Spring is a season of rebirth, rejuvenation and vitality. To me, it's also a season of repotting, manuring & pruning.
I know it's late writing about spring because it's already april now. If you have been following my blog you know i like writing and posting something about it when in time of spring for the past few years. Let's look at it in a broader sense - a season following winter and preceding summer? Happier?
Any good friends of mine know I like orchid, fern and bonsai. I often forget to feed myself when I am feeding them, and when I am staring at them in awe.
Bonsai is an art of expressing nature, an art of time that holds a lofty spirituality. In contemplating the distinction between bonsai and other potted plants, bonsai are trees or shrubs cultivated in a pot, in a style that 1) evokes images of the trees or shrubs in nature, or 2) moves the hearts of viewers and be metamorphosed into an awe-inspiring figure. Furthermore, those trees and shrubs from which emanate the merest aura of wabi or sabi are bonsai in a deeper sense of the word. Indeed, expressing wabi and sabi in plants is the ultimate ideal of bonsai cultivation. It's not easy but I have been learning and practising.
I shared photos of flowers in my blog before but I have never shared any of my bonsai because I do not think I have ever been capable of capturing the above said qualities through my photos taken. However, my azalea satsuki in bloom urges me to do so otherwise we got to wait for the next springtime.
There are 4 to amuse you in this post among my collection of more than 20. 2 shimpaku juniper, a trident maple and a azalea satsuki. Most of them are imported from Japan (but do not ask me how because it's an illegal act) through a friend of mine who is an apprentice cultivator under Mr. Kunio Kobayashi, the curator of Shunkaen Bonsai Museum.
I like looking at the changes of my trees through seasons. The red maple leaves in autumn. The bare branches of prunus mume in winter. The chojubai and the satsuki in bloom from winter to spring. And the sprouts and buds come out again during springtime. I often tell myself I am a happy and fortunate man to be able to hit some tennis balls in the sun, read some good books before sleep, and taking care of my trees. I hope you all find the same through what you do too.
