bonsaiTALK Community - View Single Post - A Physicological Question

Glenn,

I guess it depends on what you mean by 'important.' I think most of the sellers you see on EBay think that their financial gain is more important than a bunch of stunted trees, and you can see that by the quality of their material.

Maybe another way to phrase you question could be to ask whether humans tricked trees into growing as bonsai, or whether trees tricked humans into feeding, pruning, propagating, and nurturing them. Or maybe neither side is important, and nobody got tricked, and we're just working together, trees and people, to do something kind of amusing, but not really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

On the one hand, humans hold the power of life and death over trees, but on the other hand, a ginkgo can live for 3000 years, and as a species, they have been around since the Permian Era. What's a couple hundred years in a pot to something that lives that long? A summer vacation? An eyeblink? Maybe trees view us the same way they view a bad aphid infestation.

Anyway, I think this is getting outside of the scope of your already reflective question, so I'll pull it in and just ask what you mean by important...

23-Nov-2002	#3
salix bonsaiTALK Expert Join Date: Sep-2002 Location: Pacific NW Country: USA USDA Zone: 8 AHS Heat Zone: ? Posts: 165	Glenn, I guess it depends on what you mean by 'important.' I think most of the sellers you see on EBay think that their financial gain is more important than a bunch of stunted trees, and you can see that by the quality of their material. Maybe another way to phrase you question could be to ask whether humans tricked trees into growing as bonsai, or whether trees tricked humans into feeding, pruning, propagating, and nurturing them. Or maybe neither side is important, and nobody got tricked, and we're just working together, trees and people, to do something kind of amusing, but not really all that important in the grand scheme of things. On the one hand, humans hold the power of life and death over trees, but on the other hand, a ginkgo can live for 3000 years, and as a species, they have been around since the Permian Era. What's a couple hundred years in a pot to something that lives that long? A summer vacation? An eyeblink? Maybe trees view us the same way they view a bad aphid infestation. Anyway, I think this is getting outside of the scope of your already reflective question, so I'll pull it in and just ask what you mean by important...