Companion Stones and Accessories for Bonsai Trunk Specimens and Methods for Collecting Them in the Wild

1. Companion Stones and Accessories for Bonsai Trunk Specimens

Under the trees of a trunk specimen, place mountain stones, figures, animals, and pavilions, terraces, and towers to make the scene in the pot rich and varied, more poetic and picturesque and full of garden charm, and more imbued with the breath of life.

When placing stones with a tree trunk, one may imitate the conception of a painting and arrange them ingeniously, placing one, three, or five stones beside the roots, generally with odd numbers being best. Pine fossil stone, axe-cleaved stone, sea-mother stone, sandstone concretion stone, and Ying stone are all acceptable. According to the posture of each kind of tree, configure either massive and sturdy or delicate and exquisite stones. In the pot, part of the mountain stone is buried in the soil and part is exposed, like the "scattered dots" among the rockery stones of a garden, or the bare rocks on a natural hillside. The size, height, grouping and scattering, density, and front-to-back placement of the mountain stones should be full of variation, but the kind of stone must be consistent and the veining must be uniform.

In traditional Chinese painting there are often pictures of pine and stone, bamboo and stone, plum and stone, and orchid and stone, using the contrast between the solid and the void and between stillness and movement of trees and stones to set off the vigour of the pine, the elegance of the bamboo, and the noble purity of the plum. Placing figures, pavilions, and terraces in the pot should be based on the needs of the artistic conception, using accessories to point out the focus.

2. Collecting Bonsai Trunk Specimens in the Wild

1. Tree species that can be collected: by streams, roadsides, bridgesides, and in the crevices of rocks in the wild, some tree trunks left after being cut down have very short aboveground parts, yet the trunks are ancient and peculiar; once dug out and given a little processing, they become a bonsai of beautiful form.

Tree species that can generally be collected include: elm, Sageretia thea, nandina, gardenia, Caragana sinica, trident maple, Chinese holly, bamboos, Chinese fringetree, Chinese wisteria, firethorn, Chinese juniper, winged euonymus, Euonymus bungeanus, hawthorn, serissa, Smilax, Euonymus fortunei, Ilex cornuta, Elaeagnus, Japanese boxwood, Xylosma, Styrax obassia, Ardisia japonica, Damnacanthus indicus, and so on.

2. Time for collecting: before the leaves have fallen in autumn, manpower can already be organised to carry out a survey, to ascertain the distribution, locations, tree species, and quantities of the tree trunks, and then manpower can be arranged and a digging plan drawn up. After the trees enter dormancy, some tree species that are not cold-hardy, as well as evergreen broad-leaved tree species, must be dug from mid-March to early April to avoid freezing damage.

3. Digging method: when digging, bring along tools such as a pickaxe, hand saw, pruning shears, and baskets. Choose a tree trunk with a thick, sturdy trunk and a beautiful posture; first, according to its form, use the shears and hand saw to trim away most of the branches, leaving only the main trunk and some main branches, then use the pickaxe to dig the tree trunk out of the soil. When digging, keep as many lateral roots and fibrous roots as possible, cut off the main root, and make the cut end of the retained root smooth to facilitate healing. Dip the roots of the dug-out tree trunk in mud slurry and put it into a basket. Fill the spaces between tree trunks with moss to maintain humidity; in this way, after about a week of transport, survival will not be affected. Evergreen trees with weak sprouting ability must not have their branches and leaves trimmed bare; for example, pines, Japanese boxwood, and cypresses must retain some leaves to survive. But tree species with strong sprouting ability, such as gardenia, Sageretia thea, and nandina, can have their branches and leaves trimmed bare and retain only the trunk with no ill effect at all.

4. Care and management: after the tree trunks are transported back, a second pruning is still needed, and according to the tree form and the pot, decide the length of the roots to retain and which branches to keep or remove. Then plant them in the ground or in clay pots. After planting, the first watering should be thorough, and cover the tree trunks with rice straw to reduce evaporation; for tall trunks, wrap the trunks with moss. Beginning in mid-April, spray water once in the morning and once in the evening so that the rice straw is kept moist at all times, but the soil must not be too wet. If tree trunks with poor cold tolerance are dug in winter, they must be placed in a greenhouse to overwinter.

From late April, the tree trunks begin to sprout one after another. At this time, the covering straw should be gradually removed, otherwise the young buds will grow slender and turn yellow, and they must be moved into a shade shed to prevent the tender buds from being scorched and to reduce water evaporation from the leaf surfaces. After one month, gradually reduce the shading time. After the dog days, the roots have already developed well, and shading is no longer necessary. When the buds grow to 5 cm long, peel off the unnecessary buds and apply a thin fertiliser to make the branches grow thick and strong.

In September, elm and Sageretia thea can have their leaves removed, be shaped with lead wire, and be given one application of thin fertiliser to promote the sprouting of new branches and leaves; after new leaves have grown again, they can be gradually pruned into branch pads.