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Guozhuang Park hosts annual ‘potted scenery’ show
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Hangzhou’s Guozhuang Park is currently hosting the annual penjing exhibition, showing 80 new designs from Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.
Penjing, literally meaning “potted scenery” in Chinese, is the ancient art of artistically crafting miniature trees and landscapes in containers.
Centuries ago, the ancient Chinese began using artificially dwarfed trees and shrubs to create miniature landscapes in special trays or pots. Often, rocks, small ceramic structures like buildings and bridges, and figurines were added to enhance the natural scenery and provide a sense of scale.
Artists employ cultivation techniques such as pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation and grafting to create small trees that mimic the shape and style of natural, full-sized trees, which can be seen at the exhibition.
In addition, they trim the leaves of deciduous trees and needle coniferous trees to shape the trunk and branches of a penjing, creating the desired forms and detailed branch and leaf placements.
Like the plants in Chinese gardens, penjing is often crafted into twisted and gnarled shapes reminiscent of their full-sized counterparts in the wild. An ideal penjing offers visitors a close-up view, a medium-range view and a panoramic perspective.
By carefully selecting and shaping rocks, which are typically placed in traditional pots, artists create compositions of stones and plants that evoke a poetic and Zen-like atmosphere.
At the exhibition, organizers have categorized the penjing into four sizes: mini, small, medium, and large. Pots measuring less than 20 centimeters are considered mini, those between 20 and 40 centimeters are small, anything over 90 centimeters is large, and the rest fall into the medium category.
For years, Guozhuang Park in the West Lake has been a mecca for gardening aficionados, and the annual penjing and orchid exhibitions are horticultural events with rare varieties and designs on display.
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