by Colin Lewis

This article reprinted with permission from the Author - In Next months issue we will present an expanded issue containing information on Shohin. - ED

I HAVE BEEN asked so many times over the years "Why do you bother with shohin?". The answer is really quite simple:

When I started bonsai, some twenty odd years ago, I had no idea how big (or small) a bonsai should be. I had seen bonsai in Selfridges department store. There were no so-called indoor trees at that time, so these were tiny pines and maples. I thought that this was how big all bonsai were.

Then I saw some pictures in a bonsai handbook from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens but the size wasn't indicated. I imagined these were the same size as those I had seen in Selfridges.

I had no idea how the fine detail and aged appearance in the pictures could be achieved on such a tiny scale. But I thought "If they can do it - so can I".

So off I went, not realizing that the trees I was trying to copy were three feet tall! Of course I discovered after about a decade that it was impossible. But during those years of trying, I got pretty close!

I still have many of those early trees - the first three I ever grew, in fact. I learned a lot during the years I spent developing them, before I discovered that most bonsai were much, much larger. I not only found out how to wire and prune on a minute scale, but by getting so close to the subject I also learned an awful lot about how plants work.

Nowadays I grow larger trees as well. But having acquired the skills and knowledge to grow and maintain shohin, I'm not just going to ignore that aspect of bonsai. And I am certainly not going to turn my back on the individual trees that I produced in those early years.

I find that by applying those skills and the knowledge of the species to material of a grander scale, I am able to introduce much more intricate detail and refinement in bonsai of all sizes.

I like detail ... precision. When I look at my trees I can spend more than an hour contemplating just one. When you look at anything for that long you notice details - the poor ones as well as the good.

But bonsai is not just about detail. There are many other considerations and these, too, become more important when you study a tree for long periods. That's the problem experienced by lot of bonsai people who have been at it for a long time. They might see the same trees day after day, year after year, but they don't actually study them enough any more.

It's like reading. You don't look at the letters and decide what word they spell. Your eye flits along the line and instantly recognizes the shapes of the words. It's the same with familiar bonsai. You recognize the tree but ignore the components. So-called 'finished' trees should be looked at as analytically as a piece of raw material you're just about to style. Shohin is a great training ground for this discipline. In order to have any hope of achieving in a shohin the sort of images you see in larger bonsai, you have to work much harder.

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If you are growing from seed or cuttings, you need to plan the progress of each branch at least a season in advance. More sometimes. You can't rely on cut-andgrow. You have to pinch and prune to a plan - a blueprint. If you can't find a bud facing the right way, then tease one into place ... or wait another year in the hope that one will appear. With larger trees you'll have a choice of several - dozens, maybe.

Seeds and cuttings are the best way to grow elegant, graceful trees. Working with raw material is different. You don't have that same control over the formation of the trunk and the main branch structure.

When you reduce raw material you create large wounds which need to be incorporated in the design of the tree somehow. But on shohin you can't be as drastic or as brash as you can with larger material when it comes to carving jins and sharis. A small plant just won't take the same punishment. This makes you think harder, and that's a good habit to get into.

Then there's things like the proportion of the spaces between the branches to the mass of the branches themselves. And the space between the lowest branches and the ground. This is the most important.

You see the tree, but the height of this space - which you don't actually see - tells you the size of the tree whose image you're trying to convey.

The width of this space, which depends on the relative lengths of the branch and the pot, can tell you where the tree is growing. In simple terms, a narrow pot implies a mountainside, a wide pot implies valley. That sort of thing.

All this is much less 'adjustable' with shohin, and needs much more careful analysis and planning. Shohin teaches you this when you take it on as a serious challenge - artistically as well as horticulturally.

The proportion of the trunk, and the pot. The placement of the branches and the spaces between them. The rhythm, movement, the lines and perspective must all satisfy the same aesthetic demands.

Working on shohin develops your ingenuity. Finding ways to tackle these problems and create convincing images on a small scale sharpens up your skills and makes bigger bonsai that much more straightforward.

Shohin isn't an excuse for inferior bonsai by any means. Although it is an opportunity to use material that you might otherwise disregard.

You know how you might take a six feet tall tree and reduce it to two feet in order to make a bonsai. This is normal practice. We all recognize this. But given a twelve-inch piece of material, the immediate response is to create a twelve-inch bonsai. Or even to allow it to grow taller to fit your intended design. This is wrong. You should really apply exactly the same approach as you would with larger material. Reduce it to six inches, or less.

With shohin you can carry two or three pieces at once, work on the kitchen table or even on your lap! You can pick one up and work on it any time. Fiddle with it, play with it, and then put it back on the bench. If you have the urge to work on a bonsai, but you only have an hour or so to spare, then shohin are ideal. They're great for filling in those idle moments. But they do take longer to develop. The growth is that much slower. Shohin teaches you patience.

You can get away with using much less inspiring material too. Because the trunks and branches are that much thinner they can be manipulated easier and so on. A simple, cheap garden centre plant can become a wild mountain driftwood tree, full of drama and movement. You can have total control on shohin, whereas with bigger and older material you have to live with what you've got to a greater extent.

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Maintaining shohin is an entirely different ball-game to bigger bonsai. I believe that the images at their peak have a limited life - as do all bonsai images, of course. Then they need to be rebuilt, or restyled, or whatever you want to call it.

But the smaller the tree, the shorter the life of its peak image. I'd say that once that image has been achieved, you have four to six years before it will need to be almost entirely rebuilt from the main branches out.

Constant pinching and trimming to such a small size produces such fine, compact growth that the shoots become too fine to sustain themselves for long and they lose vigor. Trees just can't take it horticulturally.

It's best to prune hard and regenerate the outer shoots more often. Every three or four years perhaps. But it is hard to destroy an image - especially one that has been so hard to achieve. You tend to try to keep the image at its peak for too long. And when you do decide to rebuild it the process takes longer than with full-size bonsai.

Shohin are more demanding horticulturally, too. The tiny micro environment is disrupted by changes in climate much quicker and to a much greater extent. Sun, wind, cold ­ all have a much more severe effect on shohin.

Miss watering for a day on a big bonsai and it probably won't even notice. Do the same to a shohin and it may well turn its toes up for good.

Let the aphids loose for a week and every shoot has been destroyed. A bigger bonsai can outgrow most insect attacks.

Keeping shohin teaches you discipline. You just can't afford to take chances.

But of course you do take chances from time to time. Or you have the odd lapse of discipline. Then you lose the tree.

This toughens you up emotionally. You kick yourself for being so careless. But you get used to the trauma of losing your precious creations.

And when, after say ten or twelve years, you have finally achieved an image you are proud of, you exhibit your shohin for the first time. You stand there watching the viewing public walk straight past. They go from one heavyweight to the next, hardly noticing your precious creations. You may overhear the occasional "Aren't they cute?" or "isn't it sweet?'. The kids love them!

 

Exhibiting shohin teaches you humility too. And that's one of the hardest and most valuable lessons of all.

So don't concern yourself with the people who dismiss shohin as mere toys, or just a bit of fun. They know no better. It's easy to dismiss something you can't do....

But if you can grow good shohin you know things that they don't. You've learned lessons that they have not.

There is no particular merit in having the cash to buy a large tree. Or having the facility to collect larger material. That just depends on your personal circumstances and physical strength, not your skills as a bonsai artist.

For me, without the lessons of shohin, my bonsai experience would be incomplete. My larger trees wouldn't be of the same standard. My techniques, horticultural knowledge and artistic ability would not have developed so fully. And I wouldn't have had anywhere near so much pleasure.

That's why shohin!

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