wabi kusa, kokedama, kusamono, ikebana.

Everyone knows about bonsai (especially if you've watched the karate kid film) but I wanted to look at these other approaches to greenery that originated in Japan.
Firstly: Kusamono. This translates as 'grass thing' and is an arrangement of growing plants replicating a little slice of nature.

When I saw pictures of Rosetta Sarah Elkin's 'Tiny Taxonomies' they reminded me of this. She created little fragments of landscape in the tops of steel tubes, reflecting the local surroundings. Each one is like a little garden. She recreates it in different locations, using plants from the surroundings. For example her London version used plants and materials from Highgate Cemetery. 

Next is Kokedama or string gardens:

Wabi kusa is a more random arrangement, where plants are wrapped onto balls of earth, sat in water and left to sprout. It reminds me a bit of the heads you made out of tights as a kid with grass sprouting out of them for hair.

And lastly there's the art of flower arranging, Japanese style: Ikebana.

minimal & elegant.