Saikei (living landscape) and bonkei (tray landscape) are Japanese art forms which embrace the techniques of bonsai, but allow greater freedom in composition. That is to say, they employ the aesthetics of bonsai, but without the rigidity. Saikei creates a miniature landscape using live material, and animal, human, and architectural miniatures to complete its presentation, while bonkei uses living and non-living material with the miniatures for its presentation. The diversity of the materials allow the artist a greater scope than does the patient cultivation of miniature trees that is bonsai. Plant material provides the medium, and horticulture provides the means of by which the artist creates the beauty.
The plant material used for creating a penjing, saikei, or bonkei should be those with small leaves forming a thick canopy or structure. Plants which form roots quickly. Plants which have been grown in containers which are tolerant of a wide range of growing conditions, i.e. shade loving and evergreen. Miniature gesneriads, begonias, bertalonia, centradenia, coprosma, erodium, ficus, fittonia, malpighia, selaginella, oxalis, saxifraga, myrtus, nephrolepis and polyscias are a few plants with potential for fulfilling the requirements. All adapt well to indoor growing, and are particularly well suited to growing under lights. Grasses, ferns, mosses, miniature bamboo, small bulb plants give seasonal charm to your creation.
Stones which look like mountains, hills, islands, cliffs, suggest flowing rivers and streams, and stones which lend the impression of large boulders are useful in creating a tone for your landscape.
A soil which drains well, contains no fertilizer, and is granular in texture to allow air and water to reach the roots. Ideally, the soil should be no smaller than 1/16 of an inch in particle size. Any soil smaller has a tendency to compact, and form a clay-like silt. Coarse builders sand added to potting soil makes a nice medium in which to grown your selection of plants.
Containers should be easily transportable, blend well with your creation, lend themselves well to your idea, inexpensive, light, strong, and durable, and be a complimentary color for the display of your living landscape. The container can be a shallow pot, a tray with a drainage hole, a freeform piece of concrete, a tile, a rock slab, a solid backed picture frame which can be hung on a wall, or anything else you think would make an attractive container for your creation.
The health benefits gained from concentrating an individual's energy flow into the creation of a miniature landscape, and the act of 'just getting dirt under your fingernails,' has resulted in health agencies around the world implementing penjing related programs as a source
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