盆栽

The best Bonsai gardens or specimens are those that been painstakingly pruned over a long period of time. Some of the oldest Bonsai trees are over 800 years old and took many generations of loving care to have survived for so long.

I have always thought Bonsai displays were magical. There is something so compelling and exciting about seeing a familiar item or setting created in miniature. Comprised of a solitary specimen or designed to resemble a portion of a forest, these beautiful little trees are trained in dramatic poses that can appear willowy and windswept or gnarled and ancient. Whether they are grown in a tray or another form of container, it is so easy to be brawn into their miniature worlds and get lost in fanciful daydreams.

I recently attended a local Bonsai display and one of the venders told me that the art of Bonsai originally came from an ancient type of Chinese horticulture that started over a thousand years ago! He also told me that Japanese Bonsai didn’t really come into its own until it was influenced by Zen Buddhism. Something else I found interesting is that Bonsai trees are actually not miniature plants, but are standard size trees, shrubs and plants that have been pruned and trained to resemble nature on a smaller scale.

The best Bonsai gardens or specimens are those that been painstakingly pruned over a long period of time. Some of the oldest Bonsai trees are over 800 years old and took many generations of time, love, patience and thought to have survived for so long. When you look at a truly great Bonsai specimens it should mirror a full size tree in both scale, structure and landscape. The term Bonsai literally means “planted in a container.”