Bamboo Bonsai(2011/09/30)
   In the Opera House, among the scrims and props, stands an oblong wooden crate shipped from Japan. It contains a six-foot-long brush that resembles an elegant mop. Mr. Teshigahara will use it to decorate rice-paper banners with calligraphy. Ten feet wide and 32 feet long, the banners will be inscribed with the characters for to fly, forestand love, and will line the walls of the atrium. Mr. Teshigaharas father, Sofu, founded the Sogetsu school of ikebana. The film maker remembers first seeing his father's creations when he was 5.
   I didn't understand it, but I could feel it -- something very new was hatching," he said. Surrounded by his father's art, Mr. Teshigahara became an expert on ikebana without ever taking a formal lesson.
   He also remembers the bamboo that grew in his family's garden in Tokyo in the early 1930's.
   "It towered over me -- bright green, four meters high -- me in my short trousers and sweater in modest colors, white and gray," he said.
   All along the house are small, delicate varieties, like Plioblastus fortuneii, a dwarf variegated bamboo with green-and-white-striped leaves, and some elegant clumpings of Phyllostachys nigra, a luminous black bamboo.
   Another running type, but well behaved, is Sudasa japonica, with graceful narrow culms perfect for making arrows. Mr. Alfano planted this clumping variety from a one-gallon pot four years ago, and it's spread only about three feet. Another clumping species, Bambusa ventricosa, affectionately called Buddha's Belly, swells gently between nodes, and its green leaves have yellow stripes. B. ventricosa Kimmei has yellow culms striped with green.
   If any little shoot appears from an overly aggressive runner, Mr. Alfano simply eats it.
   Some bamboos like sun, others shade; some have delicate filigreed leaves, others' leaves are wide straps, like those of an amaryllis. Indokalmis terralotis, for example, has such wide leaves they're used for wrapping food. It's a shade lover, as is Fargessi nitida, a delicate clumper, whose slender leaves turn crispy in the sun.
   Many of these varieties, as well as the art of cultivation, will be discussed at Bamboo Fest 2000 next weekend at the Horticultural Society, 128 West 58th Street, in Manhattan. (Information: (212) 757-0915, extension 200.) The weekend begins Friday evening, with a bamboo art show and a Japanese flute concert. There's a rare plant auction on Saturday. Lectures cover such varied topics as bamboo for northern gardeners, bamboo cultivation, bamboo flowering (a rare event), bamboo bonsai, bamboo basketry and all kinds of uses for this plant so dear to the heart of Asia.
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