The Three Friends of Winter - Page: 2
Bamboo is seen as the ideal gentleman, who bends before the winds of change, but never abandons his ideals; just as bamboo is bent low by strong winds, but does not break. Like bamboo, the gentleman regains his upright position as soon as the storm has passed.
Pines are revered for their great age and strength. They are also valued because, like bamboo, pines remain green during the winter.
The plum in this trinity is Prunus mume. This plum is known in the English speaking world as the "Japanese Flowering Apricot". In fact, it is neither a true apricot nor a plum, but, like apricots, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, and English Laurel, it is a member of the prunus family. Prunus mume is valued both because it is early blooming and because it is the longest lived of the flowering fruit trees.
The Chinese have traditionally valued age very highly and a gnarled plum tree next to an ancient pine symbolizes friendship for life. While the individual culms of bamboo don't live very long, the Chinese have known for many centuries that one bamboo plant can form an entire grove. Bamboo plants die after flowering, but many of them only flower once in a century, so they are also valued for their age.
The ideal Chinese man was to be as pure as a plum blossom, as strong as a pine, and as pliant as bamboo.
The Three Friends of Winter are also connected with the Buddha, Confucius, and Lao Tzu.
Lao Tzu was believed to have been born under a plum tree, so it is natural that he would be represented by one.
The Buddha died in a grove. This probably didn't happen in a grove of pine trees, but pine groves reminded the Chinese of this event, so the Buddha was represented by a pine tree.
Confucius was represented by bamboo because the Chinese saw the underground root system of a stand of bamboo, in which the apparently individual stems are in fact all part of one plant, as an example of a peaceful cooperative society.
In traditional Chinese gardens, plants are chosen because of their symbolic meanings and their ability to evoke passages in literature, rather than their horticultural rarity, but I suspect that bamboo, pines, and plums were first grown in gardens for their beauty, and that the symbolism arose from their contributions to the winter beauty of gardens.
If your garden seems uninteresting during the winter months, you might consider growing the Friends of Winter.
Writing this article has inspired me to buy a Prunus mume so that I will have the three friends of winter in my garden. I now have a variety of Prunus mume which is named 'W. B. Clarke'. It is supposed to have pale pink flowers on weeping branches. This tree is a welcome addition to my garden, but my fruiting Japanese plums bloom in January and my purple-leaved plum blooms in February, so I feel that I have already had the three friends for over a decade.
I only have three species of pine in my garden. The native Shore Pine (Pinus contorta) is more attractive when grown on sandy soil than it is in my heavy clay soil. On clay soil it is fast growing and it doesn't have much character, but in sandy soil it grows more slowly and when shaped by the wind it can be very picturesque (thus the name 'contorta'). My Macedonian Pine (Pinus peuce) is mainly of interest because it is somewhat rare in gardens and I expect that I will eventually cut it down, but I love my Japanese Red Pine (Pinus densiflora). Unlike most pines, Japanese Red Pines prefer heavy soil, and their blue green foliage contrasts beautifully with the dark green native conifers in the forest surrounding my garden. Japanese Red Pines get their English name from their very attractive red bark and they get their Latin name from their dense clusters of cones. I have no great desire to collect pines, but I love my Japanese Red Pine so much that I have planted a second one as a focal point at the end of my 150 foot long driveway. These pines form broadly irregular heads at maturity, so they should become increasingly beautiful with age.
I don't place much value on most pines as garden plants because my garden is surrounded by a forest of conifers, but I fall in love with my bamboo every winter. I love the way that their translucent leaves glow against dark green conifers; especially under a gray winter sky.
I have four species of timber bamboo: Phyllostachys bambusoides, Phyllostachys heterocycla pubescens, Phyllostachys nigra 'Henon', and Phyllostachys vivax. I have given them plenty of space so that they can form a large grove. In a few decades this grove should be one of my garden's most important features. I look forward to walking among the giant culms.
Timber bamboos are so dramatic that I am not very interested in the lower growing bamboos, but I do grow Sasa palmata and Indocalmus tessalata. Neither of these will grow much taller than a man, but they have unusually large leaves; most people have difficulty believing that they are bamboos.
I grow three species of mid-sized bamboo. Golden Bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) was the first bamboo that I planted. Golden is attractive, but its culms are better described as olive green rather than gold. My Phyllostachys viridis 'Robert Young' produces bright yellow culms; they will contrast dramatically with the dark culms of my Black Bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra) when they eventually grow into each other.
It has often been said that no Chinese garden is complete without the Three Friends of Winter. I know that they play an important role in my own garden.
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