Japanese Bonsai Tree Facts

Basic Singular Styles

• Japanese bonsai have continued to evolve as an art to this day, and though no two bonsai are the same, in Japanese bonsai some typical shapes have become common, inspired by nature. The most important styles are the Chokkan, feautring a strong, formal upright vertical trunk with a pyramidal arrangement of branches; the Moyogi, with an informal upright trunk that curves upwards, getting smaller towards the top; the Shakan, a slanting style that looks windswept, but has branches growing in all directions with exposed roots in the direction of incline; the Han-Kengai, which is semi-cascading; it does not cascade downwards, only outwards horizontally as if over a cliff; and the Kengai, the cascading or hanging style that has branches dipping downwards below the edge of its pot.

Group Planting

• In bonsai arrangements that include more than one trunk or more than one tree, two is the only even number tolerated; four and six are especially avoided because of the Japanese aversion to even numbers. Symmetry is not favored, and so arrangements with more than one tree are asymmetrical and take after formations seen in nature. In this way miniature forests may be created, whether it is a dense, dark pine forest or airy and light deciduous woodland of the Japanese gray-barked elm. Large shallow dishes are preferred for creating these mini-forests, and the end result is usually quite magical.

Mame Bonsai

• Bonsai that are small enough to comfortably be held in the palm of one's hand are called mame bonsai; these do not exceed 3 to 6 inches in height. It usually takes between three and five years of shaping for a bonsai to warrant the title of mame. They are grown in a tiny, palm-sized, 1½ to 6-inch dish. These plants are too small to warrant much wiring, so pruning is the most efficient way to shape them and keep their size small.

Training and General Care

• The basic rule of Japanese bonsai masters, according to expert Paul Lesniewicz, author of "Bonsai: The Complete Guide to Art & Technique," is that the bonsai should look natural, emulating the growth pattern of similar species in the wild. Bonsai growers may collect photos or sketches of the species they are growing as a reference while they shape their trees over the years. It is not the aim of bonsai artists to impose artificial shapes on the plants, but to mirror nature on a miniature scale by choosing the correct-sized pot, fertilizing when necessary, and implementing shaping techniques such as pruning, wiring and weighting branches. The number and use of these techniques vary greatly depending on the species of the tree.