Bonsai 101 - Chapter 5: Surprising Benefits of Bonsai You May Not Know
Learn about integrating bonsai into your life beyond the garden.
In Chapter 5 of the Bonsai 101 Series, Milton covers the surprising benefits of a bonsai lifestyle.
Bonsai as a Beneficial Hobby
Art Medium – a living canvas for you to express your artistic creativity.
Nature in Miniature – allowing us to learn about a mini ecosystem from the comfort of our homes.
Therapeutic – the regular practice of caring for bonsai is like meditation and beneficial for our mental and emotional health.
Bonding Activity – a chance to work collectively on a project with your children, and caring for a living thing like bonsai provides natural opportunities to share your values with your children.
Outdoor Fun – It is a perfect solution to divert youth from social media and become more aware of the environment.
Thoughtful Gift – A constant reminder of your thoughtfulness to gift recipients.
Social Harmony – Bonsai promotes social harmony with people of different walks of life sharing a common interest.
A Living Heirloom – Bonsai gains value over time and can be a legacy for future generations to treasure and to remember you with.
Bonsai as a Living Canvas
Bonsai, by definition, is a potted tree that depicts a natural landscape in miniature. Provided that it is a healthy, rapidly growing tree, you can prune your bonsai to shape in accordance with your ideal landscape.
Being a living tree, you can’t really make mistakes while pruning, because nature has a way of curing itself. Even if you over-prune, your bonsai will eventually provide you with additional sprouts to further shape your tree.
The main point to remember is to water frequently to never let the root ball dry out… and you’ll have a valuable heirloom in due time.
Bonsai as Therapy
Like meditation, keeping bonsai brings a number of mental and physical benefits – such as stress reduction, improved focus, and enhanced emotional regulation – all of which can impact one’s physical health.
One can view caring for bonsai as a chore, or as a relaxing activity after a stressful day. Working on my bonsai helped me keep me sane when I was working 24/7 and didn’t take a vacation for 11 years while building my first company.
Bonsai as an Educational Tool
Working with bonsai teaches us patience, focus, responsibility, and the benefits of working towards long-term goals.
Parents can instill these values in children naturally by having bonsai as a joint hobby. This also provides an opportunity to bond into what might be referred to as a “pal” relationship.
Doing so could also divert children from excessive screen time, to instead become more aware of nature and the environment.
Bonsai as a Thoughtful Gift
Bonsai is not a gift that will be thrown into a drawer and forgotten. It will serve as a constant reminder of your thoughtfulness.
You can make the gift personal by catering to the personality and preferences of the recipient you love and respect. It could be kept next to a workstation, or to complement a treasured antique piece. (A bonsai can be kept indoors for several weeks at a time.)
Bonsai are particularly appropriate as a corporate gift for retirement – or for that matter, for any significant milestone in a person’s life.
People often plant trees to serve as living memories of important moments, but bonsai have the ability to not only live on as an heirloom, but also to travel around to new homes with the owner.
Bonsai as a Proponent of Social Harmony
A common interest in bonsai can bring people from different backgrounds together, promoting mutual trust and respect. It might seem small, but finding common ground with people is the first step to making incremental contributions to a stable, resilient, and harmonious community.
Bonsai as a Valuable Heirloom
Bonsai gain both magnificence and value over time. As living reflections of one’s dedication, physical work, and artistic expression, they become invaluable heirlooms and symbols of remembrance for one’s future generations.
About Bonsai Heirloom
We document bonsai transformations and the philosophy behind them. If you're feeling inspired to begin your own bonsai journey, consider adopting a bonsai from our curated collection. Each tree is hand-selected, artistically shaped, and ready to grow with you.