Bonsai chili peppers are both ornamental and edible

You read that right. What is growing in these bonsai pots is not flowers or any other plant, but edible chili peppers!

The reporter learned from the fourth Qijiang County Chili Procurement Fair that Dongxi Town in the county has launched more than 30,000 pots of chili bonsai this year. For just 30 to 50 yuan, residents can buy a pot to keep at home, where it can serve as an ornamental and the peppers can also be picked as a cooking ingredient.

Some are white as jade, some yellow as gold, some purple like eggplants, some long like cucumbers, some as big as a fist, some as small as a grain of rice... A Chongqing Evening News reporter saw at the procurement fair that these chili bonsai vary greatly in color and form.

"We have developed 29 varieties of chili bonsai in total." Shu Peng, director of the Dongxi Town Agricultural Service Center, introduced that these varieties have different characteristics. For example, Yanjiao 425 is the spiciest and suitable for eating; Qicai pepper and Zhenzhu pepper both have high ornamental and edible value; wild yellow pepper and purple chili pepper do not taste very good, but their appearance is exceptionally beautiful.

"Unlike floral bonsai, the chilies on a chili bonsai will keep producing new fruit after being picked, so the entire ornamental period can last as long as 8 months." Shu Peng said that the retail price of this kind of bonsai is about 30 to 50 yuan per pot, and it is expected that residents will be able to buy them at some flower markets in the main urban area starting next week, and they can also be bought while traveling to the ancient town of Dongxi.

"The bonsai we sell all come with care instructions." Shu Peng said that many bonsai chili peppers are perennial plants. As long as they are managed well, they can grow again the next year, but it is best to keep some seeds for sowing the following year.

Tian Shibing, director of the Vegetable Research Institute of the Municipal Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said in an interview with a Chongqing Evening News reporter yesterday that the Qijiang chili bonsai is one of their research achievements. At present, the institute has also selected more than a dozen vegetables suitable for making into bonsai, such as pumpkin, tomato, eggplant, cucumber, cabbage, lettuce, as well as scallion, chives, carrot and so on. After successful trials, they may be launched on the market one after another.

Chrysanthemums are splendid and bonsai are sought after; the scenery of Nanshan is fine

        China Flower and Tree Network, November 21 news: The editor of this site learned from Chongqing Evening News that the weekend is coming again. With such a rare chance to relax, why not go up the mountain to admire chrysanthemums and guess riddles. It is understood that since the 12th Chrysanthemum Art Festival opened on October 31, it has received tens of thousands of visitors, and the more than 800 varieties and 100,000 chrysanthemums blooming in competition are very popular with residents. According to a person concerned at the Nanshan Botanical Garden, this is still a good season to admire chrysanthemums, and residents can see the chrysanthemums in their best condition. Today, activities such as poetry and riddle guessing will also be held in the garden.

It is reported that the exhibition area of this chrysanthemum show is about 130,000 sq m, with 7 major exhibition areas: the area outside the botanical garden gate, the central landscape avenue area, the greenhouse square area, the central square area, the cherry blossom square area, the music square area, and the bonsai garden area. With such a large area, it cannot be seen completely in a short time.

Among them, the most highly praised masterpiece is still "Nanshan Shou". It uses traditional Chinese gardening techniques and is composed of 9999 chrysanthemums, implying "happiness as vast as the Eastern Sea and longevity as enduring as the southern mountain". The themed exhibition in the central landscape avenue area is also dazzling, with the theme "Dragon Soaring Across the Nine Provinces", expressing the achievements of Chongqing's construction over the ten years since it became a municipality directly under the central government. In addition, there are displays of fine chrysanthemums with different themes such as "Song of the Olympics", "City and Countryside Shining Together", "Elegance of Green Rhyme", and "Light of Hope".

Residents who love bonsai must not miss the exhibition of more than 100 fine bonsai. The bonsai displayed together this time are all award-winning works. Among them, the podocarpus stump bonsai "Qiu" won a gold award at the 2006 China Shenyang World Horticultural Exposition with its simple, ancient and vigorous posture; the Qianyanshi landscape bonsai "Heart Follows the Spring Breeze to Jiangnan" won a gold award at the 7th National Bonsai Exhibition. It is reported that there is also a mysterious top-quality work that won an award at this year's Nanjing National Bonsai Exhibition, and the owner was still unwilling to sell it even when someone offered 200,000 yuan.

In addition, rare marine mollusks from 550 million years ago, astonishing petrified wood, and fossils from 220 million years ago such as ichthyosaurs, sea lilies, ammonites, and shells will all appear at the plant fossil exhibition.

Yangzhou-style bonsai "cutting and binding" technique applies for heritage listing

The reporter learned from the Yangzhou garden department that among the five major bonsai schools in the country, Yangzhou-style bonsai has long been famous throughout the world for its fine and rigorous craftsmanship represented by "one cun, three bends". In order to better protect this special bonsai-making technique, the Yangzhou Bonsai Museum recently formally applied to the relevant department for national-level intangible cultural heritage status, and the application has been accepted. Experts introduced that Yangzhou-style stump bonsai mostly use evergreen tree species, are cultivated from a young age, advocate nature, and have branches and leaves bound into extremely thin "cloud pieces", with every leaf flat and leaf surfaces facing upward. In the hands of bonsai art masters, a branch one cun long can incredibly be bent into three small curves, commonly known as "one cun, three bends", and the binding work is extremely delicate and rigorous.
Source: Yangzi Evening News