INTRODUCTION
"Bonsai art is the display of a landscape - without the
landscape."
--Nobu Kajiwara
This quote couldn't be truer. Growing and sculpting
bonsai trees can be quite a satisfying hobby. It is a hobby;
however, that requires a tremendous amount of patience.
When you take a simple sapling and mold it to your desire,
you'll be rewarded with a beautiful piece of art you can truly
be proud of!
The term bonsai literally means plant in a pot or tray
planting. Bonsai however is much more than simply a plant
in a pot. The goal of bonsai is to create the appearance of
great size and age. This is accomplished by creating a
bonsai with strong roots that extend in all directions,
creating a sense of stability, a large trunk which tapers as it
goes upward, a clear apex, and well formed and well placed
branches. These features all combine to create a careful
blend of symmetry, balance and proportion. It also must be
displayed in a pot which harmonizes well with the plant
material.
Bonsai is the art of growing trees in a confined space to
simulate certain environmental conditions such as great age,
extreme weathering, twisted or contorted form, landscape,
or other factors. Bonsai trees are modeled on and take
inspiration from nature. The idea of bonsai is to recreate
some of nature's most stunning and beautiful effects on
trees which are reduced in scale.
