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“Bonsai is not a race, nor is it a destination. It is a never-ending journey.”
Bonsai is the Japanese and East Asian art of growing and training miniature trees in containers, developed from the traditional Chinese art form of penjing. Penjing and bonsai differ in that the former attempts to display "wilder," more naturalistic scenes, often representing landscapes, including elements such as water, rocks, or figurines; on the other hand, bonsai typically focuses on a single tree or a group of trees of the same species, with a higher level of aesthetic refinement.
A bonsai is created beginning with a specimen of source material. This may be a cutting, seedling, a tree from the wild (known as Yamadori) or small tree of a species suitable for bonsai development. Bonsai can be created from nearly any perennial woody-stemmed tree or shrub species that produces true branches and can be cultivated to remain small through pot confinement with crown and root pruning. Some species are popular as bonsai material because they have characteristics, such as small leaves or needles, that make them appropriate for the compact visual scope of bonsai.
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