I was going to start off this article about bonsai with some smart remarks about tortured trees and the old Oriental practice of binding feet. But when I came face to face with Paul Bregazzi's 30-year-old, three-football beech, and Paul Homan's small, sinewy trees displayed on wooden staging in his back garden, I had to eat my words. I was humbled by these venerable little specimens - which somehow manage to concentrate and encapsulate the "essence of tree" within their miniaturised, potent shapes.
This isn't as half-baked as it sounds, because bonsai - it was called pen-jing then - originated with Chinese Taoist monks in the 6th century. They grew their trees small in order to condense the magic within them. Around the 11th century, the art of bonsai (literally, "growing in a tray") was taken up by Buddhist monks in Japan, and, from that country it eventually spread westward.
Like so many things that have come to us from the sophisticated Japanese - origami, ikebana and sushi - bonsai seems barely achievable to us knuckle-fingered westerners. But Paul Bregazzi, and Paul Homan, a primary teacher and chartered accountant who have racked up 28 years of bonsai growing between them, say otherwise: "It's not as esoteric as people say," claims Paul Homan. "The basics of cultivation are easy."
Almost all bonsai are everyday species of tree: beech, birch, juniper and hawthorn for instance. They're just grown more intensively and carefully than their full-sized brethren. Achieving a harmonious balance between pot and tree is just as important as good cultivation and "styling". In general, the pot - and hence the root ball - should be about a third of the size of the trunk and branches. Judicious root-pruning every couple of years (during the dormant period) and pinching out the top growth keeps the tree compact. And stripping off the first flush of leaves stimulates a second growth of more dwarf leaves.
Where many people go wrong is in imagining that bonsai are indoor plants. Bonsai belong in the garden (they're ideal for today's tiny patios and balconies) and should only be brought inside for short periods of admiration and contemplation. And while there are indeed a few species of indoor bonsai - mass-produced and sold in supermarkets at Christmas and Mother's Day in tiny pots - don't go near these with a barge pole, warn the two Pauls. Buy your bonsai where you'll get year-round, specialist advice, they suggest.
Or grow your own. Seedling larch, or saplings for beech hedging make easy material for beginners. An atmospheric, elfin woodland can be made by closely planting dozens of tiny beech seedlings into a mound of compost on top of a slate. The one in Paul Homan's back garden - with 87 dainty beech treelets - took the pair of them just a few hours to plant up. The diminutive creeping Corsican mint (Mentha requienii), moss and one of the Cotula species are used as ground cover on the little forest floor to stop erosion and water-loss.
Alternatively, three saplings of different heights can be planted in a group to form an asymmetric triangle - an important motif in bonsai. Or two can be trained together in the poignant "mother and son" configuration, with the mother-tree curling around the son-tree in a protective embrace.
And that's just for beginners. Seasoned bonsai buffs go at their trees with wires and turnbuckles to coax limbs into pleasing positions, and to train flat "foliage pads" that float on branches in the stylised manner depicted in Japanese woodblock prints. Even power tools, blow torches and chain saws may be used to sculpt the trunks of some specimens. Our two Irish bonsai artists don't go to quite those lengths - although there is a wishful look in Paul Bregazzi's eye as he sizes up a beheaded chestnut that "needs a lot of work".
A tree's character can be enhanced by turning one of the branches into a "jin": a stark, splintered tree-bone, the result of an implied lightning strike. "Jinning" is a skilled operation where the bark is crushed and removed and the exposed wood is treated with lime sulphur, "which stinks like crazy, but it preserves and whitens it." And then there is the "uro", a wrinkled keyhole in the bark, as if the tree has lost a branch. A special tool, imported from Japan, makes the perfect uro, as Paul Homan helpfully demonstrates on his wife's apple tree.
Budding bonsai enthusiasts with access to the Internet should check out Allen Roffey's comprehensive bonsai Web site at: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/allen/
Diary Date: Charles Shine gives a talk, "Reconstruction of the Rock Garden at Kew" at the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, on Thursday, December 4th, 8 p.m., in association with the Alpine Garden Society and the Irish Garden Plant Society. Non-members welcome.