Talk:Bonsai

Together they express "heaven and earth in one container" as the Japanese cliché has it. Three forces come together in a good bonsai: shin-zen-bi or truth, essence and beauty.

The usual plants used in Japan are varieties of pine, azalea, camellia, maple, beech, bamboo and plum. The plants are grown outdoors and brought in to the tokonoma at special occasions when they most evoke the current season.

The Japanese bonsai are meant to evoke the essential spirit of the plant being used: in all cases they must look natural and never show the intervention of human hands. Chinese penjing may more literally depict images of dragons or even be guided to resemble highly intricate Chinese characters, such as 壽, "longevity", in various styles, but usually cursive.

Ginkgo as penjing in the Montreal Botanical Gardens

A bonsai tree