Bonsai

Bonsai, Japanese for "tray planting," refers both to the art of cultivating dwarf trees and to trees grown by this method. Such trees are not naturally miniature—they are kept small with cultivation methods like pruning and tying branches with wire to "train" them. The art originated in China but has been developed primarily by the Japanese. Bonsai may live for a century or more and are passed from generation to generation as valued heirlooms. What harmed many of Japan's bonsai trees in 1923? More...

The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and resulting fire devastated Tokyo, and gutted the downtown area where many bonsai were grown. And so, two years later, a group of thirty families of downtown Tokyo professional growers established the Ōmiya Bonsai Village, northeast of the capital.[52] The first great annual public exhibition of trees was held at the Asahi Newspaper Hall in Tokyo in 1927.[24] The first of the very prestigious Kokufu-ten exhibitions were held in Tokyo's Ueno Park, beginning in 1934.[53] By the following year, tokonoma display principles allowed for bonsai to be shown for the tree's individual beauty, not just for its spiritual or symbolic significance.

Sequoia sempervirens I have long longed to grow a bonsai, a Sequoia Sempervirens, to put next to my bed where I have a framed photograph of my lovely Polish father. Unfortunately, I don't have a green thumb for plants grown inside. I saw bonsai selling for as much as $1500 at the bonsai festival in Vero Beach and was quite abashed.

Bonsais are popular and expensive around these parts also. They seem hard to maintain. I had one and it required a lot of water and attention. It died and the needles it produced were everywhere and painful when pricked on the finger or stepped on. Beautiful tree though. I'd like to try again.