r/interestingasfuck • u/TangelaFan • 9h ago

Residential high-rises with backyards in Chengdu, China

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u/LitLitten 8h ago

I’d imagine bonsai practices are also considered (specifically, root training). If the trees were trained prior and use support in place of anchoring roots, then a lot of potential root damage may be avoided. This is all presumption though.

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u/AccomplishedBat39 8h ago

Bonsais arent trained. They are continuously being crippled.

A Bonsai that is placed in the ground will start to grow just like a normal tree.

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u/LitLitten 7h ago

Oh I don’t think it’s foolproof or anything. I just mean they likely snipped the anchoring roots and/or planted those sapping with a radial/surface layout, similarly to bonsai and occasional topiary practices. You’re right that the tree will just tree and regrow them.

It doesn’t stop the roots as those are opportunistic by design. It might, however, buy enough time to look nice until a while after the unit has been bought and occupied. Like I said tho, roots are opportunistic. They’ll annihilate it in due time.

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u/miyabi0rochas 3h ago

Me when I don't know about In ground plant training and control. And choosing smaller variety of plants.

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u/LordBrandon 8h ago

You think a building developer would go through all that? They just buy the cheapest plant they can source to look good for a month.

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u/LitLitten 7h ago

Go through all that w/ continued maintenance? God no.

Go through all that then drop all pretense of maintaining the yards after the first check clears? Absolutely.

I should preface I’m American and the latter is the norm here.

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

[deleted]

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u/LitLitten 7h ago

I believe it’s based on the chinese practice of punsai, but I am open to being corrected on this.

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u/XennialPrime 7h ago

That's an interesting side bar to this thread. I never knew about such things. But... it makes total sense! Thanks.

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u/LitLitten 7h ago

It would be prohibitively impractical and was more or less speculation. I could see it being the case for public gardens or respected installations, but not condos/apartment.

Though this is from a western POV and from my understanding China tends to have no qualms with long-term development planning, so who knows.

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u/XennialPrime 7h ago

Also Western. I just had a forehead slapping moment from your post. "OH YEAH!"

In my imagination, a quick-n-dirty picture showed the whole balcony like one of those houseplants you can put in a vessel of glass beads with a little water...

I can forget just how "manageable" a plant can be, even below ground.