Once we became intrigued with the concept of “indoor bonsai” we found so many house and greenhouse plants with picturesque prospects that I fear we will never get to try them all. I have seedlings and cuttings of all sorts, even including those from a breakfast orange and a pomegranate out of the fruit bowl. And, of course, small plants sold by mail-order suppliers are just the right size to begin the process of dwarfing and shaping.
(In the list at the end of Chapter 6, plants suitable for indoor bonsai use are indicated.)
OUTDOOR PLANTS FOR DWARFING, BONSAI-STYLE
With proper care, any woody plant—any tree, shrub, or vine with persisting trunk or stems—can be grown indefinitely in a pot. With some skill in pruning branches and roots, it can be permanently dwarfed. And with imagination and artistry, it can be trained to re-create in miniature one of the majestic pictures of nature. However, some plants are more amenable to rigorous dwarfing than others; some adapt more willingly to growing in containers; and some are by nature more suitable in habit and appearance.
The easiest plants to dwarf are those that are naturally small, or slow growing, and those with small leaves or needles, flowers or fruit. Proportion is the most important factor. Every element—leaf, twig, branch, trunk, root, container—must be in harmony and balance with all others.
It’s not impossible to use larger-leaved plants. It’s just a little more difficult. Long needles can be cut shorter, for example, but they must be kept the proper length. Large leaves can be thinned to relieve any feeling of heaviness, and each leaf can be used to represent a branch. With some types of deciduous trees—say, maples—the leaves that come out first in the spring can be pinched off. The leaves that come out to replace them will be smaller.
Almost equally important is the “character” of a dwarfed plant—its irregular or fluid lines, illusion of age, unusual aspect of bark or twig that make it dramatic and vibrant. Any form of art can be dull if it has nothing except perfect proportion to offer. With good proportion, plus intriguing line and design, it becomes interesting.
In the original bonsai the artist transplanted a tree he found growing in the wild and carefully conserved the misshapen lines made by buffeting weather, or he very carefully copied, or re-created, a tree he had seen holding a precarious footing high on a rocky ridge and perhaps dipping down into a windy gorge. These shapes and forms are now the basis for specific classes of bonsai which we can borrow or adapt. So the “character” of a plant may suggest that it be trained as if it were growing out at a right angle from a rocky slope with its roots covering a stone; as a grove, to weep or cascade; or as a gigantic, single-trunked forest monarch with pitted, weather-worn bark.
Or perhaps, lightning might have split the trunk, leaving part of it jagged and dead. The two trunks may have become entangled with each other. Branches may have been blown in one direction so long that they bend that way permanently.
Types of Plants