Penjing at Huntington Garden.
Penjing at the Huntington Botanical Gardens? No way. We were first introduced to this Chinese art form last summer over in Golden Gate Park. Penjing is similar to bonsai that stuff is miniaturized, but does it more as a whole mini landscape.
Chinese Garden.
Taking a break from the succulents, we headed over to the Chinese Garden where we ended up finding a couple Penjing on display.
Penjing.
Here’s the skinny on Penjing. Over 2000 years old, it’s suspected that since China’s Emperor didn’t travel much…he would have is people collect rocks and stones during their travels. Then, they would put together miniature landscapes of those regions. The Emperor then could enjoy a visual representation of his empire.
Penjing - miniature landscapes.
The Chinese Garden is peaceful and there’s a sweet spot with a waterfall that can cover up a lot of the chatter, e.g. let’s you zen out for awhile.
Huntington's Chinese Garden.
We’ve done a lot of terrariums, but haven’t tried these yet. We have a couple good candidates that could be used for the miniature trees…looks like Matti has a new project in sight.
– Far Out Flora
January 25, 2011 at 10:38 am
If you ever make it up to Portland you should ping some of us local plant geeks up here and we’ll take you to see, among other things, the Portland Chinese Garden. It looks smaller than yours but it’s packed with great plants.
January 25, 2011 at 10:41 am
We would love that. We haven’t been through Portland since we drove through when moving out to SF.
January 25, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Oh Matti, comme c’est beau !
January 25, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Ok I’m going off topic but I have to thank you for that overall pic of the Chinese Garden with the bananas out front. It’s nice to see that they show some effects of winter there, I figured they were beautiful and green year round.
Oh and re: Ryan’s comment the Portland Chinese garden is way WAY better than the Huntington version, in my humble opinion. Having seen them both. And if you guys decide to do the Seattle Garden Bloggers meet-up in Seattle you know you’ll be driving right through Portland!!!
January 26, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Yeah, I think SF’s Japanese Tea Garden is nicer than Huntington’s too.
January 25, 2011 at 6:31 pm
well it just so happens that I brought my camera with me to work today to take some pictures for my weekly checkin at the garden. Stay tuned for YACGBPFAPPG (Yet Another Chinese Garden Blog Post From A Portland Plant Geek)
January 25, 2011 at 9:51 pm
Oh man! I wish I had known you were at The Huntington, I can never visit them too often.