Forest Group Plantings "Yose-ue"
The forest group planting style of bonsai, also known as yose-ue in Japanese, is a popular and creative way of displaying multiple trees in a single pot. This style features multiple bonsai trees, each with its own unique style and shape. The trees are arranged to create the illusion of a natural forest, with varying distances, heights and thicknesses of the trunks. The forest group style can be applied to different types of trees, such as pines, maples or satsuki, but they should be of the same species to maintain harmony. The number of trees in a forest bonsai should be odd, unless there are more than 15 trees, in which case it is not so important. Group plantings are categorised in two different ways. The first is by the number of trees in the group, and the second is by whether it's a regular group planting with no extra designation listing the number of trees, or whether it is one of the special group plantings, which are denoted by having either " clustered group" or "natural group" appended to its style.
This grove of Too Little weeping fig trees was created by Ben Oki at Brussels Bonsai Nursery in 1992. It was donated by Jim Hagan in 1998.
This Ginko Biloba bonsai was donated by Bonsai Society member John Carroll in 1996.
It is a grove-style group planting. The pot is oval, unglazed, brown in color and is 2 inches deep.
This kusamono is a sequoia “nurse log” planted in ferns from a forest floor environment. It was created and donated by Bonsai Society member Judy Fister in 2022.