In The Garden WITH BROWNIE
WITH the trend towards tiny homes, smaller properties and less outdoor space, some say that our approach to gardening will also need to follow the same.
Container gardening has been a thing for a long time, and the perfect marriage between container gardening and shrinking space would have to be bonsai.
Bonsai (pronounced bone-sigh) is an ancient oriental horticultural art form. The word bonsai has its roots in both the Chinese and Japanese languages and literally means ‘tree-in-a-pot’.
The essence of bonsai is to be able to capture the beautiful forms of full-sized living trees in miniature.
Originally developed in the around 2,000 years ago, today bonsai is practiced throughout the world and is a popular gardening pastime for millions of people.
Shape-harmony-proportion-scale are all carefully considered, and the human hand and eye combine to create a specifi c sculptured appearance.
Bonsai are kept small by the careful control of the growing conditions given to the plant, and the careful pruning and shaping of its foliage.
Only branches important to the bonsai’s overall design are allowed to remain and unwanted growth is pruned away.
The roots are purposefully constricted to a relatively small pot and are periodically clipped.
The appearance of old age of a plant is much prized and bonsai may live to be hundreds of years old.
There are many types of plants suited to the bonsai practice including weeping figs, junipers, Japanese maples, conifers like firs, bougainvilleas, azaleas, jade plants, and even natives like bottlebrush, banksia, bottletree, teatree and acacia.
When you choose your bonsai plant, consider something which is suited you our climate and whether it will be kept indoors or outdoors.
Choose something beginner-friendly like a small leaf fig or a juniper.
And think about whether you want something just for the leaves, form and shape or whether you’d like it to flowers as well (like a bougainvillea or azalea).
As for looking after bonsai, it’s impossible to write a simple set of care rules.
Every species of plant has its own special needs.
My advice is two-fold.
First, when starting in bonsai, read all you can on the art. Take advantage of the Council library and the great collection of books they have.
Secondly, consider going along to a meeting of the Sunshine Coast Bonsai Society. They hold monthly meetings (fourth Saturday of the month – so the next is September 27) at CWA Hall, 104 Memorial Drive, Maroochydore (opposite the Maroochy RSL) starting at 1pm. For more information you can check out their website www.sunshinecoastbonsaisociety.org.au.
Or if you’d like to have a sneaky peek at what bonsai growing looks like, you could go along to their annual show extravaganza held at the Buderim War memorial Hall, corner Church and Main Streets, Buderim on October 25 and 2
