| Place of Residence | Pōneke Wellington |
| Ethnicities | Chinese |
| Decades Active | 2010s, 2020s |
ABOUT
Steven Yin is a bonsai and penjing artist who lives in Pōneke Wellington. He is a former president of the Wellington Bonsai Club, current committee member of the NZ Bonsai Association, and together with his wife and mother runs MiniGardens, a bonsai nursery that offers bonsai trees, tools and workshops.
Yin moved to Pōneke from China with his family when he was 11 years old. He describes coming across his first bonsai tree while he was at university studying digital media design, and was so taken with it that although “it wasn’t for sale, I convinced them to sell it to me.” Yin began to pursue the artform, travelling to Japan, China and Indonesia to visit bonsai nurseries and other practitioners. He initially used his parents’ garage to tend to his growing collection of bonsai trees, while working day jobs as a designer and AV technician. When his father became ill, Yin began to commit more time to the business, giving up other full-time work, so that he could spend more time at home with his dad.
MiniGardens was established in 2013, and has grown to become the largest bonsai nursery in Aotearoa. Yin now has over 5000 trees in his backyard nursery, and his mother works alongside him, helping him to care for the trees. Steven teaches frequently, offering popular monthly workshops at different levels for those wishing to learn the art of bonsai. His approach is one of gentle guidance, reflecting his belief that there are many ways to practice bonsai. He has said, “I always consider bonsai as this freestyle art form. Everyone’s vision is different.” and he encourages his students to explore their own relationships to nature through bonsai.
Yin describes bonsai as a form of storytelling, and has compared the art of cultivating the trees to poetry — “bringing a poem to life” — linking bonsai with the Chinese art of penjing, from which it derives. For Yin, the art is:
more than just a horticultural practice; it is a philosophy that invites us to slow down, appreciate the beauty of nature in miniature, and reflect on the interconnectedness of all living things. Through the careful cultivation of these tiny trees, we learn profound lessons about patience, mindfulness, and the transient nature of life. Caring for a bonsai is not just a hobby; it is a journey that fosters a deep connection to the natural world and provides a source of tranquillity in our busy lives.
Practising these art forms in Aotearoa, Yin has taken the opportunity to connect with the environment around him by cultivating native trees such as kahikatea, kōwhai and pōhutukawa — exploring the unique qualities of these plants and their environments, such as the exposed root systems of pōhutukawa.
In 2023, filmmaker Luke Ross made The Generation Gardener, a short documentary about Yin for Someday Stories. “I grow bonsai trees expecting every one of them to outlive me,” says Yin in the documentary. “We never really own bonsai, we’re just custodians of them.”
