A bonsai display presents one or more bonsai
specimens in a way that allows a viewer to see all the important features of
the bonsai from the most advantageous position. That position emphasizes the
bonsai's defined "front", which is designed into all bonsai. It
places the bonsai at a height that allows the viewer to imagine the bonsai as a
full-sized tree seen from a distance, siting the bonsai neither so low that the
viewer appears to be hovering in the sky above it, nor so high that the viewer
appears to be looking up at the tree from beneath the ground. Peter Adams
recommends that bonsai be shown as if "in an art gallery: at the right
height; in isolation; against a plain background, devoid of all redundancies
such as labels and vulgar little accessories."
Style
of Bonsai
The
most common styles include formal upright, informal upright, slanting,
semi-cascade, cascade, raft, literati, and group/forest. Less common forms
include windswept, weeping, split-trunk, and driftwood styles.
The formal upright style,
or Chokkan, is characterized by a straight, upright, tapering
trunk. Branches progress regularly from the thickest and broadest at the
bottom to the finest and shortest at the top.
The trunk and branches of the informal
upright style, or Moyogi incorporate visible curves, but the
apex of the informal upright is always located directly above the trunk's
entry into the soil line. Similar to the formal upright style, branches
generally progress regularly from largest at the bottom to smallest at the
top, although this progression may be broken where the irregular shape of
the trunk would make a branch abnormally prominent or obscure.
Slant-style, or Shakan, bonsai possess straight trunks like
those of bonsai grown in the formal upright style. However, the slant
style trunk emerges from the soil at an angle, and the apex of the bonsai
will be located to the left or right of the root base.
Cascade-style, or Kengai, bonsai are modeled after trees
which grow over water or on the sides of mountains. The apex, or tip of
the tree in the Semi-cascade-style, or Han Kengai, bonsai
extend just at or beneath the lip of the bonsai pot; the apex of a (full)
cascade style falls below the base of the pot.
Raft-style, or Netsuranari, bonsai mimic a natural
phenomenon that occurs when a tree topples onto its side, for example,
from erosion or another natural force. Branches along the top side of the
trunk continue to grow as a group of new trunks. Sometimes, roots will
develop from buried portions of the trunk. Raft-style bonsai can have
sinuous, straight-line, or slanting trunks, all giving the illusion that
they are a group of separate trees—while actually being the branches of a tree
planted on its side.
The literati style, or Bunjin-gi,
bonsai is characterized by a generally bare trunk line, with branches
reduced to a minimum, and typically placed the top of a long, often
contorted trunk. This style derives its name from the Chinese literati who created Chinese brush
paintings like those found in the ancient text, The Mustard Seed
Garden Manual of Painting. Their minimalist landscapes
often depicted trees growing in harsh conditions, with contorted trunks
and reduced foliage. In Japan, the literati style is known as bunjin-gi
(文人木[83]?). (Bunjin is a translation of the Chinese
phrase wenren meaning "scholars practiced in the arts"
and gi is a derivative of the Japanese word, ki, for
"tree").
The group or forest style,
or Yose Ue, comprises a planting of several or many trees, and
typically an odd number, in a bonsai pot. The trees are usually the same
species, with a variety of heights employed to add visual interest and to
reflect the age differences encountered in mature forests.
The broom style, or Hokidachi,
is employed for trees with extensive, fine branching, often with species
like elms. The trunk is straight and upright. It branches out in all
directions about 1/3 of the way up the entire height of the tree. The
branches and leaves form a ball-shaped crown which can also be very
beautiful during the winter months.
The multi-trunk style,
or Ikadabuki, has all the trunks growing out of one spot with one
root system, and it actually is one single tree. Its counterpart in nature
is the tree clump formed, for example, where a single pine cone has sprouted
a number of seedlings in one spot. All the trunks combine to support one
crown of leaves, in which the thickest and most developed trunk forms the
top.
The Shari style, or Sharimiki,
style involves portraying a tree in its struggle to live while a
significant part of its trunk is bare of bark. In nature, trees in the
Sharimiki style are created by lightning or animals eating the bark.[84]
The root-over-rock style,
or Sekijoju, is a style in which the roots of the tree are wrapped
around a rock. The rock is at the base of the trunk, with the roots
exposed to varying degrees as they traverse the rock and then descend into
the soil below.
The growing-in-a-rock,
or Ishizuke, style means the roots of the tree are growing in soil
contained within the cracks and holes of the rock. The rock may serve as a
simple container, with the tree escaping the container and forming its own
shape. Alternatively, the tree may show a definite relationship to the
rock's shape, growing close to the rock and following its contours.
Care
Bonsai-Small trees grown in
containers, like bonsai, require specialized care. Unlike houseplants and other
subjects of container gardening, tree species in the wild generally grow roots up to several
meters long and root structures encompassing several thousand liters of soil.
In contrast, a typical bonsai container is under 25 centimeters in its largest
dimension and 2 to 10 liters in volume. Branch and leaf (or needle) growth in
trees is also large-scale in nature. Wild trees typically grow 5 meters or
taller when mature, while the largest bonsai rarely exceed 1 meter and most
specimens are significantly smaller. These size differences affect maturation,
transpiration, nutrition, pest resistance, and many other aspects of tree
biology. Maintaining the long-term health of a tree in a container requires
some specialized care techniques:
Watering must be regular and must relate to the bonsai
species' requirement for dry, moist, or wet soil.
Repotting must occur at intervals dictated by the vigour and
age of each tree.
Tools have been developed for the specialized requirements
of maintaining bonsai.
Soil composition and
fertilization must be specialized to the
needs of each bonsai tree, although bonsai soil is almost always a loose,
fast-draining mix of components.[79]
Location and overwintering are also species-dependent, and it is important to
note that few of the traditional bonsai species can thrive or even survive
inside a typical house.
