To Bonsai And Beyond

by Arthur Skolnik

Bonsai is many things to many people. For some it is the pleasure of buying established trees and maintaining their health yet doing little pruning or wiring without someone else's help. For others the challenge lies in the drastic pruning and heavy wiring (reduction building) of raw nursery stock. And after a long day at work, some people come home and find solace in the simple task of watering and weeding their collection of trees which may be in various stages of completion. Whatever the reason, Bonsai means many things to many people.

What first got people interested in Bonsai, how the light-bulb got turned on varies too. Watching leaves change colour in fall, seeing fruit or flowers grow, the feeling of holding a forest giant in one's hand, becoming adept at the mechanical skills of wiring, or how power tools can affect or improve the design are all challenging aspects of this thing called Bonsai. What first captivates and then maintains ones interest especially for the long haul, varies too from person to person.

As with all disciplines, learning the rules first is the place to start. I once taught a beginners course to an engineer. I think he felt more comfortable working within the structure of formulas and physical laws to achieve results, because at the end of the course he asked if bonsai design was all, left, right, back. He did not understand that left, right, back was a place to start, a common ground. I hoped he could take this basic concept with him to apply as he saw fit while his ability to express himself evolved to the next level. "Bonsai is simple then," he said, and I never saw him again. Sadly he missed the point. The rules may be simple but where they can lead to is a marvelously endless path. It's not the destination it's the journey that holds the key.

Reductionists look at golf and say, it's just hitting a little ball into a hole, hockey is just slapping a rubber disc around with wood sticks into a rope net. But if you look in the other direction at the art and science of Bonsai it is a pursuit that takes a lifetime to explore. We are not paid to do the things we like or want to do. You can spend as much time as you like or want focused on something you enjoy. But I think spending the time and not pushing your limits or learning more by challenging yourself is a waste of time. I know someone who has spent 20 years in Bonsai but his trees look like they belong to someone who has repeated his first year, 20 times. They have not improved over time. What a waste. Push yourself to go farther. And if you make a mistake and loose a tree, that's fine. You can't keep every tree you work on any ways You'll never know how far, far enough is, until you've gone too far. Failure is just another word for experience. Unfortunately though not all the lessons we learn are worth the cost. However, we keep on because quitting would be worse. There is nothing to learn in quitting.

In the early '80's Bonsai was relatively new and unheard of in the west. Perhaps 2 or 3 people in 10 knew what it was. By the late '80's hardly anyone had not seen a Bonsai somewhere. This was due in large part to the fact that department and hardware stores, grocery and supermarket chains, flee markets, carts in malls at Christmas, all jumped on the Bonsai bandwagon. Effectively this turned hundreds of thousands of people on to Bonsai, then off. Misrepresenting this venerable and ancient oriental pass time and selling poorly potted pre bonsai in containers with inadequate care instructions (if any) and nowhere to go to for help guaranteed the perpetuation of Bonsai as a mystery for untold many. People with decades of success growing house plants, cactus, terrariums etc. looked at their failure with Bonsai (often many failures) and said "No more. It's not for me. It's too difficult." I don't want to sound like Jesus of Bonsai by trying to convert all those people into Bonsai believers (although being in the business it would be nice) but what I do want to say is most people in Bonsai don't push their limits. They remain comfortable and satisfied within the narrow range of what they know and have had moderate success with. They are happy with what they have. That's fine. But I want to make people who are new to Bonsai aware of the fact that after the basics the sky's the limit. If you enjoy Bonsai and think you could like it for a long time, don't become complacent, push yourself to learn more and you may even discover a little more about yourself.

I prefer teaching Bonsai to people who are artistically rather than horticulturally inclined, because often, the first group looks at taking a chance and breaking rules as part of the learning, exploration and maturation process. If no one tried anything new or different, what a sorry state we'd be in. Imagine creating a Bonsai which is 90% dead wood. Imagine repotting a spruce in the middle of summer. How about defoliating a juniper. Or even enjoying an azalea you've created even though the flowers are large. They've all been done. There are no Bonsai police. No one will ever come to you home and take you away for breaking Bonsai rules. But, you are part of a community and there are some rules. Unspoken ones too. If acceptance within that community is what you want, only you can determine how far you can go and still be accepted. But go the distance. There is nothing wrong with pushing the limits. Once you've learned the rules and have the dexterity required to perform the mechanical improvements to a tree, Bonsai shifts away from perspiration and turns toward inspiration. Who knows where it can lead? To Bonsai and Beyond.