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Many times people have commented to me that there must be some art to bonsai. I say that there is no art to keeping a tree alive in a pot. That takes basic horticultural knowledge and skill. The art is in styling the tree so that it looks like something much older than it may actually be.
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Over the years my definition of bonsai has changed. Bonsai do not have to convey age, something much older than it may actually be, that isn't a qualification. If Bonsai is an Art, any plant that conveys a sense of beauty within it's own culture qualifies as a bonsai to me.
The other day I saw a planting of mixed grasses in a beautiful stoneware pot on the deck of a client I am doing some landscape design work for. I sat and stared at it and it was.......bonsai, even though it was not even created as such. I wish I had a picture of it to show now.
I think the pictures in Kyuzo Murata's book
Four Seasons Of Bonsai convey this idea.
Almost a third of the book is devoted to pictures of perennials, from lily of the valley to common sheeps sorrel, a plant most people would wipe out with a squirt of Roundup, planted in decorative pots.
The Art of bonsai must have a broader meaning for it to be a worldwide art. It's a cultural thing.
How do you style a fern to make it look older? You don't. You go out where the fern grows and
you observe it's unique growing conditions and then dig it up put it in a nice pot that harmonizes well with the plant and conveys a sense of beauty and give it growing conditions as close to those it came from. That's bonsai to me.
Go to the pines if you want to learn about the pine,
or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo.
And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation
with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and do not learn.
Matsuo Basho
17th Century