Detailed Explanation of the Operating Procedures for Transporting Tree-Stump Bonsai
We all know that nursery stock is different from ordinary merchandise. During transport, it is necessary not only to keep the goods intact but also to sustain the life and survival of the plants. And bonsai are different from ordinary seedlings: their formation often involves years of careful cultivation and continuous shaping and styling. They possess high artistic value and usually command a steep price. This is especially true of large tree-stump bonsai, which are bulky and heavy. To ensure quality upon arrival, the demands placed on loading and shipping work are naturally even higher, and their operating procedures must be standardized and strictly implemented.
File photo
In view of different bonsai plant materials, bonsai artistic compositions and plant growth habits, excavation and shipping work generally should follow the operating procedures below:
Branch binding
The plant materials used for bonsai are generally tree species with high flexibility. Before shipping, depending on the specific situation, and on the premise of affecting the overall styling as little as possible, certain branches can be bound according to the principles and methods of bonsai styling to reduce their volume.
For short-distance transport, because the binding time is short, the branches recover quickly after unloading, and generally there is no major impact on the bonsai styling.
Reinforcement
While binding the branches, fragile branches and parts should be reinforced before loading. In particular, the main framework should be protected as much as possible, and non-blunt supporting materials (such as wooden supports) should be chosen for reinforcement.
Key operating points:
1. Between the contact surfaces with the reinforcing material, a soft material pad must be used.
2. When tightening, the force must be well controlled, so as to secure the branches without damaging them.
Packaging
1. For branches that need binding, protective packaging should be carried out first before binding. The packaging material should preferably be a soft, highly flexible, water-absorbent and wear-resistant fiber material. In order to damage the branches as little as possible, wrap along the direction of branch and leaf growth. For some larger branches that need to be bound tightly, hard wood or bamboo strips should also be lined outside the wrapping to prevent damage to the branches when binding forcefully.
2. Root packaging: For those already potted, special treatment of the pot bottom must be carried out before lifting. Most containers are mainly ceramic and are fragile; if not packaged, they are easily damaged during shipping. When packaging, pad the outer wall of the container with soft material, then reinforce it with wooden strips. Sometimes, for convenience in shipping, the pot may also be removed. When removing the pot, the root system must be protected. There are many methods to protect the root system. The most commonly used method is to add nutrient soil around the outer part of the root system after removing the pot, and then pack the root ball. If it is field-grown, follow the method for digging large trees, keep a proper soil ball, and prune some branches that have little effect on the styling, control excessive evaporation of water, so as to benefit the growth of the bonsai.
3. If the transport distance is relatively long, according to shipping needs, for plants that have been reinforced in advance, build a protective box around the entire trunk, and fill the inner space tightly with highly water-absorbent filler. If it is not possible to tie a tarpaulin during transport, first cover the outside of the plant with a nylon bag (to ensure water does not evaporate). The box material should be relatively sturdy and able to withstand the pressure, tension and load-bearing force during lifting. In actual operation, the shape and size of the protective box should be determined according to the actual situation and needs, adapting measures to the material. Medium and large bonsai are suitable at 1 to 2 per box, while large and extra-large bonsai can only be packed one per box.
4. The entire bonsai packaging process should be carried out in a work shed or packaging workshop, avoiding direct sunlight as much as possible. All packaged nursery stock and bonsai should be stored in a cool place or in a low-temperature cold storage. The storage time should not be too long; the shorter the better. Shipping and transfer points should transport immediately, and after reaching the destination, the boxes should be opened immediately for care.
Humidification
After carrying out the above procedures, spray water on the packaging before loading to humidify it, so that the humidity of the filler and packaging material is greater than the moisture content of the plant, to ensure the plant's water balance during shipping. Ensuring the plant's water nutrition is also key to the shipping process.
Loading
For fully packaged bonsai, depending on convenience for loading and transport, loading can be carried out according to the overall shape of the packaging. If they have not been fully packaged, then the method for shipping large trees must be followed, taking care to place the soil ball facing forward and the crown facing backward.
Transport
During transport, attention must be paid at all times to wind protection measures. When the journey is relatively long, appropriate watering should be done along the way.
Operating Procedures for Transporting Tree-Stump Bonsai
May 23 news from China Landscape Web: We all know that nursery stock is different from ordinary merchandise. During transport, it is necessary not only to keep the goods intact but also to sustain the life and survival of the plants. And bonsai are different from ordinary seedlings: their formation often involves years of careful cultivation and continuous shaping and styling. They possess high artistic value and usually command a steep price. This is especially true of large tree-stump bonsai, which are bulky and heavy. To ensure quality upon arrival, the demands placed on loading and shipping work are naturally even higher, and their operating procedures must be standardized and strictly implemented.
File photo
In view of different bonsai plant materials, bonsai artistic compositions and plant growth habits, excavation and shipping work generally should follow the operating procedures below:
Branch binding
The plant materials used for bonsai are generally tree species with high flexibility. Before shipping, depending on the specific situation, and on the premise of affecting the overall styling as little as possible, certain branches can be bound according to the principles and methods of bonsai styling to reduce their volume.
For short-distance transport, because the binding time is short, the branches recover quickly after unloading, and generally there is no major impact on the bonsai styling.
Reinforcement
While binding the branches, fragile branches and parts should be reinforced before loading. In particular, the main framework should be protected as much as possible, and non-blunt supporting materials (such as wooden supports) should be chosen for reinforcement.
Key operating points:
1. Between the contact surfaces with the reinforcing material, a soft material pad must be used.
2. When tightening, the force must be well controlled, so as to secure the branches without damaging them.
Packaging
1. For branches that need binding, protective packaging should be carried out first before binding. The packaging material should preferably be a soft, highly flexible, water-absorbent and wear-resistant fiber material. In order to damage the branches as little as possible, wrap along the direction of branch and leaf growth. For some larger branches that need to be bound tightly, hard wood or bamboo strips should also be lined outside the wrapping to prevent damage to the branches when binding forcefully.
2. Root packaging: For those already potted, special treatment of the pot bottom must be carried out before lifting. Most containers are mainly ceramic and are fragile; if not packaged, they are easily damaged during shipping. When packaging, pad the outer wall of the container with soft material, then reinforce it with wooden strips. Sometimes, for convenience in shipping, the pot may also be removed. When removing the pot, the root system must be protected. There are many methods to protect the root system. The most commonly used method is to add nutrient soil around the outer part of the root system after removing the pot, and then pack the root ball. If it is field-grown, follow the method for digging large trees, keep a proper soil ball, and prune some branches that have little effect on the styling, control excessive evaporation of water, so as to benefit the growth of the bonsai.
3. If the transport distance is relatively long, according to shipping needs, for plants that have been reinforced in advance, build a protective box around the entire trunk, and fill the inner space tightly with highly water-absorbent filler. If it is not possible to tie a tarpaulin during transport, first cover the outside of the plant with a nylon bag (to ensure water does not evaporate). The box material should be relatively sturdy and able to withstand the pressure, tension and load-bearing force during lifting. In actual operation, the shape and size of the protective box should be determined according to the actual situation and needs, adapting measures to the material. Medium and large bonsai are suitable at 1 to 2 per box, while large and extra-large bonsai can only be packed one per box.
4. The entire bonsai packaging process should be carried out in a work shed or packaging workshop, avoiding direct sunlight as much as possible. All packaged nursery stock and bonsai should be stored in a cool place or in a low-temperature cold storage. The storage time should not be too long; the shorter the better. Shipping and transfer points should transport immediately, and after reaching the destination, the boxes should be opened immediately for care.
Humidification
After carrying out the above procedures, spray water on the packaging before loading to humidify it, so that the humidity of the filler and packaging material is greater than the moisture content of the plant, to ensure the plant's water balance during shipping. Ensuring the plant's water nutrition is also key to the shipping process.
Loading
For fully packaged bonsai, depending on convenience for loading and transport, loading can be carried out according to the overall shape of the packaging. If they have not been fully packaged, then the method for shipping large trees must be followed, taking care to place the soil ball facing forward and the crown facing backward.
Transport
During transport, attention must be paid at all times to wind protection measures. When the journey is relatively long, appropriate watering should be done along the way.
[Essay] Bonsai
By Yang WenfengNature is the metaphor of the human mind.
-- Emerson, Nature
1
I am somewhat afraid to face bonsai directly, even though I have a deep bonsai complex.
I see before me this boxwood tree-stump bonsai called "Dripping Without Leaking," whose cloud pads are round like canopies, each presenting a downward-looking posture, with dense and sparse green leaves in good order, and branches twisted and coiled like snakes. Another cypress tree-stump bonsai, "Step by Step to the Blue Clouds," has a long trunk hanging and curving down from the edge of the pot, like a thin waterfall nearly dried up, with leaves and branches rolling into clusters, the lower the position, the smaller the leaf clusters.
Can such bonsai be said to have wild charm? Are these bonsai truly vigorous and powerful, free and elegant, graceful and well-spaced, boldly wild in charm, naturally wild in flavor, and able to suggest a thousand miles within a foot? Are they truly "silent poetry, three-dimensional painting"?
Gong Zizhen, a writer of the late Qing Dynasty, said in "Record of the Hall of Diseased Plums": "Plum blossoms are beautiful when curved, but without posture when straight; beautiful when slanting, but without scenery when upright; beautiful when sparse, but without form when dense." -- In my view, even if bonsai are beautiful, they are a deformed beauty, diseased bonsai.
All natural things are originally equal, all have reasons to exist, none are willing to be deformed, and all hope to possess natural beauty, especially since "ugliness in nature is impossible" (Hargrove). Yet bonsai have undoubtedly become things forced to grow. The so-called "superb workmanship surpassing nature" shapes -- whatever the styles, such as formal upright, coiled, horizontal branch, cascade, weeping branch, forest, and connected root -- even with the most pleasant names, all violate nature. This is quite similar to human illness, which is caused by internal imbalance in the body. There are no more than two causes of human illness: one is that external things invade the body, such as wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, dryness and fire acting on the body and causing imbalance; the other is that the energy taken in by the body is unbalanced, for example, partial eating leading to bodily imbalance.
Bonsai forced to grow are so pitiable that they are almost deprived even of the conditions and rights to recover from illness -- alienated from land and mountain forests, surrounded entirely by an artificial environment, if it can even still be called an environment.
Some miniature cylindrical pots, round or square, are only a few cm in diameter, not much bigger than ashtrays or bird food jars, narrow and cramped. How can the remaining life survive in such humiliation? Placed in a tiny room, how can it bathe in free rain and free wind? It cannot even hear the singing of small insects, so how can it live in harmony with nature?
This is a thoroughly alienated environment.
I am somewhat confused. Can such bonsai -- an existence both true and false, both diseased and illusory -- express towering, upright spirit, indomitable tenacious willpower, detached and elegant noble integrity, and firm will growing stronger with age? Can they achieve both form and spirit, with heavenly natural charm? Can they give people associations with the beauty of the natural state?
2
Botany says: within a plant there are two transport lines in opposite directions with different functions. The upward transport line in the trunk carries water and inorganic substances absorbed by the roots to the leaves, while the downward transport line inside the cortex carries nutrients produced by the leaves to the roots.
There is a saying called "a tree fears having its bark stripped." When making bonsai, if the bark is completely stripped off, then the roots will certainly be "starved to death"; once the roots die, water cannot be transported to the branches and leaves, and the branches and leaves will inevitably wither and die. Jia Pingwa also wrote in his novel Qin Qiang: once he knew who "had turned against Bai Xue and then spoken ill of her, I would use a knife to cut a ring of bark from the persimmon tree at his home, letting the tree slowly wither and die."
Fortunately, out of utilitarianism, humans know to let plants be "half dead yet still alive" -- using a knife to chop away more than half of the plant's trunk. I think that even if the plant is still considered alive, it is living in a state of disease, disability and pain. This is not life, only mere survival.
The plants in bonsai endure irredeemable pain every day. They want to resist but cannot resist, and can only, and must only, live on permanently in pain.
"People today take trees and stones in pots as playthings: the tall ones are bent and shortened, the large ones cut and reduced, some bear fruit within a tiny space, some keep insects and fish within a foot -- all generally called bonsai." (Liu Luan: Wu Shi Piao) From these Chinese characters alone, I can almost hear the wailing of plants high and low.
3
I still remember those ancient cypresses from the Liao Dynasty in Beijing's Temple of Heaven Park. The cambium of the ancient cypresses has aged and died, the bark completely shed, and those naturally formed deadwood trunks and spirit branches, without any artificial axe or knife, are truly wonderful natural creations. Yet in order to make cypress bonsai show vigor and ancient simplicity sooner, people actually go against nature and do as they please, applying binding and using knives and axes.
As far as I know, making bonsai must follow bionics. To drive branches to deform, the angle between metal wire and branch is forcibly twisted to 45 degrees -- morning glory, cypress vine and honeysuckle climb upward around fences at a 45-degree angle.
They also stress "shaping according to human will." For example, once a certain part of a Japanese apricot is favored, a deep groove reaching one third into the wood is chiseled with a sharp blade, twisting it as much as desired, then wrapping it with hemp cloth and tying it with steel wire, and only removing it after at least more than 3 years. During the long 3 years, growth retardants are applied from time to time to inhibit its growth.
Even more, they readily apply "grand freehand surgery." Boldly and drastically, with great rises and falls, cutting the complex and simplifying, routinely grafting, coiling, pruning and raising roots, to present a twisted and vigorous appearance. After such treatment, the stump material is "cultivated" in a clay pot for one or two years before being planted into an antique, narrow little pot. I think these various methods of making bonsai not only rely on distorted images but also reveal certain pathological feelings of human beings, do they not?
"Learn from nature, gain from the heart" was originally a principle of Chinese art, but in making bonsai, people consistently "injure and cripple nature." Many viewpoints of traditional Chinese art have indeed been fully and vividly carried forward into the process of making bonsai... To this day, "clever" humanity's self-contained pathological aesthetic concepts and bloodless operating procedures have all been put into the "great" undertaking of making bonsai.
Does everything aesthetic respect nature?
Can all achieve "the unity of heaven and humanity"?
... Under the banner of aesthetics, in the daytime,
humans are creating the art of night...
4
Beauty is in relationships.
-- Diderot
I have always believed that humans and plants should respect each other like close brothers, or perhaps "see the Buddha in each other's faces." This is the only normal relationship. It is just that in this vast world, relationships, because of the existence of humans, are not necessarily all beautiful.
Once a person becomes arrogant, there is no nature in their heart, and they become supercilious about everything. With a little axe work, they confine some trees in cramped flower pots, like binding a woman's natural feet into three-inch golden lotuses, depriving them of the right to grow freely and making them endure ruin...
Beauty, with love, conscience and respect,
should originally blend like water and milk.
Has the relationship between humans and bonsai not already become absurd?
There is nothing wrong with people loving beauty. Behavior aimed at beauty originally should not produce ugliness either. Yet the facts are not so. The ancient Greek proverb "beauty is difficult" has truly come true.
People make bonsai in pursuit of beauty, intoxicated by the infinite spiritual world expressed by a tree or a piece of stone, yet thereby deprive plants of the right to natural growth. I cannot help but sigh: so the beauty of bonsai is actually diseased beauty, actually ugliness!
It is said that when Gong Zizhen faced the several hundred potted diseased plum bonsai he had bought back, after suffering and perhaps even weeping for 3 days, he vowed to "heal them, release them, follow them," then untied the palm ropes binding the diseased plums, smashed the flower pots, and transplanted the diseased plums to the southern mountains...
Bonsai, as an extremely complex cultural phenomenon, suddenly reminds me of a concept in physics -- inertia.
Inertia is a natural property, a natural property that no one can resist, and this natural property seems also to evolve into human "ideological inertia."
Has the pursuit of bonsai art not already shown astonishing ideological inertia?
Bonsai are still being made day after day.
Perhaps the relationship between humans and plants, and even the relationship between humans and nature, can move toward harmony only after humanity dies out.
Today, the decline of nature and the alienation of certain people are accelerating in sync.
The Earth we live on may perhaps also have been "processed" by certain people into a huge diseased bonsai?
-- Can we save bonsai?
-- Selected from Science Pictorial
”