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The sisters entered the field with no illusions about its demands. “When I first started, Mum would keep asking, ‘Are you sick of it yet?’ because it’s so intensive,” recalls Isavella, “but I don’t think you can get sick of it. My life is about caring for them constantly. You’re always trimming, weeding, watering and watching; they become like your pets. You do it because you love them.” For Isavella, the very act of tending each plant is a transporting experience. “When you sit down to shape a tree, it absorbs you utterly,” she explains. “You forget everything and you are living right here and now, just you and the tree.

The art of bonsai

The art of bonsai includes variations on several basic styles reflecting the appearance of trees in nature.

Bunjin (literati): Trunk or trunks grow upright, slightly slanted, and without branches except at the apex.

Chokkan (formal upright): From a vertical trunk the branches grow out in pyramid fashion and regularly in all directions except the front.

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Fukinagashi (windswept): Branches grow from a slanted trunk in only one direction as if shaped by the wind. Han-Kengai (semi-cascade): The trunk and braches extend out and down, as if jutting out horizontally from a cliff, but the tip of the tree does not hang lower than the base.

Hokidachi (broom): On a straight, vertical truck, the branches fan out similar to bristles on a besom broom. Ikada (raft of fallen tree): In nature, this form occurs when several trees sprout from a blown-over tree.

Ishisuki (rock planting): Tree growing over or on a rock and whose roots grasp the rock and may grow down into the soil.

Kabudachi (multi-trunk): Several trunks grow out of the same root base that appear to be individual trunks.

Kengai (cascade): Tree and branches usually hang over the rim of a tall pot.

Moyogi (informal upright): The trunk curves in full spirals which become tighter towards the apex.

Netsuranari (sinuous root): Several trunks grow out of a single horizontal root, which gives the effect of a group planting.

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