Saikei

Saikei (Japanese: 栽景, Hepburn: saikei; lit. 'planted landscape') is the Japanese art of creating tray landscapes that combine miniature living trees with soil, rocks, water, and related vegetation (like ground cover) in a single tray or similar container. A saikei landscape is meant to evoke a natural location through its overall topography, choice of ground materials, and the plant species used.^: 228 Saikei is a descendant of the similar Japanese arts of bonsai, bonseki, and bonkei, and it is related less directly to similar miniature-landscape arts such as the Chinese penjing and the Vietnamese hòn non bộ.

Saikei differs from related Japanese art forms in some key ways, concentrating on the evocation of a natural living landscape rather than on the character of individual trees. Mixed vegetation, including grasses and small flowering plants, make the saikei a more complex living image than the more ascetic-looking bonsai. As a result, the shape of the ground is very important in a saikei display, while it is of little importance in designing bonsai. According to Lew Buller, Toshio Kawamoto (the founder of the saikei form) "was adamant that his living landscapes were not bonsai", citing saikei rules such as the mandatory use of stones and the placement of trees and roots above the rim of the tray.

Certain bonsai styles allow for the constrained use of stones as the base for trees in the root-over-rock style (sekijoju) and the growing-in-a-rock style (ishizuke), but traditional Japanese bonsai specimens do not contain landscapes shaped from mixed soil or stones. Saikei designs, on the other hand, are firmly based on a physical layout of stones and imaginative groundscaping; less so on the trunk shape, branch placement, and trimmed foliage of the small trees. Deborah Koreshoff, author of Bonsai: Its Art, Science, and Philosophy, describes the distinction:

[W]hen we make a bonsai, the main feature is the tree. With saikei, however, success depends greatly on the blending and balance of trees, rocks and soil. It is the clever placement of rocks that enhances the appearance of trees which are often young and immature and it is the way the soil is shaped and landscaped that sets off the rocks and makes them appear natural.^: 229

The arts of bonseki and bonkei also depict miniature landscapes in trays, but do not incorporate living trees or other flora. In bonseki, simple landscapes are portrayed on flat trays using sand and stones; in bonkei, rocks and sculptable materials (e.g. cement) are formed into hills and mountains rising out of ground materials like sand or gravel. Miniature figures of people, animals, buildings, and other outdoor elements may be placed on a bonkei, but would be out of place on a saikei. The presence of living materials means saikei are challenging to preserve and display relative to bonkei.

A typical saikei is contained in a large ceramic tray with low sides. Within the tray, rocks and soil are arranged to suggest a natural landscape, often modeled on a specific type of real landscape, such as a seaside or a mountain path. Small living trees are planted in the soil and may be arranged to emphasize perspective. The trees themselves are similar to bonsai trees, but are usually less elaborately shaped; they are selected and cultivated to look like mature trees that match the landscape. Non-tree plant specimens may also be used in saikei, such as ground cover or other small plants.