Bagoong (fish paste), honey and the Internet. Believe it, but this seemingly unlikely combination has been instrumental in creating the country?s best bonsai.

At the 10th Pangasinan bonsai exhibition, staged recently in Rosales, Pangasinan, a dwarfed bantigue (Pemphis acidula) tree achieved its winning form and beauty partly because its owner pampered it with honey in the last two years.

?Every week, I?d spray honey and water on its leaves,? said Gemma Francisco, a rice dealer from Pozorrubio town. She was joining the competition for the first time since she began her passion on bonsai two years ago.

There was no immediately available scientific explanation on what honey can do to bonsai. But Apollo Ferrer, president of the Pangasinan Bonsai Society, said honey makes bonsai leaves shinier.

?Many bonsai enthusiasts in the province actually use that,? Ferrer said.

The most startling revelation, however, was the use of Pangasinan bagoong in bantigue bonsai culture.

?Bagoong actually played a great role in perfecting the bantigue bonsai culture that we have today,? said Bobby Gopiao, president of the Philippine Bonsai Society Inc. (PBSI).

Most sought-after

Bantigue, the most sought-after tree by bonsai growers in the country, is hunted in the rugged, coralline shores of northeastern Luzon. The areas where the bantigue grow are subjected to harsh weather conditions because these are in the country?s typhoon path.

Gopiao said that when the tree was first introduced as a bonsai material in the 1980s, it was difficult to maintain it and it did not live long.

But he said because Pangasinan bonsai growers and enthusiasts got so interested in bantigue, they experimented on a lot of things, including spraying bagoong on it, instead of using salt water, to simulate the environment where the bantigue came from.

Gopiao said that by spraying bagoong, which is a combination of fish emulsion and salt, the bonsai is fertilized and is able to cope with its new environment at the same time.

Fish emulsion serves as an organic fertilizer, he said.

?So, by the mid-1990s, bantigue stabilized in terms of maintenance and culture. It was then when we found the right medium, the right way to fertilize it and the right time when to trim and prune it,? he said.

?And it?s all because of Pangasinan bonsai growers,? Gopiao said.

But if Philippine bonsai have been winning in international competitions, it is because these have improved fast, said Elrey Nocido, a PBSI member and one of the competition?s judges.

Internet

?The Internet is one factor that has helped us a lot,? Nocido said.

?When we get to see more of the pictures [posted on the Internet], we get to be more acquainted with the art [of bonsai] and the approach. And we didn?t have to reinvent all of the approaches,? he said.

Nocido said once a bonsai artist would see a picture on the Internet and he has a plant almost similar to how the tree in the picture was positioned, the artist would know how to do it.

?The artist?s signature will always show [in the execution]. These are art forms where we sometimes tone down the approach or we exaggerate it,? he said.

Felicidad Gupit, founding president of the Natural Stone Society of the Philippines and the most senior PBSI member at 83, said that in the end, it?s the Filipino artistry that created the best bonsai.

?Our bonsai is getting famous throughout the world,? Gupit said.

She said that Taiwanese bonsai enthusiasts who visited the country two years ago were impressed with the Philippines? dwarfed trees.

?They told me, ?The Philippines is not so well known about bonsai, but now that we are here, we can tell [the world] that Filipinos do bantigue bonsai better,?? Gupit said.