The scholarly man's tree, Bunjingi style

Bunjingi is a style that flies in the face of conventional popular japanese bonsai aesthetics. The style is very old. This style is a throwback to chinese potted trees. That's that for the history lesson. This post is not really about the style. When I took this cutting I knew that it was going to be bunjingi. It had a long narrow trunk with two very dramatic curves. The problem was how was I going to make this tree look amazing in my eyes.

The tree had started to develop ramification, and it had a basic shape. The tree was looking like it was going to be a chinese type miniature tree. The chinese call their miniature trees penjing. Penjing is not really a style but the chinese word for bonsai. However, the chinese aesthetic value is different from the japanese, so the trees look very unalike.

I was pruning my tree to further develop ramification when my mind's eye saw the bunjingi tree I had been looking for. The best part was that I was going to create this new tree by cutting one branch.

So i took the pruning shears to the main trunk and lopped off the unwanted part. The transformation for now was complete.

I will be starting over with this tree. I have to build ramification and keep shaping the tree, Aesthetically it is a lot closer to done.

The piece I cut off will not go to waste. I potted that piece in bark soil. It will grow roots in a few weeks and I will have the foundations to another future bonsai.

I have said it before, don’t be in a rush to shape, cut, pot, etc your tree. Work on building it up. You will get ideas on what direction to take your tree. cheers.

The bonsai of the national bonsai and penjing museum

This is a picture of the entrance to the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum (NBPM), I forgot to include it in my previous post.

The Bonsai at the NBPM varied in shape and size. Most of the Bonsai would take two people to carry. Some of them measured two and a half feet in height and one was I believe a good four feet tall. The bonsai shown below is a mix of Chinese elm and white Japanese pine. Notice that the silhouette of the whole forest looks like it is a single tree?

A trident maple root over rock style. This tree was about one and a half feet tall.

The following is an amazing example of an upright formal bonsai; it is a white pine. The tree must have been at least 2 feet tall. This is definitely an incredible looking tree with plenty of Japanese sensibility and style.

 This next bonsai is in the slanting style. The trunk pulls your eyes to the left but that first main branch balances everything by pulling your eyes to the right. This is an incredible example of asymmetrical balance.

I recommend that you view the following picture in a high-resolution format, you will be able to see the branches curving to the left in greater detail. It looks like nature has pummeled  it and beat it into submission

 What are Juniper's famous for? Lots of Jin and Shari or deadwood. This tree is great because of the rolling deadwood that goes up the tree.

 Atlas Cedars are one of the most beautiful kind of Bonsai out there this one is a cascading Bonsai.

 Maple root over rock.

 This Bonsai I was about 4 feet tall it is a red pine.

 This next tree is in a bunjingi or literati style. Bunjingi means scholarly man's tree, in Japanese. This style is probably one of the oldest and most closely related to Chinese penjing.

 One of the most spectacular bonsai was this bald cypress, it was about 4 feet tall and I can only imagine what it looks like with the green foliage.

These were some of the highlights from the Chinese pavilion. They are incredible specimens of different species of bonsai and different styles. Of course there were more bonsai there but these are the trees that stood out to me. Many of these trees have been trained for 50 years or more. The key ingredient to great Bonsai is time and patience. Next time on Bonsai misadventure: tropical trees in the NBPM. Cheers.