You keep using that word...

There is an old saw that goes something like"repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth..." Does it really work like that? What is truth can be a murky topic. As with some many things that are subjective, people tend to disagree.

If the sun is high in the sky and shining brightly, no one would argue that it is night time. But flip the radio to a random station and ask a crowd if the music is good, and you just might get as many different answers as there are crowd members. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. It may depend whose clustered around the radio. If it were located, say in a retirement home with senior citizens, you may not have many positive responses to thrash metal or rap.  Conversely, school agers are likely not going to be very ecstatic about opera or big band. Lots of factors go into what we like.

Facing the question of "What is a bonsai/" can lead to some deep thinking, intense discussion and even some hurt feelings.  Some of that may come from bruised egos, along the line of "I have been doing bonsai for 7 month and I think I'm pretty good at it, what do you mean it is not a good bonsai?"

Now there I really complicated the question-not just what is a bonsai, but what is a good bonsai? Simple definition is that bonsai is a tree in a container. That's what the Japanese words bon and sai roughly translate to.  A fuller definition might be a container grown plant that give the impression of a tree, especially a tree of age or experience. Clearly simply putting a woody plant in a pot satisfies the letter of the law-but not the spirit. There is a whole set of artistic expectations that go along with bonsai. Learning them and following them can be the hard part of the hobby. To borrow that slogan of the board game Othello-"An hour to learn, a lifetime to master".

One defense of poorly executed bonsai, most often from a person new in the hobby, is that they are just starting and they only want to keep the plant alive. You know , the old "It's just for me" dodge.  I think that is false reasoning and not a good place to stand. It's an excuse, and a weak one, and admission that the artist can not-or will not put the effort into learning the basics of technique.

Good technique is import in any art, and learning it from the get go is the only way.  My son plays the cello and my daughter fences. In both these pursuits bad technique leads to failure, good technique to excellence.   My kid's teachers don't let them get away with substandard bowing or sloppy fingering, with slow foot work or imprecise point control.  This is part of what makes them good teachers.

So should new bonsai growers be leaned on to improve their technique?  I think so, if the correction is done encouragingly.  Students in a class, or new growers at a club meeting are presumably there to learn.  One key to being a good student is casting ego aside-you may be told things that are unpleasant, will you absorb them and improve? Its easy to understand a C- on a math test-when the sums or dividends are incorrect, it's plain the math was wrong. But being told your English composition was stiff and hard to read?  That rankles. But will thinking about your work rationally help yo improve, if you take a teacher's/coach's/leader's suggestion? Most assuredly.

I got to do some thinking on this line after hearing someone mention the challenges they were facing with their bunjin style Bradford pear.  That's a tree that is sometime used as bonsai but not often in my experience, and that style seems to at odds with the tree's natural shape. Seeing photos of the tree in question, a primary question pops up-is it bonsai?

My thought is no. It is a tree in a pot, and from the leaf color and other signs it is doing well-this grower has the horticultural aspects of the hobby well in hand. But from a style perspective, what's going on here?

Consider what features make a good bonsai:

• Good root base. Roots on this tree are a twisted, tangled  mass.  Likely they were never combed out and organized at the initial styling. It may be too late to do it now-or take a lot of work.
• A trunk with taper. This is a broom handle-uniform thickness, and no real movement.  One or the other is vital, both would be ideal.
• No branching or indication of branching. One of those bonsai tricks-if the tree does not have ideal branching, fool the eye of the viewer and make it seem so. 

Right now this is a very appealing and great looking topiary. A pair of these at the head of a garden path or on either side of a door way would look super, especially when they were in bloom (though don't take a wiff, Bradford pears are not pleasant that way.) But as bonsai, not as successful.

How could a better result have been achieved-and is it still possible? If I had to guess, the style was chosen first, and then everything done to make that work. I would also bet that things were looked at top down, that is foliage trimmed, branches pruned,etc.  Good bonsai start from the roots up-literally. Choosing stock, or making design choices for a new tree have to start with the roots, then move upwards:trunk, branches, etc. Leaves are last.  Fixing this tree would entail removing roots from the bottom up, leaving only what would become the surface roots. The top of this tree has to go-an airlayer is possible to get two trees,  but the trunk needs to be shorter.  Pears usually grow in a sort of vase shape, so a sort of formal upright/broom style would be best.  Well placed branches will hide the fact that there is no taper.

A side bar discussion has to be What is a bunjin tree?  Also called literati, these tall, spare elegant trees are striking when done well-and hard to do well! As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said when asked to define pornography-"I know it when I see it" explaining what a bunjin is and what makes a good one is far from easy-but you know it when you see it. 

 My guess is that this bonsai grower saw a long expanse of trunk and though of the tall bunjin style as the only alternative.  Arguing against that stand would be that branches are easy to encourage where you need them, and that the broom handle trunk on this tree just isnt compelling enough to be bunjin, since its a style that is really all about trunk