A carefully chosen pot will complete your tree, as a frame does for a picture!
Mame
Mame pots are really tiny and are not more that 2-3 inches in size in any dimension. They can be any shape and are usually very colourful. Many have painted scenes or patterns on them and can also include various textures. They are used for the mini bean-size bonsai. Two to three inch tall trees planted in them may need watering several times a day in hot weather as they can easily dry out. Often acquired purely as ornamental collectibles and displayed on suitable shelves for their own edification.
Shohin
Shohin pots can be any of the traditional shapes of pot but are small and shouldn’t exceed approximately more than about 6” (15cms) in their largest dimension. They can often have quite colourful glazes or even painted scenes or creatures on them such as fish or frogs or rabbits or mythical creatures. They are mostly round, oval or rectangular in shape. They are very popular as small (shohin) size bonsai trees are becoming increasingly in demand as they take up very little shelf space and small bonsai can have a special charm about them.
Round
Round pots can be almost any manageable size from a few inches to three or more feet in size. They often sport flared or beaded rims and can have various feet such as “cloud” or plain. A versatile shape of pot that can be very shallow and suitable for literati style bonsai or deep to accommodate semi-cascade and cascade trees. Some round pots have studs added at the top to mimic Taiko drums and are referred to as Drum Pots. They are used for more of the informal styles of bonsai but when entirely plain in character can be used for formal style trees.
Oval
Oval pots vary hugely in size and depth and are soft in their character. Often chosen for Informal Upright style bonsai, and when fairly wide in length they provide an ideal shape for Group planted trees. Shallow oval pots are usually the first choice pot for Root-over-rock style bonsai. The more colourful glazes on oval pots are best used in conjunction with flowering/fruiting varieties of bonsai. They may or may not include flared or plan rims. Oval pots are mostly upright or slightly flared outwards, but occasionally they may have slightly concave walls.
Square
Square pots are not often used with bonsai unless associated with Semi-cascade and cascade pots, but occasionally they are selected instead of a round pot to give greater formality to the tree/pot combination. As with most other bonsai pots, they can be made or glazed in any of the traditional colours as appropriate for the particular species or style of bonsai that is to be planted in the pot.
Rectangular
Rectangular pots are probably the most popular choice of pot for bonsai as they set off most bonsai styles to good effect. They come in a huge range of styles often with subtle decorative banding or in some cases with added creatures such as dragons, frogs, flowers etc. They may have a variety of ‘corner’ details such as square, indented, scalloped, chopped and rounded. Dansai rectangular pots are often decorated with well-considered ‘mud’ painting on one of the longer facets and the other side left blank so it’s as though you have two pots in one.
Semi cascade/Cascade
These pots can have any of the previously mentioned four footprints, as in round, oval, square, and rectangular, but take on their description due to the differing height of each type of pot. Semi-cascade pots are for trees where the lowest part of the cascading trunk is not lower than the lower bottom of the pot, whereas Cascade pots are used for bonsai that tumble down well below the bottom of the pot. Because the bonsai styles have these cascading trunks that flow downwards, the respective heights of the pots are invariably higher than regular bonsai pots.
Primitive
“Primitive” is a description of pots that appear ancient and distorted in shape and also in the the type of clay used to make the pot. They are rarely glazed and tend to rely on the base colour of the high-fired pot. Occasionally oxides are used to enhance the clay body and the pots will have an earthy look and sometimes also appear metallic. The pots may often look as though they have been badly made with rims that have been distorted with added severe distortions in the base and walls of the pot. They are mostly shallow in depth and can work well with coniferous species especially Literati style bonsai. Because the pots are shallow they can be easily blown over in strong winds so may well need to be tied down on the display bench.
Fai-yaki
Fai-Yaki pots are creations of Dans which were inspired by a programme he saw on a Japanese TV channel. Having watched a Japanese potter make Iga-Yaki (Iga is the village and Yaki means ware) pots, he was so taken by their informality (mostly vases) with their “ears” that he felt he had to try his hand at creating his own. The Japanese pots were fired in wood-fired kilns where the ash fell on the pots creating beautifully subtle glazes effects, which he couldn’t replicate as he uses an electric kiln. He therefore decided to go the opposite way and having built the pots in the informal Iga-Yaki manner then chose to apply bright and random combinations of glazes to achieve the “in your face” colour effects.
Accent
Accent or companion plant pots are usually quite small and are used in conjunction with a bonsai when exhibiting at shows. Sometimes a scroll is also displayed with the bonsai and accent pot to make up the triadic arrangement of Earth, Heaven and Man. The scroll representing Heaven; the accent representing Earth and the bonsai representing Man. Accent pot shapes are purely limited by the imagination of the potter and can be made in an infinite range of shapes. Many accent pots are ‘press’ made by shaping the pot in one’s fingers. But it’s perfectly OK to use Mame or Shohin pots when planting up accents. The pots can also be glazed in a wide range of colours and incorporate textures into their walls.
Suiban
Suiban pots may be created in bronze as well as ceramic. They are invariably very shallow with walls rarely higher than an inch (aprox. 2.6cms) and used to display Suiseki (viewing stones), and sometimes Kusamono (Accent plantings). They can range in length from a few inches/cms. to two feet (60 cms) or more. Suiban pots can be fairly expensive as they are not easy to make. Ceramic Suibans often arch upwards a little bit when high fired.
Miscellaneous
You name it — if it can contain a Bonsai or small company plant it may well qualify as a miscellaneous pot. For example, a stone slab, a piece of bog wood, a hollowed brick, a plastic (ugh!) food container, a turned wooden bowl and so on. Also in this category would be ’Crescent’ shaped pots and irregular ‘free-form’ pots etc.