In a seed shop, as the dry seeds trickle through my fingers, it requires the imagination of a poet to see that ‘in my hand a forest lies asleep’. But in my hand, or maybe requiring both hands, I can hold a shallow pot containing a miniature forest tree, or even a grove of forest trees, and it requires very little imagination to see the hillsides and open spaces that lie beyond my immediate vision.
Miniature trees have a fascination for almost everyone. At this year’s Birmingham Show, the newly formed Midland Bonsai Society had an exhibit on which forty trees were shown. They created an enormous amount of interest. The most usual comment to be heard was “Aren’t they lovely! I must have a go at that”.
The culture of ‘trees in a shallow tray’ or Bonsai, has been brought to perfection by the Japanese. They have developed it into an art form of great sophistication. But the enjoyment of Bonsai is for all. Anyone with a small garden, or even a balcony, or space for a window box can have several trees and enjoy the seasonal rhythms of their life. A larch tree in a pot will shed its leaves in autumn, and in spring where will appear those little stiff tufty brushes of fresh green, exactly like the great stands of larch trees in an afforestation scheme. But whereas the forestry trees are grown for timber, and therefore crowded close together, which causes them to grow straight and tall without any wide-spreading branches, a larch tree in a pot can be allowed to grow in its natural way, with normal branching and full development, except that its size is kept in proportion to the container in which it is grown.
There is an intimacy about growing Bonsai that cannot be matched by planting an growing trees in the open ground. But an interest in Bonsai produces a sympathetic interest in trees everywhere and there is no easier path to identification and concern for the trees around us, than by growing trees as Bonsai. They take up very little space, their cost is negligible, the interest continues throughout the year, and there is no limit to the variety and possibilities of this unusual form of gardening.
[Unauthored]
[Believed to be Attributed to Matthew/Matt/M. Weir ~1975/76]
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