What is Lingnan penjing? What are there in Lingnan penjing that are so different from other penjing schools? What is the “Grow and Clip” method? These are the topics Teacher Wong talked about in my first Lingnan penjing class two years ago, and now I would like to share with you

I am currently working hard on building the official website of Institute of Lingnan Penjing, Hong Kong and have just finished the post about how to appreciate Chinese Lingnan Penjing (“Lingnan” means Southern, “penjing” is bonsai in Chinese).

While penjing and bonsai share many characteristics, they are different in many ways. And we often can find many casual and sloppy cross reference of penjing and bonsai (me too, guilty as charged. Since many people know the meaning of bonsai but not the meaning of penjing, sometimes I will refer a penjing to bonsai.)
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In Lingnan Penjing, there are three main ways to attach a tree to a rock for landscape penjing. Root-Attaching (附根) Stem-Attaching (附莖) Ride-on-Rock (騎石, similar to Sekijoju) Since the first day I learned landscape penjing, I have been told that root-attaching method is the most challenging, yet, yields the most spectacular scenery in landscape penjing.
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Earlier, I had a few friends asking me about the difference between landscape penjing (shanshui Penjing, 山水盆景 in Chinese), and water-and-land penjing (shuihan penjing, 水旱盆景 in Chinese). It seemed that they were quite confused. Same here indeed, when I first learned bonsai, I always got mixed up between landscape penjing and water-and-land penjing too.

It is said that Chinese penjing is a landscape painting in three dimensions. Unlike Japanese bonsai, Chinese penjing portrays and recreate a scene we find in nature. Similar to Chinese poetry and landscape painting which rely on a very limited amount of content to portray a vast scene in the mind of listener/viewer, Chinese penjing
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Put aside the argument of whether or not Saika Bonsai style is real bonsai, Saika Bonsai (彩花盆栽) has surely given the ancient bonsai art a refreshing look. And Kaori Yamada (山田香織) – the daughter of one of the most famous bonsai artists in Japan – definitely is one of the most prominent in Saika Bonsai
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I unexpectedly found a few videos called “How to make your own bonsai” when I was watching some other videos on YouTube last night. There are quite many videos on YouTube demonstrating bonsai techniques and sharing bonsai tips, but what caught my attention are that these videos I found are demonstrated by a Japanese girl, and what she is showing is not any traditional bonsai style, but a new bonsai style called Saika Bonsai (彩花盆栽).

In this program, CBS Sunday Morning explains what bonsai is, the difference between Japanese bonsai and Chinese penjing, as well as how the art of bonsai is introduced to the United States. This program of bonsai is a short, yet, well explained one, giving the viewers a quick and clear idea of what bonsai really
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Bonsai can be classified into different groups by size. The size of bonsai is generally measured as the distance between the top of the soil and the apex of the bonsai tree. Below is the classification of bonsai of different sizes. Keishi Bonsai (thumb size) – Up to 1 inch (2.5 cm) in height Shito
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