The three friends of winter

At the time of my brief stay in Singapore, I visited Museum of Asian Civilization. It was interesting, as far as museums go. The exhibit which left the most lasting impression was a collection of rhinoceros horn cups. They are old and rare. The oldest cups in the collection date back to Song period (960-1279) when rhinoceroses had already been extinct in China. Craftsmen probably took a lot of consideration about decorating these cups and more often than not they chose to depict plants. Four cups shown above feature pine, plum and bamboo in various contexts. These plants happen to be the ‘three friends of winter’ all too familiar to us as bonsai favourites. I also had noticed that the pine was a popular element in other Chinese art at the museum (see images below).

Bonsai Gallery, Singapore

My Singapore bonsai saga continues. I already talked about one of Singapore’s bonsai nurseries earlier (http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/cheng-tai-nursery-singapore.html). Here is another one called “Bonsai Gallery”. It is run by a father-and-son team, jovial and friendly people, passionate about bonsai. It started for them as a hobby and then turned into a business. At present Bonsai Gallery is located at Garden Hub, but it is going to move to a new place within a year. The type of material sold at their nursery is shown below.

A little note about the tree marked with asterisk. It is a 2.5 m tall Podocarpus imported from Japan and priced at SG$88,000. I felt that the prices for bonsai in Singapore were considerably higher than in Australia. I also found that a significant proportion of the plants at Bonsai Gallery was imported from China. And one of such plants was very interesting indeed. It was labelled as "Ponamalla" (see its Chinese name below) and I couldn’t find anything about it until one of the blog readers pointed out that its correct name is Ponamella fragilia . At the nursery, I was told that it is endemic to Hainan Island. It is a tropical evergreen with growth habits and morphology suitable for bonsai. Its dead wood is hard and naturally black, which is striking (see images below). But wait, there is more, this plant can survive indoors for at least six months without any ill effects. 

Another curiosity imported from China were these trees with rocks imbedded in their trunks. They looked bizarre (see images below). The rightmost image shows a tree that pushed its rock out. All these trees are dug out from the wild.

One final observation. The two nurseries I visited in Singapore had quite a poor selection of bonsai pots. A bonsai pot collector I met there, told me, that there is just no place in Singapore where you can go and buy a new pot of your specifications. On the other hand, it is possible to buy a vintage Chinese pot from a dealer or a collector, which usually is not possible in Australia.

Stone lanterns at Singapore Japanese Garden

Singapore Japanese Garden is located right next to the Chinese Gardens (same train station). The garden is very large which is impressive and grand. Large pond frames the most picturesque areas of the garden (see images above). However, flat relief of the garden made it hard for the designer to create points of interest. Most of all, the focal point of the entire garden is an unremarkable modern building. Several features of the garden like the red bridge, the tori gate and the red garden umbrella looked a little tacky. On the positive side, the garden has a tremendous potential. For me, the most impressive feature of the garden was its collection of stone lanterns. They are shown below.
  

I put together descriptions for the images above. They are mostly compiled from the explanation plates placed next to the lanterns in the garden. However, I have noticed inconsistencies in them, plus some plates were damaged or absent. So, I got the missing information from the Internet, hence 100% accuracy can’t be guaranteed. Anyway, here it is.

1 – Rankei Yukimi-dōrō (one-legged snow-viewing lantern)

2 – Tachi-dōrō type of lantern (pedestal lantern)
3 – Mizubotaru dōrō (‘water firefly’ lantern)
4 – Kogei-dōrō (Koggei lantern)
5 – Kanjuji-dōrō (Kanju-ji Temple lantern)
6 – Kusaya-dōrō (‘grass house’ lantern)
7 – Yukimi-dōrō (snow-viewing lantern)
8 – Ikekomi-dōrō type of lantern (’buried’ lantern)
9 – Kasuga-Okazaki dōrō (a kind of Kasuga Shrine lantern)
10 – Rikyu-dōrō (Rikyu’s lantern)
11 – Kasuga-dōrō (Kasuga Shrine lantern)
12 – Tachi-dōrō type of lantern (pedestal lantern)　
13 – Eto-dōrō (Eto’s lantern)
14 – Rengeji-dōrō (Rengeji Temple lantern)
15 – Omokage Yukimi-dōrō (a kind of snow-viewing lantern)
16 – Tachi-dōrō type of lantern (pedestal lantern)
17 – Nishinoya-dōrō (Nishinoya lantern)
18 – Oribe-dōrō (Oribe’s lantern)
19 – Kodai Rengeji-dōrō (Old Rengeji lantern)
20 – Tenkachaya-dōrō (Tenkachaya Teahouse lantern)

P. S. For my blog posts on Japanese gardens in Kyoto see the following links:

Katsura Imperial Villa - http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/katsura-rikyu.html

Nijo Castle - http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/nijo-castle.html

Tofuku-ji - http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/tofuku-ji-temple.html

Ryoan-ji - http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/ryoan-ji.html

Kyoto Gosho - http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/kyoto-gosho.html

Penjing at Singapore Chinese Garden

I am continuing with the entries about bonsai in Singapore. It was raining cats and dogs when I visited Singapore Chinese Garden, so all photos I took that day are a bit dark. The garden offers beautiful vistas augmented by classic Chinese architecture. It is all there: majestic pagodas, serene lakes, graceful pavilions, meandering canals, elegant bridges and quiet cloisters. You can see some of it in the photos above and below.

The part of the Chinese Garden that houses penjing trees is called the Garden of Abundance and at the time of my visit it was under renovation. Nevertheless, most of the penjing collection was still on display (images below).

The penjing collection there is quite large and features reasonably old trees. Looking after such collection would be a mammoth task, hence the trees are not in immaculate condition. Nevertheless, the collection is quite impressive and distinctly Chinese in its character. A small sample of the trees is shown in the images below.

One part of the display was devoted to rock landscapes, some of which are shown in the images below.

The weather was so miserable that I couldn’t pay a lot of attention to bonsai pots. However, one pot caught my attention. It was a large and garish piece, which featured eight Taoist immortals. See it below for yourself.

For posts about bonsai gardens I visited in China see these:
Tiger Hill Penjing Garden, Suzhou: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/tiger-hill-penjing-garden-suzhou.html
Penjing Garden at Shanghai Botanic Gardens: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/penjing-garden-at-shanghai-botanic.html
Penjing Garden at the Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/penjing-garden-at-humble-administrators.html

Bonsai display at Singapore Botanic Gardens

I visited Singapore Botanic Gardens with the sole purpose of seeing its bonsai display. The display pavilion is very nice and the trees are exhibited well (see image above). Smaller trees are displayed on the shelves inside the pavilion, while larger trees placed on individual stands outside the pavilion (see image below).

A few smaller trees are shown in the image below.

For a small sample of the larger trees see image below.


Although it was worth the visit, I couldn’t help noticing that the plants there could do with some extra love and attention.


For posts about bonsai gardens I visited in China see these:
Tiger Hill Penjing Garden, Suzhou: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/tiger-hill-penjing-garden-suzhou.html
Penjing Garden at Shanghai Botanic Gardens: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/penjing-garden-at-shanghai-botanic.html
Penjing Garden at the Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/penjing-garden-at-humble-administrators.html

Cheng Tai Nursery, Singapore

During my trip to Singapore this month I visited Cheng Tai Nursery. It functions as a regular plant nursery where you can get your usual plants, but it also specialises in oriental style garden trees, penjing and bonsai. They have thousands of them and some are very impressive specimens. The average size of the trees was larger than I am used to. As you can see from the images in this entry a lot of the trees are taller than 1 meter. Anyway, I’ll let the pictures talk. A couple of images below are the largest oriental style garden trees in the nursery.

Images below show three main kinds of plants they use for large trees. They are (left to right): Wrightia, Podocarpus and pine.

There were also lots of large fig trees (image below).

 

Below more figs. They were very impressive.

I can confidently say that the king of bonsai in Singapore is Water Jasmine (Wrightia religiosa). See the images below.

Wrightia trees looked as impressive when they are defoliated. See images below.

Other large bonsai included something that looked like Casuarina.

There were trees of other plant species in the large bonsai category (images below).

And finally, they had plenty of smaller trees, which would come under small to medium bonsai size in Australia. As you can see from the close-up images of those trees (see images below), they have undergone quite a bit of training and refinement.

There were also a few larger ‘Chinese scholar rocks’ or ‘viewing stones’ for sale (see images below).

In one of the sheds at the nursery, I saw an elderly Chinese gentleman wiring a Podocarpus tree. I tried to start a conversation, but he couldn’t speak English. In a desperate attempt I tried to speak Malay and it paid off. I asked him how many people style bonsai trees at the nursery, because there were thousands of them. He said he is the only one. Even though all mundane tasks at the nursery are done by the Bangladeshi workers and he only styles the trees, it still remains a gargantuan amount of work. When he saw that I am genuinely interested in his work he took me to the back of the shed to show his personal collection. It was a lovely assortment of fairly refined shohin bonsai (see images below). Later on I was told that this gentleman is a well-known and respected figure in the local bonsai community.

To get to Cheng Tai Nursery take the train to Choa Chu Kang station and then get bus no. 975. There is a bus interchange right outside the station, but you need to take a 1 min walk to Choa Chu Kang Avenue 4, cross it and catch the bus over there. The bus stop where you get off is called Cheng Tai Nursery and you have to travel for about 4 or 5 stops.