Plant of the Week
Bonsai
Latin: Bonsai Lorapetalum
The ancient art of bonsai is a curious hobby that challenges the skills of
patience, cultivation and artistry in ways unique among gardeners. The typical
gardener, nay the typical American, has been brought up on the "bigger is better
philosophy," which leads to super-sized meals in fast food joints, SUV’s the
size of homes in third world nations and flowers so large they sometimes look
deformed.
The slow, gentle art of bonsai turns this concept on its head.
Bonsai, correctly pronounced "bone-zi" not "bon-zi," which is a Japanese
cheer, is often considered a Japanese art form, but its roots actually lie in
China. The art form is known as penjing in China, and archeological records
follow it back to at least 1000 BC. But it was during the T’ang Dynasty (618-907
AD), a period known for its poetry and attention to the arts, that the art form
became fully established.
The cultivation of dwarfed trees in pots moved to Japan, probably in the 13th
century, where it flourished in a culture very much in tune with nature and the
introspective values of Buddhism. At first, trees that were naturally dwarfed
were collected from the wild. As this natural supply of specimens was exhausted,
gardeners began growing their own plants and creating well defined rules that
spoke to both their cultural and religious aesthetic.
Bonsai is an attempt to grow a tree in a container that has all of the
aesthetic appeal of a
comparable 300-year old tree growing in the wild, but at 1/100th scale. Five
basic styles of training have evolved that emulate the look of trees found in
nature in different situations. The formal upright style is often used with
pines and other symmetrical trees that have a uniform and predictable habit.
The informal upright and slanting style are variations on the upright theme
but create more energy and movement. They simulate the wind-swept look of trees
that one might encounter along a coastline. The cascading and semi-cascading
styles are more distressed styles that emulate trees one might find growing at
the top of a cliff where they’ve been forced into a defensive posture by poor
soils and continual buffeting by the elements.
As all procrastinating gardeners realize, growing any plant in a container
long enough tends to dwarf it. Bonsai growers capitalize on this natural
tendency and every couple of years remove their plants from their containers and
severely prune the roots. This root pruning, coupled with the environmental
constraints of the container, result in reduced leaf size and short stem growth.
Many bonsai are over 350 years old, so trees take on a really tortured look
as they attain old-growth status in a pot.
Not all trees make good bonsai subjects. The ideal subject is a species with
small leaves, close internodes, attractive bark characteristics and a propensity
to branch freely. Pines, junipers, elms, zelkova, Japanese maple and boxwood are
common starting points for beginners. Unlike most gardeners who select their
plants on the principle of bigness and fullness, bonsai growers often look for
the runts and malformed amongst the nursery offerings.
Most bonsai trees are temperate species that are kept outside during the
entire year and brought indoors only during special occasions, and then only for
a day or two. Because they are container grown, the roots must be protected from
freezing during the winter months. Houseplants and tropical species can also be
treated as bonsai subjects and kept indoors year round.
Growing bonsai requires a ground-up approach to gardening. First, the
container medium must be well drained and nutrient poor. Typically a mixture of
2 parts coarse sand, one part of peat and one part of loamy soil is a good
starting point. Fertilization is usually very light and is usually applied in
the spring just before new growth begins. During the summer bonsai may require
daily watering, depending on the exposure and container size employed. Pruning
and training is an ongoing requirement that sculpts the tree into the image the
grower desires.
The best bonsai collection in the United States is at the National Arboretum
in Washington, D.C. The National Bonsai Collection had its beginning in 1975
when the Nippon Bonsai Association in Tokyo gave a gift of 53 plants to the
people of the United States in celebration of the bicentennial. The plants
ranged from 30 to 350 years old. In 1986, a significant collection of 200-year
old trees was presented by donors from Hong Kong. Today the collection houses
over 250 trees.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
December 14, 2001
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