Colours of Wildlife: Bonsai in South Africa
Created | Updated Sep 23, 2018
Bonsai in South Africa
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
In South Africa, we have quite a strong contingent of Bonsai growers. Also, while some operate according to strict Japanese formal and aesthetic guidelines, others have instead been working at a more African approach. Our continent has its own kind of style and aesthetic. In growing African Bonsai the goal is therefore to mimic and be inspired by the natural shapes found in our own environments. As in Japan, we also have here a variety of plants that assume natural stunted, Bonsai-like shapes when growing under harsh conditions. I've seen and photographed many such.
While personally, I don't go in for Bonsai myself – I'd much rather plant a tree in a site where it can indeed grow as big as possible – I can see the attraction. It is especially nice for fitting a large number of 'trees' in an otherwise small yard. Good Bonsai growers make not just individual plants, but create little 'landscapes' for them to fit into, including using tiny plants as groundcovers around them, and sometimes fitting a number of 'trees' into a tiny forest.
I've been for a visit to local Bonsai grower Marius van Tonder. He actually owns a butchery (Vleislapa) in Polokwane, but plants are his hobby. He, too, doesn't concern himself too much with strict styles, instead having fun and trying to create pleasing-looking specimens. While he has quite a few European, Asian and American plants in his collection, he also has some fine members of South African species.
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One of his non-native South African species is a Belhambra, Phytolacca dioica. This tree is native to the pampas of South America where it grows large and spreading. It is also frequently grown in South Africa, having naturalized in a few places with the potential of becoming an ecological problem, since birds eat its fruit and distribute its seed. With age it develops a huge, spreading root base at the bottom of its trunk. This bonsai specimen is somewhat reminiscent of a plus-sized beauty reclining on the beach.
Now for the South African plants. This is a Camphor Bush, Tarchonanthus camphoratus, a shrub or small tree with pleasantly aromatic foliage. This one has been trained into a handsome little mini-tree with miniaturized foliage and a rather gnarly trunk and a prong from a dead branch.
This strange little plant is a cultivar called 'Gollum' of the widespread and popular succulent species the Jade Plant, or Money Plant, Crassula ovata. It has stunted, knobby leaves, together with its thick and rugged 'trunk', making it excellent to train into a mini-specimen.
Here is a tiny forest made from Monkey Thorn trees, Acacia galpinii (or with the new name Senegalia galpinii. This species with its corky bark is easier to train into a bonsai than many other local thorn trees that prefer sending down deep tap-roots, which don't thrive in a shallow tray.
Finally, two more monkey-thorn trees, one trained into a flat-crowned shape typical for many big thorn trees on the African savannah. In the open it is better for a tree to grow wide than tall, since it takes a lot of metabolic 'effort' to send branches upward, compared to sending them outward. This bonsai though isn't very tall at all, and this neat umbrella-shape demands a lot of coaxing!
And here's one with a little 'scape', towering over a tiny house and garden. Marius has a few like this as well, using small models and figurines.
He has of course many other Bonsai specimens but I think these look good and give you an idea of the art. I will try to visit some other local growers of Bonsai and other interesting plants, and bring you the story here in The Post!
