Let’s start from the basic understanding of the words, “bonsai,” (Japanese) and “penjing” (Mandarin). “Bonsai” (盆栽) is a Japanese term meaning “tree in a pot “, and “penjing” (盆景) is a Chinese term meaning “landscape in a pot”. With the meanings of these two terms, we have a hint that the Chinese penjing is more of reproducing a miniature landscape than creating a perfect tree as Japanese are trying with their bonsai.
During my research on the history of bonsai, I found a beautiful collection of bonsai postage stamps in the homepage of Phoenix Bonsai Society. While it is not surprising to find bonsai on postage stamps of China, Japan, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, there are some countries that I would have never expected bonsai on their postage stamps, for examples, Maldive Islands, Thailand, and Republic of San Marino. I’ve found this very interesting. I guess bonsai is more popular and widely spread in the world than I have expected.
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Today it is widely accepted that it was the Chinese who first created the miniature landscapes and trees that we now know as bonsai. While bonsai is a Japanese term meaning “tree in a pot “, the art of bonsai is originated in China. In China, growing miniature trees is known as “penjing”, which literally means “landscape in a pot”. Their art is more of reproducing a miniature landscape than creating a perfect tree as Japanese are trying with their bonsai.
Called penjing by the Chinese, bonsai was believed to have had its start in the Han Dynasty. Here, let me share some of the legends and facts surrounding the beginning of bonsai.
The time it takes to develop the shapes and train the branches of our bonsai trees is often painfully long. And it will be worse if we make a wrong cut after months of waiting for the bonsai tree to finally has its branches developed as trained.
During the developing and training stage, we surely want our bonsai trees to grow as fast as possible, if not overnight. There are several things we can do to help our bonsai trees to grow and develop it branches faster, and one of these is cutting away all flower buds before they start to bloom.
Yes, I know this is not easy. It is just too cruel to cut away all the buds that will blossom into beautiful flowers. But if you really want your bonsai tree to grow as fast as possible, then you better cut away all the flower buds, so to avoid your tree from spending most of its energy and nutrients on the blossoms.
A few days ago, with Teacher Wong and other lingnan penjing club members, we took hours of long rides to Yingde (英德) in Guangzhou, mainland China in the hope of obtaining some beautiful stones that can be used in our penjing (bonsai in Japanese).
“Penjing” in Chinese literally means “landscape in a pot”. Their art is more of reproducing a miniature landscape than creating a perfect tree as the Japanese are doing with their bonsai. While penjing and bonsai share many similarities, there is one thing that can only be found in penjing but not bonsai, and that’s the rock landscapes.
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I went to the Guangzhou Penjing (Bonsai) Exhibition in Martyrs’ Park yesterday. With over 350 lingnan penjing (southern style Chinese bonsai), it’s the biggest lingnan penjing exhibition since the founding of the country.
A truly A+ penjing should look just as exquisite when it is naked of leaves, as the times when it is blooming vigorously with leaves and flowers.
My bonsai teacher, Mr Wong, always says, “I don’t worry that my trees won’t grow, but worry only that they become overgrown.”
I had never really known how bad of a problem an overgrown bonsai tree could be until I saw a real-life example last week when I was working with Teacher Wong in the bonsai workshop.
When we grow a bonsai tree, most likely, we have to prune and wire the branches to style the tree in the early stage of its training. And after each round of pruning and wiring, we will just leave the tree alone until its branches have grown thick enough or the tree has developed into the shape we want before we move on to more pruning and wiring.
But sometimes, we may get too busy in life that we have forgotten our bonsai tree until it’s too late…
Besides the two bonsai trees, I have also got two small Crape Myrtle (aka Lagerstroemia indica , or 紫薇 in Chinese) cuttings from the mini bonsai class of Hong Kong Institute of Lingnan Penjing. In less than 1.5 months, both cuttings have grown some new branches ,and now are blooming beautifully with some bright pink flowers and red berries.
For the past few weeks, I have been hanging out in the workshop of Hong Kong Institute of Lingnan Penjing quite often. Since it’s in the outskirt of Yuen Long, it takes me over an hour to get there. But because I learn so much and really enjoy my time there, I always like to go there whenever possible 😀
In this post – My First Contact with Bonsai, you can find more photos of the workshop.
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There is a greenhouse in the workshop too. Interestingly, my teacher is trying to grow small watermelons like grapes, training the plants to grow up along the rope. He said that by this way, more watermelons can be grown in a small place. This is the first time he is trying to grow watermelon like this. I am very much looking forward to see how things will go here 😉
Bonsai (or Penjing in Chinese) is the art of aesthetic miniaturization of trees and plants, recreating the beautiful scenery we find in nature in pots and trays.
So even though this tabletop garden doesn’t look like anything close to those potted trees and landscapes that we usually call as bonsai, I really think that this is a bonsai, for it is reliving a scene in the nature. Ok, we probably can’t find Doraemon in our world, but let’s use a little of our imagination. And didn’t we all want a Doraemon when we were kids? In fact, I still want one now… haha
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