Mixed Forest in fall (Autumn) colour
Brandy
" A natural true forest is a rich diverse system composed of different plant
species. True forests do contain stands of a single type, but a single type
tree forest is usually termed a 'Tree Farm'."
I have to agree with Anton on this point. Unfortunately we do not get many Autumn (Fall for you people in the US) colours amongst our native trees. So it is great to see the Autumn colours on the imported ones.
Jim Johnson
South Australia
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DENIS HOFFMAN
tried this yet but it may help. Pick out the trees you want to try, leave
them in their original pots and just keep them planted alone. Place the pots
as close together as possible and feed them and water them and keep records
of same. The idea is to find some that are compatible in like manner or as
close as possible. Place the trees in a manner that you may want them to be
in the finished product. Move them around and experiment as to how they look
at different times of the year and what it is that you want. You can always
remove a tree and replace it with something else. If a tree is effected in
some manner you can always remove it from the others and care for it. This
can give you time to consider what the final planting. I know with all those
brains out there someone can improve on this idea.
Denis
bigb...@earthlink.net
Dave&Connie Norton
that a mixed forest was viable. Course I have
only been into bonsai for 6 yrs or so. Still a
newbie.
--
David & Connie
cno...@bigfoot.com
DENIS HOFFMAN <bigb...@EARTHLINK.NET> wrote in message
news:000b01bf3f30$e4aa2840$4af3183f@default...
Reiner Goebel
>
> I have an idea on the mixed forest. Most don't know what to do. I have not
> tried this yet but it may help. Pick out the trees you want to try, leave
> them in their original pots and just keep them planted alone. Place the pots
> as close together as possible and feed them and water them and keep records
> of same. The idea is to find some that are compatible in like manner or as
> close as possible. Place the trees in a manner that you may want them to be
> in the finished product. Move them around and experiment as to how they look
> at different times of the year and what it is that you want. You can always
> remove a tree and replace it with something else. If a tree is effected in
> some manner you can always remove it from the others and care for it. This
> can give you time to consider what the final planting. I know with all those
> brains out there someone can improve on this idea.
Way a long time ago at a BCI convention in Orlando, Yuji Yoshimura did a
demo along those lines by creating three different plantings in separate
containers, and at the end placing them side by side to form a
(convincing) unit. I was a rank beginner then, and I was suitably
impressed. I have never tried it myself, though.
Reiner Goebel Support the IBC with your donation.
Toronto, Canada Email me for details.
http://www.tbs.game2.com
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Alan Walker
saikei. At the 1981 BCI convention in Atlanta he had a very dramatic presentation
(complete with theatrical effects) on the construction of a three part saikei. The
three parts represented the coastal, piedmont and mountain area. Later, in 1988, he
constructed a similar arrangement in the shape of the Texas Lone Star at the BCI
convention in San Antonio. The arrangement in separate containers which connect
does provide for separation for differing growing conditions which can then be
reassembled for exhibit.
An amusing novelty, but still quite a maintenance challenge.
Alan Walker, Lake Charles, LA, USA awbo...@iamerica.net
> > I have an idea on the mixed forest. Most don't know what to do. I have not
> > tried this yet but it may help. Pick out the trees you want to try, leave
> > them in their original pots and just keep them planted alone. Place the pots
> > as close together as possible and feed them and water them and keep records
> > of same. The idea is to find some that are compatible in like manner or as
> > close as possible. Place the trees in a manner that you may want them to be
> > in the finished product. Move them around and experiment as to how they look
> > at different times of the year and what it is that you want. You can always
> > remove a tree and replace it with something else. If a tree is effected in
> > some manner you can always remove it from the others and care for it. This
> > can give you time to consider what the final planting. I know with all those
> > brains out there someone can improve on this idea.
>
> Way a long time ago at a BCI convention in Orlando, Yuji Yoshimura did a
> demo along those lines by creating three different plantings in separate
> containers, and at the end placing them side by side to form a
> (convincing) unit. I was a rank beginner then, and I was suitably
> impressed. I have never tried it myself, though.
> Reiner Goebel
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Chris Cochrane
decrying decisions on mixed plantings being primarily chosen for
horticultural reasons. Peter thought I wrongly assumed bonsai multiple
plantings are not mixed based on aesthetic reasons-- e.g., "less is more."
He thoughtfully added the picture of a Japanese scroll-- possibly pre-Meiji
as it pictured a samurai wearing swords. The pictured samurai was sitting
in front of a blooming prunus bonsai with heavenly reaching branches in a
pot also containing two very modest pine seedlings. The bonsai, in turn,
was sitting in front of a folding screen picturing bamboo.
So what?
The artist who painted this picture went through the same metaphorical
sequence (perhaps adding a couple himself) as the artist who created the
pictured bonsai. The samurai owned a scroll of bamboo, he saw the
opportunity to own/create a prunus bonsai. He lived in a culture where
scholarly friends were aware that bamboo, prunus and pine are considered
"the three friends of winter."
This recognition didn't pop out of some chance encounter with the three
materials-- it was a conscious effort to create a theme. Japanese bonsai
were and continue to be styled or chosen by owners to stand as part of a
scene. Suiseki are also chosen (along with brush painted art--screens or
scrolls, grasses and antique items) to complete a scene for display to
guests. Visit the Takagi Bonsai Museum or the Nippon Suiseki Association
office in Tokyo, and the items most honored are presented in a tokonoma
display format like the Kei Do displays we see in International Bonsai
magazine each month. Mr. Takagi and Mr. Matsuura won't refer to them as Kei
Do, however, but choose to call them "Japanese Style."
In the case of the prunus bonsai with pine seedling companions sharing its
pot and standing before a scroll depicting bamboo, the Japanese host and
guests would have recognized themes generally lost to us, now. The major
item in the display is the flowering plum, which would have been recognized
from its antecedents in Chinese art as representing a person of distinctive
character. When blooming in snow, it represents dignified solitude and
pride (as the only plant so blooming under such adverse conditions). This
blooming in snow prunus (plum) has represented the ideal of scholars and
always surfaced in Chinese art in times of political or social turmoil. The
scroll artist, the depicted samurai, the guest invited to see the samurai
and anyone viewing the screen of the samurai would share this understanding.
They would know the season depicted and perhaps if the samurai was a
daimyo's retainer, would share his sadness of leaving a picture in his home
while away in Edo attending to his lord that periodically would be forced to
live away from home through Tokugawa edict.
Bonsai can say a more than "I'm a proficient horticultural technician."
IrisC would have the history of Israel completed in bonsai allusions if she
didn't have to correct list spelling errors... :-). If one of Iris's
friends (Jerome Cushman) hadn't pushed me to learn a little more about this
art, I'd have thought that prunus and pine seedling a strange and inadequate
choice for mixed planting in a pot.
Chris... C. Cochrane, sas...@erols.com, Richmond VA USA
Alan Walker
information is adapted from an article by Joan Tickle of Bonsai Society of
Queensland in Australia.
What is a Sho-chiku-bai? Literally translated it means pine-bamboo-plum,
and these three plants form the basis of a group planting which represents to the
Japanese people evergreen stability (long life), upright behavior (virtue) and
happiness. To these three basic plants are added miniature bamboo (sasa), the red
berried ardisia (yabukoji), nandina (nanten), and the Japanese wild orchid
(shunran), two rocks, white pebble and moss.
I've only found discussion of it in THE JAPANESE ART OF MINIATURE TREES AND
LANDSCAPES by Yuji Yoshimura and G. M. Halford (p. 139). However, a visit to Japan
in the January as the New Year celebrations are in progress will undoubtedly reveal
in profusion this often neglected (by non-Japanese) part that bonsai, in the form of
seasonal decoration known as Sho-chiku-bai, plays in banks business premises and
shops as well as private homes. Its function is to wish the viewer happiness, long
life and virtue.
The planting together of the varied colors and textures of these plants is
surprising as we are used to thinking of a group planting in terms of a single tree
species. However, the finished planting is not unlike a saikei, leading the viewer
to feel the pebbles represent the sea, the rocks a seashore and the trees placed in
order to give the visual effect of a mountain in the background. All in all the
Sho-chiku-bai is very pleasing visually. The leafless plum tree is in bud at this
time of year, the orchid about to flower, the ardisia berries brilliant red against
its dark green leaves, the nandina’s red winter leaves and the variegations of the
miniature bamboo harmonize well with the green pine tree.
Bonsai nurseries produce the Sho-chiku-bai group plantings in December, not
only for sale to the public, but also for rental to shops, banks and business
premises, and it is a very busy time for them.
There is another very interesting feature of the Sho-chiku-bai. There are
two different styles of planting which are dependent on the region of origin. In
the Kansai (Osaka) region, the plum tree is the dominant tree, while in the Kanto
(Tokyo) region, the pine is the dominant tree of the planting. In Kanazawa either
tree, plum or pine, can be dominant.
A related matter is adapted from ARTS QUARTERLY of the New Orleans Museum of
Art.
In Japan during the middle to late Edo period (1615-1868), paintings of the
“four gentlemen”-bamboo, plum, orchid and chrysanthemum- were among the most popular
of painting subjects. Derived from a Chinese scholar-painter tradition dating to at
least the tenth century, each of the four gentlemen signified a noble aspect of the
cultivated poet-artist. The bamboo symbolized the virtues of strength and
flexibility, bending but not breaking in the wind. In one painting of the subject,
Obaku Taiho’s Bamboo in Snow, the bamboo is shown covered in snow, indicated by the
irregular gray wash ending in jagged edges near the leaves. Despite the cold, the
bamboo is strong and vital. Similarly, the plum, which often lives to great age,
blossoms in the cold of late winter and is a metaphor for the scholar who “blossoms”
even under difficult circumstances or late in life. Orchids symbolize purity and
refinement, and chrysanthemums are valued for their late bloom.
These subjects have additional significance in that they were also used as models
for calligraphy practice and served as a transition for scholar-painters from the
written word to pictorial imagery. The painting of bamboo, for example, requires
only a limited variety of brushstrokes and a technique familiar to all
calligraphers. The four gentlemen theme was an ideal outlet for the increasing
numbers of educated philosophers officials, scholars and poets who turned to
painting during this period. However, these themes appealed not only to the
nonprofessional literati, artists of many schools, including Kano, Shijo, Zen, as
well as Nanga, engaged in creating new variations on these time-honored themes.
Hope that's not too esoteric for you.
Alan Walker, Lake Charles, LA, USA awbo...@iamerica.net
> Peter Aradi sent me a thoughtful note, privately, after my recent post