Preface to 300 cases of bonsai production and maintenance

Bonsai is a specialty of China with a long history. It originated from China's farming culture, absorbed the nutrition of China's humanistic culture and catered to the public's aesthetic taste. Nourished by China's profound traditional culture, it is not only elegant, but also enters the courtyard of the people; Can decorate the desk pleasing to the eye, can decorate the corner pleasing to the eye. Outdoor, streets, squares and parks are all loved by people, giving people a warm and elegant mood. The production of bonsai embodies the creative concept of human pursuit of nature and art, and is unique. Bonsai was introduced to Japan in the Tang Dynasty (called "potted plant" in Japanese).

In 1930s and 1940s, it spread to Europe. Since then, China bonsai has gone to the world, enjoying a world-renowned reputation.

In the development of thousands of years, bonsai production is closely related to art, humanities and science, and has gradually formed an industry. Promote the construction and development of gardens. At Hemudu Site in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, more than 7,000 years ago, the potted patterns carved on pottery pieces showed the long history of human potted plants. There was a greenhouse hall in Weiyang Palace in Han Dynasty, where potted plants were placed. According to "Sanfu Huang Tu", flowers and trees can be displayed in the hall in winter. In 1950s, a mural tomb of the late Eastern Han Dynasty was unearthed in Wang Du, Hebei Province, with potted flowers with curling edges on a square shelf.

According to written records, potted plants were first seen in Wang Xizhi's Book of Cambodia: "If you plant several pots of Chiba today, flowers will follow." With the improvement of people's aesthetic requirements for potted plants, potted plants in the Tang Dynasty also developed. 1972, the tomb of Prince Li Xian of Zhang Huai in Tang Dynasty was unearthed in Ganling County, Shaanxi Province. On the colorful murals in the corridor of the tomb, there is a maid with a hoe and an oval bonsai in her hand. There are several rockeries and two flowers with branches and leaves on the bonsai. The other is a maid with a high bun and a lotus petal-shaped plate with a red fruit and green leaves in her hand. Li Xian is the second son of Tang Gaozong, whose tomb was built before the second year of Shenlong (706). These murals convincingly proved that there were landscape bonsai and plant bonsai. At that time, potted daffodils were planted in the palace. According to the Records of Hua Jian Ji Za Xue Garden, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty presented twelve pots of red saliva immortals to Guo's wife, and "all pots were made of Baoyu and Qibao".

Outside the palace, scholars in the Tang Dynasty also began to play bonsai. Feng Zhi's Notebook Beads describes Wang Wei's cultivation of orchids: "Wei uses yellow magnets to store orchids, and beautiful stones to flourish every year." . Appreciating bonsai was a happy event for the literati in the Tang Dynasty. Li's friend's proposition poem "Five Little Songs" vividly described the scene at that time. The preface to the poem said, "Du Yunqing, a former Xie Xiucai, made five short songs, and chose books in many ways, but did not cure the lyrics;" After ten days, I said eight words to do my life. "There is a cloud in the poem," snake scales and snake shadows, children and grandchildren are entangled, and a few grains of Hongya rice are fragrant. Green wave soaked leaves are full of light, and thin beam dragon beard reamer scissors. The national map is spread on the master's wall, and there are many vulgar Confucianism in front of the master's hall. Moon and autumn are full of tears, and stalagmites are willing to send books. "Loose stems are shaped by binding and reaming, like a group of snakes. Its conception and layout are exactly the same as those of modern pine bonsai. The word "bonsai" first appeared in the Song Dynasty. Su Shi's Shuo Shi said: "Bananas are planted at the beginning, but they can be used as bonsai when they don't grow up. "

During the Song Dynasty, bonsai was not only the taste of famous families and literati, but also a popular fashion among the people. Su Shi is obsessed with bonsai. He once bought hundreds of marble vortex stones from Xana, Ya Dan, Penglai, Shandong Province to raise calamus. "I came back with this stone with the East China Sea in my sleeve." He put a pair of rocks "in the middle of the basin, with the sun facing the mountains and seas." Huang Tingjian is good at making bonsai. He once wrote a poem praising a work called Yunxi Stone: "Creation is a wonderful painter with a far terrain. Jiaozi has 30,000 hectares of catfish and 12 peaks of sexual rain. Sitting quietly makes people unpretentious, and being idle in summer is also very cool. The mountains are falling, the trees are in the dead of night, and I am drunk in the rivers and lakes. "

Fan Chengda, Zhu et al. They are all experts in landscape drama. Zhu put a smoking room behind a landscape bonsai, which made the light smoke curl up, looking like a mist in the Wan Li of Jiangshan, and sang a poem to praise: "The window is bright and clean, and the reflection is charming." As soon as the clouds come in and out, the middle of the lake is faint. "Cleverly expressed his happy mood behind closed doors.

In the folk, every July 7th in Bianjing, it is popular to "fertilize the soil with small wooden boards, plant millet seedlings, and put flowers and trees in small huts. When there is no one in Tian She's house, it is called the valley board". This valley board is a variety of bonsai, the difference is that the board replaces the basin. "Tokyo Dream" has a detailed account of this. Wu's "Walking in a Dream" describes the scenery of Hangzhou: "Outside the Qiantang Gate, there are gardens in the east and west of the Shuiqiao, where exotic flowers are planted, like birds and animals, dragons and phoenixes dancing. They are in the capital every day, and good people buy them to watch. " "Ni 'er" is another name for bonsai, so are "Pot Mud" in Legend of Wulin and "Nim" in Yunlin Shipu. This paper specifically introduces the place where bonsai is produced centrally and its market as a commodity. Moreover, compared with the Tang Dynasty, the binding method of bonsai flowers and trees has developed and the images are more diversified. There were five loose snakes in the Tang Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, there were not only pine trees, but also junipers in four seasons and exotic flowers and grasses. The shapes were not limited to snakes, but all kinds of birds and animals danced with dragons and phoenixes.

The theory of bonsai production began to take shape in the Song Dynasty, which was first seen in Govin's Shi Suo Lu. The book talks about the method of making bonsai by attaching stones to plants, such as plantain bonsai: "The planting method of water plantain: take a plantain root and cut it into two pieces. First, use manure, sulfur and fermented soil, which must be very fine, but the cut part of plantain is downward and covered with fine soil, so that small plantain can grow on the root and the bud is long. The techniques of obtaining banana dwarf plants and attaching nuclei to roots were introduced in detail. Another example is the Acorus calamus bonsai: "Acorus calamus is planted on the boulder first, and moves on the good stone again and again, thin but not thick." "In addition, the production of pomegranate bonsai is also mentioned.

By the Yuan Dynasty, the master monk in Suzhou was already a master of making bonsai. Ding Henian once wrote a poem praising him: "In front of the curved bar of the tree basin, the old Zen is clear, like an insect." Swallowing the sea and waves is like grinding stones. Like a hazy space, the sun and the moon are clearly in the pot. Don't be frightened by other people's expressions. They never stood unscathed. The title of this poem is "Give some scenery to people in Pingjiang". Some views: the meaning of small view, another name for bonsai by Yuan people. Bonsai and Chinese painting are inseparable. While seeking beauty from nature, bonsai makers attach great importance to drawing nutrition from artists' works, and painters also attach great importance to choosing themes from bonsai. In the Forbidden City, there are four axes of "Eighteen Bachelor's Paintings" by Liu Songnian, a painter of the Southern Song Dynasty, among which there are two Gu Song bonsai with branches like Youlong, which are vigorous and magical.

The close combination of bonsai and painting was in the Ming Dynasty, when bonsai art was very rich. At that time, people called bonsai a basin to play with. After the Examination written by Tu Long, there is a chapter devoted to bonsai: "Bonsai is better if you can put a few cases. The most elegant person, like a loose eye, can be as tall as a foot, as big as an arm, with short tufts of needles … makes people forget the summer heat in June. Shi Mei, for example, in central Fujian, is born with strange characteristics. It branches from the stone, revealing its roots. It crushed Gu Zhuo, suppressed the country ... and suddenly awakened Luo Fu. Like Zizania latifolia, it is also produced in the middle of Fujian, with a height of five or six inches, extreme foot, thin leaves and old stems, and a few sticks inserted in the basin, giving birth to the idea of Weichuan. These three friends are also high-quality bonsai. " Pine, bamboo and plum bonsai are generally the same as what we made today. It's just that people no longer need to use Tianmu pine, Shi Mei and Bambusa bambusa in central Fujian.

"Aftershock of Examination" also said: The looser can be "tied into an oblique curve, caught by Guo Xizhi's bare head, stratified by Liu Songnian's depression, and dragged on." Guo, Liu Songnian, etc. They are all landscape painters in the Song Dynasty. Their painting style is peculiar. For example, in the Northern Song Dynasty, Guo painted "cirrus clouds" or "grimaces" on rocks, and painted branches hanging like crab claws, which was magnificent. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Ma Yuan painted hard rocks and "thin as iron" trunks. This requires the artistic modeling of bonsai to get inspiration from landscape painting.

Tu Long also suggested that plants in flowerpots can absorb harmful substances such as lamps and cigarettes, and in several cases, placing them helps to moisturize the eyes. It is the first time to combine basin play and appreciation with physical and mental health. There are also Gao Lian's Eight Chapters of Respect for Life, Volume 7, On High-pose Bonsai, and Wen Zhenheng's Chronicle, Volume 2, Pot Play. Wen Zhenheng thinks that bonsai is the first in several cases, followed by pavilions, and he thinks it should be the other way around. In his view, large-scale bonsai placed outdoors has more aesthetic freedom. In fact, at that time, small and medium-sized bonsai with "several cases to put" was popular in society. He also listed some plants that can be used to make pots: Holly, Sabina vulgaris, Hangzhou tiger thorn, wild crane, Huangxiangxuan, oleander, chrysanthemum, narcissus, canna and so on. He advocated: "Small bonsai should not be placed in Zhu Ji, and large bonsai should not be placed in official bricks. It is better to get an old stone bench or an ancient stone lotus as a seat. "

In the Ming Dynasty, the in-depth study of stump bonsai emphasized the artistic conception of the scenery, which made people feel as if they were in the scene. The stump bonsai of the Ming Dynasty is still preserved today. A pot of ancient cypress in Yangzhou Garden is said to be a relic of Tianning Temple in Yangzhou in the late Ming Dynasty, and a pot of juniper bonsai named "The Legacy of Qin and Han Dynasties" displayed in Suzhou Wanjing Villa is said to have a history of 500 years.

In the Qing Dynasty, bonsai became more popular and all gardens were necessary. Emperor Kangxi left a poem "Ode to Liu Hua, an imperial bonsai", which shows that he also made it himself. There is a cloud in the poem: "The branches of small trees are a little red, and the wind blows in June. There are coral flowers in the green leaves, which are suspected to be colorful silver and gold. " The emperor is so keen that he will certainly carry forward the bonsai art.

During the reign of Kangxi, the famous gardening book "Flower Mirror" was published. In this book written by Chen Haozi, the composition, material selection and configuration of bonsai are discussed through "planting pots and taking pictures". During the Qianlong period, Shen Fu, a native of Suzhou, had many unique personal experiences on bonsai in Volume II of Six Chapters of a Floating Life. Bonsai Accidental Record published in Jiaqing period also divided bonsai plants into four great masters, seven sages, eighteen bachelors and four elegant flowers and plants. Obviously, bonsai can express feelings and aspirations, and it is favored by Han literati, so it will generously give potted plants so many laurels and titles. Li Fu wrote Xiao Zhongshan, chanting the bonsai cloud: "The red porcelain flowers are streaked with edges. The pine is only half a foot long, and several plants can be saved. ? Yungen took a fist with a stone head. Guo Xishan is dotted with mud. Near the small box. Cut the moss and disperse the faint, protect the frost from the cold. Lotus pipe spray rain is a flying spring. Add incense and borrow jade furnace smoke. " We can get a glimpse of people's interest in playing Pan Jing in Qing Dynasty.

After a long period of development, bonsai was generally mature and stereotyped in the Qing Dynasty. Liu Luan's Five Stones said: "Today people play with stone pots made of trees, and the elders bend them short, and the big ones cut them, or the skin is inch and the fruit is close, or the insects and fish are near, which is generally called bonsai." It can be said that it is the general principle of making bonsai. Today, bonsai art has regained its brilliance, with different styles and schools.

The ancient bonsai in China was combined with the climate, culture and resources in various places, forming five schools: Yangpai, Supai, Lingnan, Sichuan and Shanghai. Each school has its own unique characteristics and corresponding harmonious atmosphere between art and nature. Yangpai is a bonsai style in Yangzhou and Taizhou, which is famous for its clear hierarchy and stability. The Su School, represented by Suzhou and Changshu, is famous for its old withered branches, delicacy and elegance. Lingnan School, represented by Guangzhou and Foshan, is strong, upright, elegant and bold. Sichuan school, namely Sichuan bonsai, is famous for its traditional skill of "making hands". Shanghai style is Shanghai style, characterized by liveliness, fluency and novelty. Although its history is short, it can absorb the strengths of many families and become a whole. The five schools only choose what they want, and it is inevitable to miss one, so they will be supplemented later, such as adding Huizhou School, which is called the six schools of bonsai; If you add Guangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang and Beijing, it will be called the top ten schools. All these indicate that the bonsai art in China is developing with each passing day.

Bonsai is an art of cultivation and decoration, a three-dimensional painting and a silent poem. Colleagues of Lishui Academy of Agricultural Sciences have gained the aura of Oujiang River, brought the beautiful scenery of southern Zhejiang and inherited the essence of various schools of bonsai art in the motherland. It is convenient and simple to summarize 300 cases of bonsai production. Anyone who is interested in bonsai can benefit from it.