Bonzai Tree Techniques and Approaches
There is such a variety of ways to create your Bonsai Tree display, from the basic to more advanced to completely creative to combinations of any of these. Here's a list to consider:
- Chokkan - Formal Upright
- Moyogi - Informal Upright
- Kabudachi - multiple trunks
- Sokan - Twin Trunk
- Sankan - Triple Trunk
- Gokan - 5 trunk
- Shakan - Slanting
- Netsuranari sinuous - multiple trees growing from a single sinuous root
- Neagari exposed root - Roots growing up out of the ground, suspending the trunk in the air characterize this rare style of bonsai
These are just a few and one could spend a lifetime exploring just one of these techniques and perfecting their style through a particular Bonsai Tree technique. Let's explore the possibilities of the very rare Bonsai form called "Neagari Exposed Root". This would be a great challenge of patience and skill to bring the roots of your Bonsai up out of the ground to eventually suspending the trunk in the air. One would have to very carefully in their cutting, grooming and directing the roots to do excactly what they wished. The presentation, however, would be nothing short of a spectactular Bonsai Tree.
Another technique that is closer to earth would be what is called "fukinagashi Windswept". Similar to the slanting style, but all of the branches are swept in one direction as though it were growing in a place with a strong constant prevailing wind. Have you ever seen these type of trees in nature, say on the coast line or near the top of mountain, at the treshold of the tree line? This form is quite spectacular and invites creating a miniature representation of a beach cliff or mountain top.
Bonsai Tree yose-ue Group
This technique calls for planting unrelated species and training them to work in harmony to create some truly stunning forms. This would constitute a group planting of distinct separate trees, representing a grove, or forest. Ishitsuki rock-grown can work well with yose-ue Group. There are two basic types of rock grown bonsai, root grasping the rock, where the roots do enter the soil the rock is protruding from, and on, or in the rock, where the tree is planted in a pocket of earth attached to the rock, or in a hollow in the rock. Bonsai Trees and rock are a classic expresssion of nature.
