What period of time did bonsai in China originate?

Bonsai is one of the excellent traditional arts of our Chinese nation. Bonsai to plants, rocks, soil, water and other materials, through artistic creation and horticultural cultivation, in the pot typical, focused on shaping the beautiful scenery of nature, to achieve the shrinking of the dragon into an inch, small in the big artistic effect, while the scene expresses the feelings of expression of far-reaching mood, as if the three-dimensional beauty of the reduced version of the landscape scenery.

China is one of the world's ancient civilizations, the origin of China's bonsai is very early, known as "the mother of the world's gardens," the reputation of the bonsai art of the founding countries.

Anciently, with the development of social, economic and cultural, people gradually set up in the city, but still love, love the nature of a grass, a tree, a mountain and a water, so created a bonsai this wonderful art.

China's Neolithic period of herbaceous potted plants, is the world's earliest discovery of potted plants, can be regarded as the origin of the form of bonsai.

More than 7,000 years ago, in the ruins of the Hemudu culture in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, a potted plant was found in a five-leaf pattern of sand-gray ceramic blocks, ceramic pieces in a square frame engraved with a square ceramic pots, planted on the plant with five leaves, one leaf is in the center, upright upward, and the other four leaves on the two sides, symmetrical.

This design of a potted plant engraved on a piece of pottery shows the long history of potted plants in human beings.

Another piece of pottery with a three-leaf pattern for potted plants was also found, with a symmetrical three-leaf pattern and a lianzhu pattern engraved on both sides of the remaining rectangular frame.

Hemudu site is located in the northern foothills of the Siming Mountain valley plain, 7000 years ago, the climate here is warm and humid, suitable for plant cultivation and growth, in addition to artificial cultivation of rice, but also cultivated gourd and barley. Identified, Hemudu site in the artificial flowers and trees are pearl orchids, nightshade flowers, dry lotus wood, more than 20 species and genera.

There are also more than 30 species and genera in the fourth cultural layer of the site, such as Jiulixiang, lotus, azalea, Shiwei, and Haijinsha, some of which may have been cultivated as ornamental plants by the ancestors of Hemudu.

The potting bowl is one of the indispensable conditions for potted plants. There are more than 1,700 pieces of pottery from the Hemudu site, including square pots with four feet, shaped like modern flower pots. There are also round pottery pots with two small holes, when used for potted plants.

The plants on the five-leaf patterned pottery blocks are presumed to be most similar to wannianqing in form. Wan Nianqing in our country tradition, symbolizing good luck, suitable for potted plants, in our country folk rural housing, some places have been retained in the building carved and decorated with Wan Nianqing pattern and gift potted Wan Nianqing custom.

The plants on the three-leaf pattern pottery block, may be orchids, that is, shrimp ridge orchid. Yuyao has a long tradition of planting orchids, producing more than 70 varieties of orchids. As early as the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, King Goujian of Yue had planted orchids in Shaoxing's Zhushan Mountain, and Yuyao also belonged to Yue at that time.

As early as 10,000 BC to 4,000 BC in the Neolithic era, our ancestors have planted plants into vessels for ornamental purposes. And our potted plants originated in Hemudu when it is undoubtedly.