MILLS RIVER, N.C. (WLOS) -- Jesse Jarvis, who served in the Marine Corps for four years, developed a love for the Japanese art of Bonsai, the art of cultivating tiny trees over a long period of time.

Jarvis recently taught a bonsai class at the Veterans Healing Farm in Mills River, North Carolina.

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"I started growing bonsai around four years ago, and it's literally taken over my life," Jarvis said.

One of Jarvis' favorite aspects of Bonsai is that every tree is unique.

"You can grow the same tree, the same tree species, try and grow it the same way, and no tree will ever be the same. The whole point of this is to have asymmetry in your tree," Jarvis said.

At the beginning of the class, every student was given a small juniper tree to work on.

"The reason why I started with junipers is because, as far as bonsai styling and everything goes, junipers are bulletproof. They can withstand a lot of abuse and a lot of either people not paying attention to it or paying too much attention to it," Jarvis said. "As in cutting too much on it, they'll just kind of take it."

Bonsai involves snipping excess branches and wrapping wire around the remaining to guide the tree over a long period of time into achieving a desired shape.

"What the wire is doing is whatever bends you make; it's holding those bends. And then you'll leave the wire on there for about two months, and then after two months, usually the branches are set," Jarvis said.

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Jarvis' enthusiasm for Bonsai continues to grow, especially after Hurricane Helene. He lost many possessions in the flood, but his trees survived.

"I really want to teach people that the more time that you spend putting work into something, by the time that you're finished, it's going to be wonderful," Jarvis said. "I want this to be my life's work."