A Practice of Patience
Cultivating a Bonsai Plant requires a temperament of patience and passivity, and the ability to recognize when your intervention is not the answer. That’s not an easy thing to do. Caring for something compels you to take action, but good-intentioned over-watering and over-pruning is a common cause of death for Bonsai Plants. They require careful maintenance but can reward seasoned gardeners with generations of growth and life.
The goal of keeping a Bonsai is to slowly guide the growth of the plant via trimming, clamping, wiring and other techniques, shaping it into a miniature version of its true scale. The growth and final shape of these plants can be wildly varied, as the term “Bonsai” doesn’t actually refer to a variety of a plant at all–it refers to the way in which the plant is grown. Bonsai plants can range from Junipers to Cypress, Elms, Ash, and quite literally any tree or shrub that grows with a woody stem.
Seeing a matured Bonsai is equal parts awesome and reverent. Due to human intervention in their growth, most Bonsai Plants take on the posing of a much larger tree, yet remain small in stature. Each knot and scar in their trunk is a mark of its history, a physical timeline of the way it was shaped by human hands. It’s hard not to feel humbled by something so delicate that could outlive a person by centuries.
Replicating the Experience
A well-tended Bonsai is an expressive work of art that conveys beauty and contemplation in a single sculpture. Replicating that experience is no easy task. When poorly imitated, Artificial Bonsai Tree lacks true presence and doesn’t achieve the same density of detail as a natural one. In other words, they miss the mark in every way that counts.
The key ingredient missing from these hollow imitations is time and care. We understand what the Bonsai symbolizes, and that’s why we pay it homage in our fabrication process. We believe the process of building artificial indoor plants should involve the same kind of patience and respect, and those ideals pay off in the final product. Our talented artists study nature and observe fine details like wood grain direction and branch twisting, applying their intimate botanical knowledge to their work, creating an earnest replication of the natural subject.
Our Replica trees also tell a story. While natural Bonsai Plants are often scarred and warped as a consequence of pruning, our trees tell a story dictated by the artist. When crafting a subject that will be under close scrutiny, it’s crucial that each decision is carefully considered, that each brush stroke is intentional and that the piece as a whole is logical and cohesive. Our artists weave a history for our replica Bonsai, etching artificial scars and breaks in the bark and shaping aerial roots that together create a Bonsai as real as any other.
