AusBonsai

These literati men led a frugal and and ascetic life, spending their time studying, debating with other learned men, practicing calligraphy and painting landscapes. In time they turned their hands to sculpting and shaping the potted trees that grew in the courtyards of the governmental buildings and monestries.

The poem question is too difficult

Once the tree is acquired all work must be done by the entrants hands

The trees may have been owned by other than the current owner but ownership at the start of the contest and for the duration of the contest must be the entrants.

Wang Wei was also called Mo-chieh (or ch'i, the name Wei-moch'i being a transliteration of the Sanskrit name Vimalakirti, the great lay disciple of Buddha) and Yuch'eng (assistant minister of the right, after his last government position). He was born in P'u-chou (the present Fen-yang county in Shansi Province) into a family which had contributed 13 prime ministers to the T'ang court. Because the traditional family seat was in T'aiyüan, Shansi, Wang Wei is usually called a native of T'aiyüan.

By the age of 15, Wang Wei was a skillful poet and musician. In 717 he won first place in the metropolitan examination in preparation for a government career, and in 719 he was awarded the highest degree in the examination system, the chin-shih. His long official career began immediately thereafter with his appointment as assistant director of the Imperial Directorate of Music; at the time of his death in 759, he directed the administration of 12 departments in the ministries of war, justice, and works. His career was not uneventful, however, and included demotion, exile, and forced service under the usurper An Lu-shan. Two personal losses also left deep imprint: when he was about 30, his wife died childless, and Wang never remarried; 20 years later, the death of his mother left him grief-stricken. Though he continued to hold office thereafter, he tended more and more to withdraw from public society to the solace of his country home at Lan-t'ien along the Wang River. There, in the company of fellow poets, Buddhist monks, and other friends, he roamed the hills and waters, studied Taoism and the Buddhist sutras, wrote, and painted.

Watto wrote:Bretts
The rules will get some in, and the rules will take some out - and that is life. We shouldn't worry about the rules too much, I certainly won't. As I said before I have a tree to enter into the contest, not so much to win, but hopefully to get a reasonably looking tree, but more importantly to get some advice from knowledgable people on how! And maybe when, where and why?