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Shumu-Style Penjing

Shumu is one of the three main styles of penjing, typically consisting of a few common design elements. This style is quite similar to bonsai, but if you want to gain a true understanding of what shumu-style penjing is, read on.

Shumu Includes One Plant or a Group of Plants

The main way to distinguish shumu from other penjing styles is that shumu penjing focuses on a single plant or a single group of plants. Other types of penjing result in entire miniature landscape designs rather than featuring a single plant specimen.

Rather than detailing a whole naturalistic scene, shumu penjing aims to celebrate the form of a specific plant. The plant forms expressed through shumu penjing are often twisted, wild, and, at times, a bit surreal. These plants typically grow in a single pot and may feature secondary elements such as rock. However, those secondary elements are never meant to compete with or outshine the plant life, which is the primary attraction of a shumu penjing display.

Shumu Is a Penjing Style Most Similar to Bonsai

While there are many different penjing styles, the shumu style is the one that is closest to bonsai. In fact, the sole focus on a single plant or small group of plants makes it somewhat difficult to tell the difference between shumu penjing and bonsai.

While shumu and bonsai are incredibly similar arts, there are often some subtle traits that may help you differentiate the two. For instance, the Japanese art of bonsai often results in a start and austere appearance, while shumu penjing often includes plant forms that are a bit more wild and erratic. Still, these differences remain hard to pick out unless you have a well-trained eye and significant experience in shumu or bonsai.

Shumu Involves Careful Trimming, Pruning, and Wiring

Despite having the goal of expressing the spirit of the natural world, the plants in a shumu penjing design are anything but natural. Instead, shumu penjing artists are meticulous in how they trim, prune, and wire their plants.

All those shaping techniques allow the artist to control the growth of their plants and create captivating forms. The result is an artistic expression that mimics or exaggerates certain natural plant growth patterns.

Design Elements Used in Penjing

Penjing is a unique art form that consists of several specific design elements. If you are interested in gaining a better understanding of what constitutes a penjing design, read on through the following chapter, which will introduce you to the basics of penjing design.

Gnarled, Twisting Trunks and Branches

Plants are typically the primary element of a penjing design. Often, these plants will feature gnarly, twisting forms, especially in their main trunks and branches. This wildness is another point of contrast between penjing and bonsai. While bonsai plants tend to be quite stark in their forms, penjing plants are more likely to exemplify the wild forces of nature. But while penjing depicts the ruggedness of nature, each plant within a penjing design requires careful pruning and training in order for it to take on the intended form.

Secondary Plants and Figures

While wild tree forms account for the main plantings in a penjing design, other elements will play a role as well. Secondary plants, including grasses, mosses, and more, all add to a penjing design to make it more of a landscape rather than a display of a single specimen tree. Additionally, penjing often includes small figurines, like people, animals, or small structures, to further add depth and a sense of scale to the landscape scene.

Water and Stone

Water and stone are often two of the most prominent elements of penjing. While not all penjing will include water, many do to create the appearance of a small river or pond. On the other hand, most penjing will feature some form of stone. The arrangement of carefully selected rocks gives penjing its overall form, often depicting a mountainous scene. Stone also gives penjing more detail and texture, similar to what is found in true nature.

Contrast and Balance

While not as explicitly visible as other design features, contrast and balance are two of the most important underlying elements of penjing. The need for contrast and balance reveals the relationship between penjing and various philosophical and spiritual beliefs, including Buddhism and Daoism. At times, penjing may play off the yin/yang concept or express different dichotomies such as life and death and fire vs. water.

Landscape Depictions from Different Views

One important aspect of penjing is that it should provide visual intrigue from several angles and at different scales. Often, penjing is put on display in an area where a viewer can move all the way around the design. This allows the viewer to enjoy different, equally interesting vantage points. To achieve this effect, the penjing design must have plenty of detail and offer something of ornament whether the viewer is at a close distance, a medium distance, or is taking in the entire penjing display.

History of Penjing

After learning what penjing is, you’ll likely be curious to learn a bit more about its history. In this chapter, we’ll detail the origins of penjing and give an overview of its development and how it spread throughout the world.

When Did Penjing Start?

There is no exact date when the art form known as penjing began. However, the historical record does give some indication about how old it is. For example, archeologists once found a scroll from around 800 C.E. depicting penjing. However, this scroll indicates that the art was already developed as far back as 200 C.E. Other evidence suggests that penjing is even older, with the practice of creating small landscapes appearing to date to the first century C.E. whether that practice was known as penjing at the time or not.

Who Created Penjing?

Historians believe that the Daoist mystics were the first people in China to practice the art of Penjing. Those mystics used penjing as a way to depict the spiritual aspects of the natural world on a smaller scale. As penjing grew in popularity, it became a more common practice among monks of various religions, as well as wealthy aristocrats in China. The penjing practice then continued for many centuries, with writers and poets often immortalizing the beauty of this art through their words.

How Penjing Spread Outside of China

After growing in prevalence in China, penjing began to spread to other nations. Notably, penjing made its way to Japan, likely in the sixth century, where it began to change forms. Eventually, it developed into the Japanese art known as bonsai. Through that development, the Japanese version focused mainly on single miniature trees, rather than whole landscape scenes, and became associated with Zen Buddhism.

Europeans began to take note of penjing during the 1600s. However, it was not until 1806 when the English naturalist Sir Joseph Banks received a dwarf tree from the Canton region of China. Banks brought that tree back to Europe, causing gardeners and naturalists on that continent to begin studying penjing art.

Penjing in Modern Day

The ongoing practice of penjing has continued throughout the past centuries and remains prevalent to this day. Today, there are many gardens, exhibitions, and private collections that keep penjing alive. Although it may not be well known all throughout the world, the penjing tradition continues to thrive thanks to several associations and universities, mainly in China, that emphasize the importance of preserving this beautiful expression of Chinese culture.

What is Penjing?

To most, penjing is an unfamiliar term, but those who are familiar with this historic Chinese art understand how captivating it can be. If you want to know more about what penjing is, then you’ve come to the right place, as this chapter will introduce you to the basics.

A Quick Definition of Penjing

Penjing is a Chinese art that first began many centuries ago, and a literal translation of the term should give you a good idea of what this art entails. Essentially, the word “pen” means “pot” in English, while “jing” roughly translates to “landscape” or “scenery.” As such, penjing is an art that involves creating miniature naturalistic landscapes in garden containers.

What Does Penjing Look Like?

At times, penjing creations may include one plant or a single dominant group of plants, in which case the plants are likely to be carefully pruned and trained to take on certain expressive forms. In other cases, penjing may depict entire landscapes, again, scaled down to fit in a pot.

Penjing vs. Bonsai

Penjing and bonsai are two similar but distinct art forms, both of which involve raising plants in miniature forms. However, penjing and bonsai do not have the same historical origin and do not follow the same general set of stylistic principles.

Penjing came first, possibly coming into being in China during the first century C.E. Bonsai is a Japanese art that developed from penjing and began much later.

Likewise, although penjing and bonsai both use miniature plants, they typically use plants in different ways. Bonsai usually focuses on growing and shaping an individual miniature tree. By contrast, penjing often depicts entire miniature landscape scenes, which can include plants, water, figurines, and more.

As the older and broader art, penjing includes several styles, some of which are more like bonsai than others. However, despite what many assume, bonsai and penjing remain separate arts, each with a unique style and cultural origin.

Styles of Penjing

With such a long history, it is no surprise to learn that there are different styles of penjing. While many styles exist, there are two that are considered by most to be the main styles of penjing. Those two main styles are:

Shumu penjing: Quite similar to bonsai, the Shumu penjing style is all about growing one or a few small plants while deliberately training and shaping them.

Shanshui penjing: This style involves creating miniature landscape scenes — often including rocks, water, and small plants as dominant design elements — that create a mountain-like scene.

ShuiHan penjing: The shuihan penjing style creates miniture landscapes that include trees, stones, water, small plants, figurines, and more to recreate a realistic depiction of nature. The need for precise detailing makes shuihan one of the most difficult styles of penjing.

Along with those main penjing categories, there are many regional styles of penjing throughout China, each of which includes its own tradition and stylistic character. This stylistic diversity reflects the rich history of penjing as it reveals an appreciation of nature inherent to Chinese culture.

Common Pests Affecting Fruit Trees and How to Treat Them

Fruit trees are particularly attractive to insect pests, from caterpillars to aphids and many others. The flowers and fruit attract not just insect pests, but birds, mice, squirrels, and even raccoons. There’s no shortage of competition for the delicious fruit on your trees.

Some types of fruit-tree pests called chewing insects (because they chew on plant parts) generally focus on leaves, leaving them with ragged holes or large portions of the leaf missing. They also are perfectly willing to gnaw on flowers and fruits. Many insect species lay eggs inside young fruit, where they hatch and feed without being noticed until after the harvest.

Some typical chewing insects include various species of:

● Beetles

● Caterpillars

● Cutworms

● Earwigs

● Fruitworms

● Grasshoppers

● Stink bugs

Sucking insects latch onto trees and suck out the nutritious juices inside. They generally cause leaves to become mottled, discolored, and wilted. They may leave behind a sticky waste called honeydew. Fruit can be malformed or fail to thrive because of sucking insects. Some common types that attack fruit trees are:

● Aphids

● Leafhoppers

● Scale

● Spider mites

● Thrips

Boring insects tunnel into tree trunks, and can be fatal to immature or stressed trees. Signs of boring insects include visible holes in the bark, the presence of frass (a powdery excrement) at the base of the tree, and dying or dead bark. Some typical boring insects that attack fruit trees are:

● Peachtree borer

● Flatheaded appletree borer

● Roundheaded appletree borer

● Dogwood borer

● Pacific flatheaded borer

● Shothole borer

Prevention

Healthy trees are able to fend off a lot of insect damage, so keeping your tree well watered, fertilized, and maintained can go a long way toward preventing issues with insects. Insects can enter trees through open wounds, so avoid damaging the tree if possible and keep the area free of any debris that might harbor pests. Remove diseased or heavily infested branches to keep the rest of the tree healthy.

For most people, it won’t be necessary to fully eradicate pests, as natural predators such as birds and bats, as well as predatory insects like lacewings, praying mantis, and wasps often keep insect populations under control. Predators for a particular species can be introduced to the area if needed.

Treatment

In general, it is best to avoid using insecticides as much as possible, and rely on natural predators and other non-chemical treatments. Sticky traps around tree trunks can stop crawling insects from reaching the fruit and leaves of your trees.

Bacterial sprays such as spinosad and Bacillus thuringiensis help control many types of chewing insects, while horticultural oils such as neem oil treat and manage aphids, scale, and others. For any type of treatment, it is important to identify exactly what kind of pest is attacking your trees and then do research on the treatment options available. Be sure they are safe for use on edible crops. Always follow instructions carefully, and do not apply more of the treatment than necessary.

Properly Watering Your Flowers

Making sure your flowers get enough water is one of the most critical aspects of plant care. Water is needed for photosynthesis, it helps maintain cell rigidity, and it is used to pull in nutrients from the soil. When watering your flowers, knowing how much water and how often your plants get it is critical.

How Much Water Do My Flowers Need?

On average, most flowers need about an inch of water weekly when actively growing. It doesn’t matter if they get it through rainfall or a hose.

Some plants have higher water requirements, and some have lower water needs. Also, if you’re going through a heat wave or your soil is sandy, they may need a little more than average.

What Exactly Is an Inch of Water?

Many gardeners rely on rainfall to water their plants, so measuring an inch of water accumulating in a rain gauge is easy. But this is challenging when you’re watering plants by hand. If you need to water yourself, give each plant approximately two-thirds of a gallon weekly.

How Often Should I Water My Flowers?

How often you water is important too. While it seems backward, giving your flowers more water less frequently than watering them a little bit daily is better. Watering this way triggers the roots to grow deeper, looking for water, resulting in drought-tolerant plants.

In most situations, plan to water your plant two or three times a week, waiting for the soil’s upper one or two inches to dry. Don’t give them an inch of water every time — break that up over the week.

How Do I Know if My Plants Are Well-Watered?

You’ll see the following symptoms if your plants aren’t getting enough water.

Slowed or stunted growth.

Dry, crispy leaf edges that may curl.

Brittle stems that aren’t pliable and easily snap.

Lack of blossoms.

Flowers wilt and fall off the plant quickly.

Wilted or drooping leaves.

Ways to Improve Watering Efficiency

Use a soaker hose to water or install a drip irrigation system so water is delivered right above the roots, minimizing evaporation.

Cover the soil around the flowers with some mulch to improve soil water retention.

Water earlier in the morning when it’s cooler instead of during the hottest part of the day. Less water evaporates, and your plants are adequately hydrated to withstand the hot sun.

Direct water toward the soil around the plant, trying to keep moisture off the foliage.

Direct-Sowing Flower Seeds

Direct-sowing flower seeds is an inexpensive, easy way to add plants to your flower bed. But you must plant at the correct time, prepare the soil, space seeds properly, and know whether or not they need to be covered with dirt.

When Should You Plant Flower Seeds?

When you plant your seeds depends on the types of flowers you are growing and whether they are cold-tolerant.

What Flowers Tolerate a Light Frost?

Some flowers tolerate cooler temperatures and may even survive a light frost after germination. You can sow these seeds earlier, perhaps before the spring frost-free date for your area. If it does drop to colder temperatures or frosts, the seedlings should survive without needing to be covered or protected.

Flowers that tolerate a light frost include pansies, violas, primrose, cyclamen, phlox, geraniums, petunias, sweet alyssum, sweet peas, snapdragons, and lily-of-the-valley.

What Flowers Must Be Planted Later?

On the other hand, some flowers are not cold-tolerant, so you can’t plant them until any threat of frost has passed. If it does get cold after planting, you will need to cover the seedlings to protect them from dying.

Flowers that cannot tolerate a light frost include begonias, marigolds, and impatiens.

The Basic Steps of Direct-Sowing Seeds

Prepare the soil in the flower bed.

Scatter seeds across the soil or place them at the recommended spacing distance.

Cover seeds with a little bit of soil or press them gently into the soil surface.

Water well, taking care not to disturb or move the seeds.

Prepping the Flower Bed Before Planting

Before you sow seeds, you must take some time and prepare the soil in the flower bed. Pull out branches, trash, and large rocks, and dispose of them. Then dig down using a shovel or garden hoe, working the top six to eight inches of soil, breaking up the large clumps. Spread a couple of inches of organic matter like finished compost across the top of the flower bed and mix it into the soil well.

Now you’re ready to plant!

Why Is Proper Seed Spacing Important?

The back of every seed packet has a recommended spacing for plants within a row and the distance between rows. Each plant has a different spacing based on its mature size and nutritional needs.

While it is tempting to space them closer together to create a full, lush flower bed, it’s important to follow the recommended spacing. Plants grown too close together compete with one another for water, sunlight, and nutrients, and may grow poorly.

Do the Seeds Need to Be Covered?

The back of each seed packet also states a recommended planting depth. Some flower seeds need sunlight to germinate, so you scatter them on top of the soil and gently press them down to create good contact between the soil and the seeds. Other seeds do not need sunlight for germination, so you bury them in the soil, usually only a small amount of soil to top them. Burying them keeps them from getting dislodged or eaten by birds and other animals.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Planting Bulbs or Plants

Planting bulbs or young plants is easy, albeit slightly different from planting seeds.

When Should I Plant?

When it comes to young plants, it depends on how cold-tolerant they are.

Some flowers tolerate cooler temperatures and may even survive a light frost after planting, so you can plant these types before the spring frost-free date for your area. Flowers that tolerate a light frost include pansies, violas, primrose, cyclamen, phlox, geraniums, petunias, sweet alyssum, sweet peas, snapdragons, and lily-of-the-valley.

On the other hand, some flowers are not cold-tolerant, so you can’t plant them until any threat of frost has passed. Flowers that cannot tolerate a light frost include begonias, marigolds, and impatiens.

When it comes to bulbs, they are best planted in early spring or late fall, depending on when they bloom and if they can handle winter conditions.

Some bulbs need cold winter temperatures to bloom in the spring. Others bloom so early in the spring it’s hard to get them planted early enough. You need to plant bulbs for these flowers — daffodils, tulips, lilies, irises, crocus, grape hyacinth, snowdrops — in the fall.

Other flowers can’t handle the cold, wet soil during the winter, so you can’t plant them until conditions improve in the spring. These bulbs include dahlias, gladiolas, canna lilies, and caladium.

Digging an Appropriate Planting Hole

For young plants, use a small garden spade to dig a hole about twice as wide as the container your plants are in and slightly deeper. Pile the soil around the hole to make backfilling easier.

Depending on the bulbs you are planting, and how close together they will be, you can dig small holes or a trench for them. The planting hole needs to be about two times as deep as the bulb is tall.

Correct Planting Depth

Getting the planting depth correct is critical for getting bulbs to grow but is less important when planting starts.

For plants, set them at the same depth they were in the container or bury them slightly deeper. You may need to mound soil at the bottom of the hole to get the right height.

For bulbs, put them two to three times as deep as they are tall, with the pointy end facing toward the sky.

Prepping the Soil to Backfill

One of the biggest questions when planting is whether or not you need to add fertilizer to the soil before backfilling. This answer depends entirely on how you prepped the flowerbed.

If you didn’t amend the soil in the flowerbed before planting, you should mix some organic matter and all-purpose fertilizer into the soil and then use it for backfilling.

Add fertilizer according to the label directions.

Add compost to make up about one-third of the soil/compost mixture.

Backfilling the Hole

Using your hands or a garden spade, start backfilling the hole and tamping it down with your hands around the root ball or bulbs. You don’t want the soil packed around it too tight, but you also want to remove the air pockets and support the plant or bulb.

You can slightly mound the hole above the soil surface, as it will settle a bit over time and as you water the flowerbed.

Where to Buy Seeds, Bulbs, or Starts

One of the best things about starting a flowerbed is your sheer number of choices. There are so many different types of flowers to choose from and where to purchase them.

Whether you are buying seeds to germinate or have chosen to go with bulbs or starts, there are many places to buy quality items.

Local Places to Buy Supplies

When it comes to local selection, you’d be amazed at the different places you can find seeds, bulbs, or plants: greenhouses, garden centers, nurseries, big-box stores, home improvement stores, hardware stores, discount stores, and maybe even your favorite grocery store. Local farmers’ markets are another great place to look for young plants. Seeds are even easier to find and can be picked up at many of the same places as bulbs and young plants.

Some advantages of buying locally:

You can have what you want immediately, instead of waiting for shipping.

You can stretch your budget further since you aren’t paying shipping charges.

You have the chance to go into a store, look at what you’re considering, and pick the best products.

Most local retailers sell products known to handle your growing zone, so there’s no worry about whether they can thrive in your climate.

Nurseries and greenhouses may offer seeds bred and adapted to your local climate, meaning they are known to succeed in your area.

However, the drawback to buying locally is that most places usually only carry the most popular, well-known varieties, so you are limited in options.

Online Places to Buy Supplies

There are many great online retailers for seeds, bulbs, and young plants. Buying online does offer a more fabulous selection than buying locally. This selection is nice if you’re looking for a specific plant or a variety that isn’t available around you.

Things to remember when buying from online retailers:

Online retailers only ship live plants at specific times of the year, limiting when you can get plants. Plants are usually shipped early in the season, based on your growing zone and recommended planting dates.

You’ll often pay pricey shipping charges, especially on live plants.

Products are available online for every possible growing zone, so you need to check when purchasing and ensure what you are buying is compatible with your local climate.

How, When, and Why You Need to Deadhead Your Flowers

Deadheading is an essential part of caring for flowering plants and a step that is sometimes overlooked. While some people deadhead their plants to keep them looking nice, there are other important reasons behind the practice.

What Is Deadheading and Why Is it Important?

Deadheading is the act of removing dead flowers from a plant after it has bloomed. There are a few different reasons why this is an essential step in caring for your plants.

Removing the spent flowers encourages new buds to develop, and your plant may bloom a second time.

Removing the spent flowers encourages your plant to grow, creating a fuller, bushier plant.

Removing the spent flowers eliminates the chance the dead blossoms will become infected with a fungal or bacterial disease or become a home for insect pests.

When You Should Deadhead Flowers

You can deadhead flowers at any time during the growing season. Some gardeners like to remove the blossoms as soon as they begin to fade, and others like them to dry up completely before removing them from the plants.

For plants that produce multiple flowers on a single stem, like salvia or delphinium, remove the entire spike when at least 70% of the blossoms have faded.

How to Deadhead Spent Blossoms

Deadheading is easy, but it can be time-consuming if your flower bed has many plants in it or many plants with multiple flowers.

Once flowers have faded, if the stems are thin, you can use your fingernails to pinch them off of the plant. For plants with thicker stems, use a pair of sterilized gardening shears with a sharp blade to cut them off the stem.

Are There Flowers That Don’t Need Deadheading?

Some plants are known to be “self-cleaning,” which means that after the blossoms fade, the plant naturally detaches them, and they fall to the ground. These plants don’t need to be deadheaded as they do it themselves.

Vince

Begonias

Sedum

Lantana

Baptistia

Astilbe

Lobelia

Joe Pye Weed

Siberian Iris