Green Mind Seeing

The Bonsai Goes Native

When I went to mist the moss in the bonsai this morning I got a wonderful surprise. You might reasonably expect that bonsai is not a type of gardening prone to sudden unexpected things happening; a tree in a small pot, slow-growing, artificially shaped, and very static in many ways compared to the rampant wildness that periodically takes over an outdoor garden, as plants multiply, sprawl, bloom, fling seed, harbor insects and arachnids, and generally go through the seasons in a perpetual state of change. I like the vibrancy and unexpectedness of a garden. As someone whose personal garden style leans toward cottage garden style and kitchen gardens, I'm not the most likely person to attempt bonsai. Note the word "attempt". This bonsai, which was planted last month, is my third, no...fourth, attempt, the others having been short-lived dismal failures with an assortment of small tree seedlings. This time I bought a small tree, pre-sculpted especially to be used as a bonsai. It wasn't what I'd have done, being in the windswept style, which is lovely but always looks too artificial to my eye. Afterall, it's not as if gales are sweeping through the house all the time. It does mimic nature, but only trees in certain very specific conditions of nature. I wanted something plainer, more natural-looking in the sense of looking more like the trees in my yard, rather than a tree on a windswept hillside. But I got the little bonsai tree anyway because I thought that perhaps having been raised specifically to be a bonsai, it would work out better than the other tree seedlings I'd tried over the years.

I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. I know, you're wondering how I can possibly say that less than a month after popping the plant into my bonsai pot (after re-reading my bonsai book, as I do on each attempt). Well, I wanted a natural-looking landscape, something I might be as likely to see out my window as on this side of the pane. Just to the side and on the other side of that window seat where the bonsai sits is a downspout for the gutter. Below that downspout is a depression made by the water, and just at the edge of the depression is a lovely patch of moss that I've been cultivating for the past few years. By cultivating I mean gently removing leaves and checking on it in the dry season, to see if it needs a bit of water. It's very resilient. I've had in mind making a terrarium with mosses in it. I also thought that I might use some of the moss in bonsai. I was waiting for the small patch to get big enough that I could take some and still have a nice patch left outside. So when I planted this bonsai, I did more than just plant the tree in the bonsai pot. I added two small clumps of moss, some small decorative gravel, and a small flat slate stone. A little landscape. I was pleased. It looked like a much more peaceful scene than the windswept form of the tree suggested.

The moss, as it turned out, was the key to making it look natural. Not only did it break up the line of the soil, but because it came from outside, it brought the wildness of nature with it. This morning there were three small delicate mushrooms at the edge of the moss! Suddenly the little scene was both natural and imbued with a touch of magic. There's something sort of magical about fungi; they live underground, unseen until very suddenly they throw their fruit up onto the ground, or a piece of deadfall. Some can get quite large and spectacular in size, color, and form, but others, like this small gray shroom, are more unobtrusive and ephemeral. I love the way the color of the cap picks up the color of the small slate piece. I love the way this static landscape I had created became, overnight, a surprising and dynamic thing. The mushrooms are a reminder that this is a natural environment, not static, not sterile. Mushrooms have popped up under this tree, just as they do under other trees outside. Because this has happened, it can happen again; the fungus lives in the soil, unseen, and when conditions are right mushrooms may appear again. I've never seen this type of mushroom in the yard before though I've encountered it elsewhere. It's fairly common. It needed someone to mist the ground regularly, I suppose. The moss is getting more care in the bonsai pot than it did on the ground outside when it went through wet and dry seasons.

I set out to create a bonsai, but what I'm creating is turning into a functioning ecosystem, which is even better. There is wildness in it and that makes me happier than I was with just a bonsai tree. It also makes this bonsai a successful experiment even if the tree fails to thrive; I have living soil populated by microscopic fungi and moss. If the "bonsai" goes the way of my other bonsai attempts, everything else can go into a terrarium as a functioning micro-ecosystem. But for now, today, I'm going to wallow in delight looking at my tree, moss, and fungi. Trees may grow slowly, but the natural world they live in is ever-changing. Every morning after this, when I pull back the curtains on the windowseat, I'll wonder what I'm going to see.