The Beauty of Bonsai Styles

Many horticultural and aesthetic decisions go into achieving the true goal of bonsai: nurturing and training a tree in a container to appear as it would in nature. One such decision—and one that encompasses both horticultural and aesthetic considerations—is determining which style a bonsai should follow. In nature, trees grow in a variety of styles—consider the upright style of a redwood tree versus the cascading foliage of a willow tree, for example. The way in which a tree grows is often determined by their environment, and as a bonsai artist, I look to honor that environment, and the way in which that tree would grow in nature, when determining how to shape and style a bonsai. Those decisions and determinations can be seen firsthand when viewing the variety of bonsai we have in our new bonsai display near the Green Wall in our Conservatory.

The centuries-old Japanese art of bonsai originated in China as the practice known as penjing, or the art form of creating landscape scenes on a miniature scale. Throughout the years, many styles to classify bonsai trees have been developed to closely resemble circumstances in nature. These styles, however, are not hard and fast rules, but open to personal interpretation and creativity, meaning that bonsai trees do not need to conform to any particular style. The styles exist, however, to help serve as guidelines when shaping a tree and honoring its natural environment.

It’s possible that bonsai can be trained into different shapes throughout their lifetime. Sometimes artists restyle a bonsai simply because of a changing of hands between the previous and current artist; sometimes a style needs to change because, for example, a branch dies and the tree’s composition needs to be rebalanced. 

Just as styles themselves are open to personal interpretation, so are the groupings and definitions of bonsai styles—in fact, there’s much variation among bonsai artists in just how many bonsai styles really exist. Many subscribe to the belief that there are five basic bonsai styles, each derived from the tree’s angle of growth from a container.

The first of these five basic styles is known as formal upright or Chokan. The formal upright style is considered the most common of bonsai styles and follows the tree’s natural design in an upright growing manner. Many formal upright trees in nature grow in an open location without much competition for light. The trunk line is perfectly straight and vertical, with the apex (or top of the tree) located over the center of the trunk base; the trunk must also taper from base to apex, meaning its thicker at the bottom, then thinner as it goes up. To achieve a tapered trunk, the bonsai artist must make a series of cuts to the apex. The apex is cut off and an adjacent thinner lateral branch is oriented or wired upwards as the new top. This process is continued multiple times over many years. Each branch is shorter than those below it.