The Bonsai Book

The book contains more than 150 pages of beautifully photographed bonsai trees and unique natural stones from the collections of renowned Filipino bonsai artists like Dorie Bernabe, Fely S. Gupit, architect Roberto Gopiao, Willi Hahn, Teddy Lim, David Du, Dr. Oding Reyes, Yumie Gupit, Vic Ceballos, et al, photographed by Edison and Belen Noblela.
It also provides valuable information on bonsai culture and art.
Most of the bonsai featured in this book will be exhibited in the Philippine Horticultural Society’s Annual Exhibit slated Jan. 27 to Feb. 8, 2005, at the Manila Seedling Bank in Quezon Ave., corner Edsa, Q.C. and in the annual Philippine Bonsai Society grand national show in March.
The book will be available at all Goodwill Bookstore branches.
According to architect Roberto "Bobby" Gopiao, Philippine Bonsai Society president, the ancient Chinese monks were nature lovers. They wanted to mingle with trees and animals, but there were times when these hermits had to spend long hours meditating, praying, contemplating and doing chores indoors.
Hence, these monks brought in trees and tried to plant them in containers. The limited space in the temples gave these men the idea of reducing trees to smaller sizes.
Buddhism spread to other parts of Asia and Japan was one of the countries who accepted this religion.
The ancient Japanese readily appreciated and loved the art of bonsai. Discipline, orderliness, simplicity and love of nature are character traits of the Japanese people and these are what they used to make their works of art.
The exact beginning of bonsai is now lost in time for no records were found.
The oldest existing proof of its beginning can be seen on a Japanese scroll painting which is about 800 years old, showing a dwarf tree in a ceramic container.
Bobby relates that early Japanese nobilities showed a strong interest in unusual botanical specimens. These nature-dwarfed trees were weathered into unusual, fantastic shapes, and noble men collected them from all over Japan.
The shaping underwent many changes before the dwarfed trees became what we know as bonsai. There was even a time when the highest goal of bonsai art was to create the most grotesque, unnatural or bizarre shapes one can imagine.
Bonsai or the art of dwarfing trees was learned by the ancient Japanese from the ancient Chinese monks of the Buddhist temples.
The essence of bonsai art is to evoke the spirit of nature. Although the Chinese claimed to have originally "invented" bonsai, it is the Japanese who developed and perfected the art through the years.
"The essence of bonsai is to evoke the spirit of nature," says Bobby Gopiao.
"Your bonsai can take you virtually anywhere you want to be ... in a forest, mountain, by the riverbank or anywhere you can picture yourself by using your imagination and the miniaturized tree. That imagination will give the spirit of nature reflected in the bonsai, but that spirit will only be brought to life by your work on the plant," he added.
During the mid-19th century, today’s aesthetic principles based on asymmetric balance were adapted.
In 1909, the bonsai first appeared in the western world through a garden exhibit in London, England. From, then, interest in bonsai enormously increased worldwide.
"It is neither hard nor expensive nor time-consuming to start bonsai," Gopiao says.
"There is no need to go to Japan to obtain the materials, to educate yourself and develop your skills and artistry. Bonsai clubs are everywhere locally and the Philippine Bonsai Society is one of them."
The Philippine Bonsai Society was formed to assist hobbyists and beginners. The Society holds exhibits annually to entice people to the elegant and serene beauty of the Japanese art of dwarfing trees.
In these exhibits, interested parties are encouraged through lectures and demonstrations, workshops and field trips, bonsai hunting, all sponsored by the PBSI.
The society also publishes a bonsai magazine twice a year featuring educational articles, pictorials, how-to-do and listings of plants for bonsai and their care; a directory of reliable and legitimate bonsai artists and experts.
Bobby says it’s easy to find potential bonsai materials you can start with. In your own garden, a neighborhood park, or in a plant nursery, there may be some fruit trees or flowering trees stunted due to neglect.
Ideal for bonsai are bougainvilleas, fire trees, narra, mahogany, tamarind, guava, kamias, starfruit/balimbing, mulawin aso, bignay, golden shower, kamachile, bantigue, Palawan, cherry, kasuy, balite, acacia, calachuchi, callos and many more.
Grow them in shallow pots and put stones and rocks between their roots to further stunt their growth.
Occasionally trim the crown by pinching excess leaves. Once every 2 or 3 months, give some branches a heavy pruning. Remove branches that look out of place or useless.
Every 8 to 10 months, (or 1 to 2 years for some species), you can uproot the plant and trim the root system by removing tertiary or fine roots. Then, put the plant back on the pot, giving it fresh organic soil.
You can expose large roots by sitting them on rock. Cover the root with sphagnum moss for several weeks to allow the root to adjust and attach itself to the rock eventually. Fertilize the plant sparingly or it might grow un-proportionally big.
Do not drench the bonsai plant when watering. Just moisten the soil and spray-mist the crown once or twice a day and a little more when the day is too hot and dry.
You can put your bonsai plant indoors but do not let it stay there for more than a week without sunlight. But with artificial lighting and good ventilation, you can let it stay longer in a room.
To achieve that natural bent or twisted look, you can wire the trunk with a flexible copper wire to direct the branch or trunk to your desired bend and twist. You can hang some weights like a big pebble or an old battery to a branch to pull it down.
There are 3 kinds of bonsai according to size:
The Mame or Bean bonsai, so-called because of its miniature size, is about 8 inches in height and can be held in the palm of your hand.
Next is the regular bonsai which is between 1 to 2 feet in height and the last is the giant which is between 3 to 5 feet in height.
You must remember that bonsai trees are dwarfed versions of the natural trees. Hence, the bonsai should be in right proportion when scaled down several times the natural size.
There are several bonsai types or forms to choose from; the formal or erect; the cascading (branches are trained downwards below the rim of a tall, slim pot); the wind-swept (all branches are trained to grow in one direction only as though they are blown by a strong wind); the layered crown (the leaves are grown in several layers leaving space in between); forest bonsai (a group of trees planted together on a tray to give effect of a forest) and bonsai kei (a tray planted with several trees to form a garden landscape complete with accessories like mini bench, lamp, bridge, boulder, rock, etc.).
A bonsai tree can also be grown perching on a big rock to look like a tree growing at the edge of a cliff. To know if your bonsai is in the correct proportion, you should view it from side to side and from above. This way, you will have an idea which branch must be removed or retained.