You can make a forest of cuttings, or a forest of larger trees, but never the twain shall meet. This is a Jade forest...
View attachment 395009Below is a forest of cuttings from the forest above...
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This is what they look like next to each other...
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They are obviously out of scale with each other and wouldn't look right if in the same pot. You can have one or two small ones strategically located in a group of big trees, but just as fillers-of-empty-space, NOT as brothers and sisters. We use the term forest advisedly. A forest is a particular something that has a definition in the mind's eye of the beholder. We can mimic a tiny portion of a forest with a group of "trees" that have proportions similar to real trees in a real forest. If the relative proportions are out of kilter, the whole presentation falls apart and it's just a bunch of plants in a pot. If you need to tell the viewer that it's a forest, it's not a forest. Properly assembled, people will say, "Oh, look a miniature forest!" Except Jade or Portulacaria will look more like a jungle to the average Joe.
Portulacaria...
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Porty forest...
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This Porty forest is 4 inches tall. Anything that disturbs that set of proportions ruins the image.
Here is a Tamarack forest that is 36 inches tall...
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Any image can be enhanced by adjacent things that look like they belong there. They reinforce the scale, as here...
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It's a package deal. All, or nothing.