Bob's News & Musings: Dantsugi

The late Jean Iseli loved to equate altered conifers to living art. He used to talk about grafting different conifer cultivars onto a shared rootstock to create a work of art. Jean even coined a word for this type of art: Dantsugi. Unfortunately, the concept never caught on in a big way. Dantsugi is interesting, and some distinctive art forms can be created. However, the financial rewards are lacking. Therefore, nurseries do not produce them as they tend to be cost-prohibitive. Jean thought he could make a market for them but passed away before accomplishing that goal.

The Dantsugi he created at Iseli Nursery, which caused the most comment used a fastigiate Larix in the center of a large cedar box with two globose plants at its base. I believe the globose plants were grafted onto lower branches, but they may have been two other plants located in the same cedar box.

When Coenosium Gardens was active, I used to propagate grafted standards and did some experimentation with Dantsugi creations. Once, I grafted ten different dwarf forms of Pinus strobus onto an eight-foot-tall tree that had been dug and set in a greenhouse. I figured it was one way of collecting dwarf conifers on one tree. But, unfortunately, I had to leave it behind during one of my moves.

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Article presented courtesy of ACS member Bob Fincham, and originally posted at  https://www.robertfincham.com/.