The word Bonsai can be translated literally into “container planted”, and is used to describe the art of aesthetic miniaturization of trees that is achieved by growing them in small containers. Western culture uses “bonsai” as an umbrella term to combine the Japanese “bonsai” form, the Chinese “penjing” form and the Korean “bunjae” form of miniaturized tree cultivation. Either way you look at it, bonsai gardening is a popular pastime and has been for centuries.
The Chinese appear to have been the first to miniaturize trees around the year 200 AD. Though it is not certain, it is speculated that the art form has been derived from healers who transported medicinal plants in small containers. The early focus of this art form involved displaying stylized trunks by shaping them into mystic and animal figures. The practice spread to Japan from China during the Heian and Tokugawa periods, which is when landscape gardening began to gain importance and cultivating azalea and maple plants became a treasured pastime for the wealthy. The container plants of this time were inappropriately large, until the Meiji period where the term “bonsai” was coined, and dwarf potted trees, or “hachi-no-ki” became popular.
There are two main aesthetic schools of Bonsai gardening, the Japanese and the Chinese. The Japanese aesthetic centers around the phrase “heaven and earth in one container”, which combines truth, essence and beauty, which is known as shin-zen-bi, together to create a good bonsai. In the Japanese school of Bonsai, the plant should always look natural and never show that human hands intervened in any way, which is meant to evoke the essential spirit of whichever plant is being used. In the Chinese aesthetic, the essence and spirit of nature are supposed to be captured through the use of contrast. The Chinese bonsai is influenced by Taoism, especially the Yin and Yang. Inspiration also comes from poetry and visual art.
Bonsai plants are classified by size, and are cultivated to be kept small rather than actually created to be dwarfed genetically. The smallest bonsai, mame and shito, are associated with a number of different techniques and styles. The smallest bonsai plants are grown in containers that are similar in size to thimbles. Special care and design conventions are required when it comes to caring for these trees, because of their size.
There are a wide variety of techniques that are utilized in order to create the beautiful plants used in the art of bonsai gardening. Shaping and dwarfing are techniques that are achieved through a small handful of precise techniques. Through a consistent regimen of pruning the leaves and roots of a bonsai plant, dwarfing can be maintained. Most bonsai species can also be shaped through the use of copper or aluminum wiring, which is wrapped around branches and trunks in order to hold them in the right position. Techniques called Jin and Shari are used in order to simulate both maturity and age, by removing either a small area of bark from a branch or trunk, or stripping the bark from an entire branch or trunk. The Jin and Shari techniques are used to simulate natural scarring and the tearing down of limbs.
