Shohin Display

I asked two Big Experts and looked in The Book, but still no answer. Is it permissible to mix hardy and tropical shohin species together in one display, for instance a gardenia with temperate trees (in September)?
Iris

I put a five tree display into the British Shohin Association show a couple of years ago that had a gardenia, a jasmine, a black pine, a potentilla and a ginkgo and it got a certificate of merit. If it's okay for over here and in a specialist shohin show which was judged by a shohin expert, then I can't see it being a problem.

Thanks, I think our rules are basically the same as yours. If it looks OK then it's OK.
Iris

I have seen Japanese displays with Gardenias and Japanese Black Pines. . .

I believe the more important issues are movement, pot color and style/texture.

What is wrong with a Japanese black pine and Gardenia displayed in the same box stand? BOTH are winter hardy in most of Japan.

I see nothing wrong with displaying tropical and temperate species in the same box stand and have done it many times. As long as the trunk movement is pleasing and the container colors and shapes are different its a go. As long as you like it, go for it.

There are NO bonsai police.

Bill

I've got until May to try out some different arrangements. LOL
Iris

Bonsai police, now there's a thought! I wish there was some for landscapers, who pollard everything. ( you want it this tall? bam, a straight line cut makes it happen.....)
After all my efforts to study japanese hobbies, I've finally been getting things together.

If I had to boil all the rules down so that all the different schools and their training could be easily understood, it's the word 'HARMONY'. Not so much scrutiny on individual elements as the importance of the whole.

for example in toko display, if the toko is informal, the pine and stand formal, the scroll semi-formal, and the kusamono and jitta informal. How doe this mixture provide a cohesive display with a miss match of everything? It's the harmoney of the elements to tell the story. Thus my theory that it's the whole that needs to be the focus rather than the independent elements as primary.

as always Bill, thanks for contributing...