The Bonsai Dilettante

Bowers Museum Japanese Cherry Blossom Family Festival

“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.” ― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

The Bowers Museum invites you to bring your family to the museum for a free afternoon of cultural fun! This month's spotlight shines on the music, dance, arts, and food of Japan and it starts with the free 1st Sunday admission to the Bowers Museum Japanese Cherry Blossom Family Festival.

Like last year, Kofu Bonsai Kai will have a few tables displaying the art of bonsai, and people will be there working on trees and answering questions.

Here's a list of what's going on:

• 11-3:30pm: Face painting, cherry blossom and paper fan art projects, bonsai display, candy fantasy
• Noon: Nihon Buyo, the classical dance of Japan performed by Hanaygi Rokufumi
• 12:30 pm Koto: (13-string zither) Performed by Yukiko Matsuyama
• 1:45 pm Shamisen: (percussive lute) performed by Mike Penny
• 2:15 pm Taiko: (folk drumming) performed by Taiko Center of Los Angeles
• 3:00 pm Bon Odori: Japanese folk dance

Free admission is also included to Bowers Museum permanent exhibitions, Kidseum and limited engagement exhibitions including: Beethoven: The Late Great; Sacred Realms: Temple Murals by Shashi Dhoj Tulachand; Spirits and Headhunters: Art of the Pacific Islands; California Legacies: Missions and Ranchos 

Free admission to special exhibition: Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies In Ancient Egypt, is limited to the first 1,500 people on a first come, first served basis. Each recipient must be present. Tickets can be picked up in the North Wing.

The California Bonsai Society Show

“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

 The 57th Annual California Bonsai Society show was held last weekend at the Huntington Library. As always, some outstanding trees by some of California's most talented bonsai artists were on display, including an Ume by the late John Naka. There were also demos each afternoon. On Saturday, when I attended, Mel Ikeda and four of his students were working on different kinds of junipers. I am told that the Sunday demo was by Lindsay Shiba.

I've put up a gallery that you can peruse by clicking the image below.

I didn't take my DSLR, but it was bright enough to get decent images with my iPhone. Some more decent than others. Enjoy.

Have You Reddit?

“Reddit is the gateway to everything interesting that is going on in the world.” ― C.P.G. Grey

Today, someone posted a link on Reddit to a photo of an unusual bonsai: "Bonzai Treehouse"

Redditors quickly jumped in to correct the OP (original poster) and explain how bonsai is not the same as banzai and is not pronounced like bonzai, since it is supposed to sound like "bone sigh".  I found all of this almost as entertaining as the tree, which, wow, just look at that tree by artist Takanori Aiba.

As a result of all this, TIL (Reddit slang for "today I learned") that there is an r/Bonsai subreddit. Cool. Except they already posted photos of all the trees from this weekend's California Bonsai Society, which I don't have time to do until next weekend...

 

 

Cheap (Random) Seedlings

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” ― Forrest Gump

I love sweetgums. They are my favorite trees. I like them even more than I like redwoods. But I had almost no sweetgums in my collection. All I had was a group planting with about 20 stems that I bought at last summer's club auction at Kofu Kai. So about a month or two ago, I bought some cheap liquidambar seedlings from a nursery in Tennessee called DNT Online Tree Nursery Wholesale aka Tennessee Wholesale Nursery, D & T Wholesale Nursery and fka TN Nursery.

The reviews for this place were pretty bad, uniformly, but I didn't notice that until after I placed the order. Still, I figured that these stems were cheap enough - about 40 cents each - that I could afford to risk some losses. My break-even point for this working, as compared to more expensive suppliers, was a little more than one-third. As long as a solid third of these guys live, I've done okay. Here's how they arrived. There were three bundles. This was the smallest of three bundles.

So far, so good.  I ordered 6" to 12" seedlings, and few of them were under 12". Some were well over 18", so I'm happy about that. The seedlings arrived bare root, many with barely any roots at all, but I'm told that most of those can survive, even with such weak roots. They just won't be thriving for the first few months. We'll see. I'm patient.

A significant number of them have started pushing out foliage now, and most of the rest look like they have buds starting to swell. The funny thing, though, is that about 10% of the ones that have opened up so far are not liquidambar. I don't actually know what they are yet, but they clearly aren't sweetgums.

I sent the company an email asking for their help identifying the misfits. Hopefully, they turn out to be something cool and the company will respond and tell me what they are. Based on what I've read in the reviews, though, I'm half expecting them to call me a liar and say I mixed up their product with someone else's product. So far, it's been three days and I haven't heard a peep.

By the way, since I placed my order, the prices dropped, and they added a deal where you can get 7% off by ordering more than the 250 minimum. So, for example, 250 small ones are $87.50, but if you buy 255, it drops to $83. If a small percentage make it, within a year, you'll have trees that you'd have to pay $10 or more each from other online nurseries. So it's still possibly worth a roll of the dice. It's totally a roll of the dice, though...

Bob Pressler on Repotting

“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.” ― Galileo Galilei

So Bob Pressler came to Kofu Kai this month to help us find repotting expertise within ourselves. Bob is the proprietor of Kimura Bonsai Nursery in Northridge, California, and he often speaks and does demos for clubs and shows all over California. He did a pretty good job, very quickly repotting a procumbens nana juniper as well as a small California juniper, explaining each step and answering questions as he went.

Along with the basics (which Bob recently covered in his blog post "Repotting from A to Z"), here are some of the nuggets of wisdom he passed along:

• Bob doesn't have a set schedule on how often to repot. He looks for a lack of vigor (e.g., a small number of new buds) or signs of poor drainage (e.g., water pouring off the pot instead of soaking into the soil);
• He always ties his trees into the pots. Always. He finds this particularly beneficial when Northridge is hit by massive earthquakes [that was more timely advice than any of us knew at the time];
• Even though he sifts his soil when he mixes it, he screens it again as he is getting ready to place it in the pot, to take yet another crack at removing fines;
• He doesn't baby his trees after repotting. If they were in full sun before, he'll put them back into full sun right away. He does try to protect them from Santa Ana winds, however, and he may use Cloud Cover or some other anti-transpirant for that purpose;
• He uses organic fertilizers (whatever is cheapest) and because of this he doesn't worry about how long to wait before fertilizing. If the plant isn't able to use the fertilizer, it just won't use it, but he will fertilize a newly repotted tree when he is doing the fertilizing of the trees in that area, even if the tree was just repotted a week ago;
• He always tamps down the soil around the lip to keep it from washing over the edge when he waters after repotting (as well as to protect the upper roots);
• He uses totally non-organic soil mixes, except for mixing in some redwood with his soil for deciduous trees.

Bob donated the procumbens nana to the club's raffle, and quite a few tickets were sold to eager would-be winners. I don't recall who won, but it wasn't me.

Huntington Beach Japanese Cultural Festival March 29

“When you look at Japanese traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature - this very unique to Japan.” ― Tadao Ando

So, naturally, some trees are a harmonious element of any good Japanese cultural festival, and next Saturday, Orange County Bonsai Society will be showing some trees at the Japanese Cultural Festival in Huntington Beach.

Here's the official pitch:

ome to the Huntington Beach Japanese Cultural Festival this Saturday, March 29 from 11a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Central Park Bandstand. Sponsored by the Sister City Association of Huntington Beach, the festival is a FREE day of fun for the whole family filled with Japanese food, music, dance, cultural performances, an Anime costume contest, and games and crafts for the kids.The very popular original Ramen Burger  will be at the festival as well as several other wonderful food vendors. www.hbjapanesefestival.wix.com/sistercity The festival is in support of the over 30 year student exchange relationship Huntington Beach shares with our sister city of Anjo, Japan.- See more at: http://www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/announcements/announcement.cfm?id=666#sthash.m7f93Zwr.dpuf

ome to the Huntington Beach Japanese Cultural Festival this Saturday, March 29 from 11a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Central Park Bandstand. Sponsored by the Sister City Association of Huntington Beach, the festival is a FREE day of fun for the whole family filled with Japanese food, music, dance, cultural performances, an Anime costume contest, and games and crafts for the kids.

The very popular original Ramen Burger www.facebook.com/RamenBurger will be at the festival as well as several other wonderful food vendors. www.hbjapanesefestival.wix.com/sistercity The festival is in support of the over 30 year student exchange relationship Huntington Beach shares with our sister city of Anjo, Japan.

- See more at: http://www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/announcements/announcement.cfm?id=666#sthash.m7f93Zwr.dpuf

ome to the Huntington Beach Japanese Cultural Festival this Saturday, March 29 from 11a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Central Park Bandstand. Sponsored by the Sister City Association of Huntington Beach, the festival is a FREE day of fun for the whole family filled with Japanese food, music, dance, cultural performances, an Anime costume contest, and games and crafts for the kids.

The very popular original Ramen Burger www.facebook.com/RamenBurger will be at the festival as well as several other wonderful food vendors. www.hbjapanesefestival.wix.com/sistercity The festival is in support of the over 30 year student exchange relationship Huntington Beach shares with our sister city of Anjo, Japan.

- See more at: http://www.huntingtonbeachca.gov/announcements/announcement.cfm?id=666#sthash.m7f93Zwr.dpuf

It runs from 11 am to 4:30 pm at Huntington Beach Central Park located at 18100 Goldenwest Street, Huntington Beach, CA.

California Bonsai Society's 2014 Show March 29-30

“Participating in a society is not a thing one can do naturally; one has to rehearse for it.”― Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White

They are all rehearsed and ready to go with the California Bonsai Society Show next weekend, Discover the timeless appeal of an ancient horticultural art form as the California Bonsai Society presents its 57th annual show, featuring more than 100 beautiful specimens created by bonsai masters. Free.  Brody Botanical Center. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108 626.405.2100.

I've been to this show before. It's always fantastic. I'll be attending on Sunday.

Don't look for information at the website that appears to belong to the California Bonsai Society (www.california-bonsai-society.org) It's just a bunch of text that has nothing to do with bonsai.

Free Fertilizer From the Beach

“I'll do anything for free stuff.”― Sandra Bullock

Well, maybe not anything. We all draw the line somewhere. You know where I don't draw the line? At collecting dead seaweed from the bench. Sure, I'll try that once to see if I can get organic fertilizer for no money and almost no work.

If it looks good, bucket that stuff right up.

Seaweed is loaded with up to twelve percent potassium, which makes it a great low-nitrogen fertilizer. Seaweed also contains trace elements and helps feed beneficial soil microbes. It contains more than 60 trace elements and it helps repel certain insects. You can also combine it with fish emulsion to make a more complete fertilizer, or just dilute it and use it alone. Moreover, if you live near the coast, it's free.  If you don't live close to the coast, you can always buy seawood from an Asian market, but that defeats the point of this exercise, which is to get some good fertilizer absolutely free.

Here are the simple instructions:

• Wash the seaweed thoroughly to remove sand and, most importantly, the salt
• Cut the seaweed up a bit to encourage decomposition
• Place the seaweed in a plastic container (I use a 5 gallon bucket) and fill it with water
• Cover the container loosely and stir once a week
• After six weeks, dilute it by about 16:1 (one cup per gallon) and apply

That's it. At the end of the six weeks, you should have a stinky brown soup you can mix and spray directly onto foliage and soil. No need to worry about potash deficiency.

It might stink for a day or two, but then the smell goes away and your plants are healthier and happier and there's no dent in your wallet. Equivalent treatments will sell for about $20 a quart at your local garden center, so you're getting as much as $400 worth of fertilizer out of every five gallon bucket batch, absolutely free.

Bonsai in Movies and TV

“Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.” ― Daniel J. Boorstin

Although seeing bonsai trees on film was one of the things that first drew my interest back in the 1980s (The Karate Kid, of course), until last year, I rarely noticed bonsai trees in movies or TV unless they were actually part of the plot (The Karate Kid, of course). Now, I see them everywhere.

The Phoenix Bonsai Society has a cool page tracking bonsai trees in TV and film. There are a lot. Here are a few I've seen recently.

 Ancient Aliens

BMW Ad

Dexter

Dexter

Modern Family

Notting Hill

and The Karate Kid III (of course).

Where have you seen bonsai on TV and at the movies?

Addendum:

The Godfather, Part II

Steps to Repotting

“People need to realize how powerful the transformation of soil can be.” ― Ron Finley

Anyone who has seen the rejuvenation of a bonsai in bad soil knows how powerful the effects of fresh, good, coarse soil can have on a weak tree. I have several trees that have been aching since last summer to shed their lousy poorly-draining nursery soil and get into some of the good stuff. So I'm repotting like crazy.

This poor tree not only needed new soil, it needed to get rid of an ant colony!

If you haven't started repotting yet, it is time. Here in Southern California, repotting can begin much earlier than in other parts of the country, but it's getting to be repotting time in most places now. If you have many trees to repot, prioritize which ones to do first so that you don't miss your time window on any of your trees. I did my pines first. Then I started with any tree with swelling buds. Once they break, the tree will experience more stress from repotting. Once I have those trees done, I move on to flowering species, then non-flowering deciduous trees, then broadlef evergreens, conifers, junipers, generally in that order.

You can bareroot some species, but for conifers, junipers and pines, it is safer to replace the soil over two or three repotting periods. In most other regards, I follow the same basic steps for almost all of my trees.

1.     Pre-mix the soil. I don't want to have my tree sitting out with the roots exposed while I mix my bonsai soil.

2.    Prepare the new pot. Wire screens into place to cover the drainage holes. If the tree is going to need to be secured in the pot with wire, I place those wires into the pot through the drainage holes and set the pot aside. If reusing the same pot, I do this step just after the tree is removed from the pot, but before any root trimming.

3.     Remove the tree from the existing pot. I start by clipping any wires that hold it in. When it's in a nursery container, I usually just hold the tree and smack the sides a few times and try to pull it out. If necessary, I cut roots extending from the drainage holes. If it's in a ceramic pot, I use a root knife or something similar to scrape around the edge of the pot. Once it is loose, I carefully tip or pull it out of the pot.

4.    Scrape the root ball with a claw or a root hook. I prefer three-pronged rakes. I first rake away rootless soil on the top, then I comb the roots out thoroughly, especially if I'm going to bare-root it.

5.     Trim the roots. If this is a first repotting and the roots are thick and not easily raked, I use a saw to cut away one-third to one-half of the root mass. I use root clippers (not the sharp scissors I use for foliage) to prune back any long stringy roots.

6.    Scrape out old soil sitting right under the trunk. I leave a slightly concaved void under the trunk so that later I can mound up the fresh soil and cleanly place the tree into the new pot.

7.     Gently mist the root ball to keep it moist, or, if bare-rooting the tree, take it to the hose and hose away all the old soil completely.

8.    Put in the first layer of soil for the new pot. I start with larger, courser material, like pumice. Then pour in some of my premixed soil to a level that will leave the new root mass at a pleasing height within the pot. I mound it up a little in the center to fit the concave left under the root mass.

9.     Place the tree firmly over the soil. Adjust it for the proper height and hold it in place.

10.     If I'm going to wire the tree into the pot, this is the time to do so. I start on the long side, if there is one, and loop it around the tree, using pliers to tighten the wire. I don't just twist. Instead, I first yank up on the wire and then twist.

11.     Start piling soil around the outside, working it in with my fingers as I go. I fill to just below the edge of the pot.

12.     Work the soil over with a chopstick (and my fingers) to fill any air voids.

13.     If there is excess soil, I scrape it away. If the soil line is too far below the edge of the pot, I add some more and tamp it down. If possible, I leave the surface mostly flat, rather than sloping down from around the trunk, to allow soil to soak down rather than run off over the surface when I water.

14.     Water gently but thoroughly until clear water runs out the bottom.

Finally, I place the tree back on the bench. I don't worry about sun, but I do protect my tree from wind for the next few weeks, and I do not fertilize for at least one month after repotting.

My Organic Mix

“Be it deep or shallow, red or black, sand or clay, the soil is the link between the rock core of the earth and the living things on its surface. It is the foothold for the plants we grow.” ― Roy W. Simonson, USDA Yearbook of Agriculture

This is my organic mix, which typically makes up 20% of my bonsai soil. It is almost 50/50 fine (1/4"-3/8") orchid bark and quality potting soil (usually Fox Farm's Ocean Forest). To that, I add about 1/160 (half a cup per five gallons) of azomite, which is a fine powder with trace elements, about 1/80 (a cup per five gallons) agricultural charcoal and about 1/80 (a cup per five gallons) worm castings.

My instructor is not an advocate of using charcoal. However, I already mixed 32 gallons of this stuff, which means I have about 160 gallons of repotting to do before it's gone. So for now, I'm using charcoal.

A lot of people do not like using any organic component in their soil. See, e.g., Boon Mix. That's great if you can stay on top of your watering needs precisely. I have to deal with heat waves, Santa Ana winds and sometimes very long work days. Sometimes all at the same time. With those challenges, I prefer to give my trees a little extra organic mix to keep them from dying when I can't water them in the middle of a hot windy day. So far, everything I've planted in this mix has been doing well.

Happy 97th Birthday, Harry Hirao

“I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.” ― Francis Bacon

Applying Francis Bacon's perspective, Harry Hirao will become an old man at the age of 112. Sounds fair enough. I feel privileged to have known Harry and to have been a member of the club that he founded in 1977. Harry was born on March 12, 1917, and today is his 97th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Harry!

I'm Cutting Out The Turface

“"If you build it, he will come.” ― The Voice in the Corn, Field of Dreams

Turface®,  a high-fired clay product, was created to absorb water on athletic fields. If you want to build a baseball diamond, it is perfect. If you want to build a strong bonsai, perhaps not. It is a popular ingredient in many non-organic bonsai soil mixes, but a growing number of folks won't touch the stuff anymore. Michael Hagedorn's November blog post "Life Without Turface" makes the best case against turface that I've read so far, although Boon Manakitivipart's repeated sharing of photos comparing roots grown in turface with roots grown in pumice, lava and akadama is also quite persuasive.

Hagedorn explains that there are two faults of turface: (i) it produces anaemic, thready root systems; and (ii) it is hydrophobic when it dries out. These deficiencies create dead zones in soil, leaving roots to grow in the worst places in the pot - along the sides and the bottom. Put another way, in your pot, some of the turface stays too dry and some stays too wet, and the roots suffer.

Jack Wikle, who apparently has a reputation of being able to "grow a broomstick in pea gravel and make it sprout", makes a persuasive counter-argument. However, in my own experience, the turface does not seem to be producing great roots.

The one exception to this, for me, is that I am finding turface perfectly suitable for rooting cuttings. Once the cuttings root, I find it better to plant them in a mix with pumice and diatomaceaous earth (DE), which is sold as an oil absorbent but is made of diatoms, not fired clay. Hagedorn says Oil-Dri and Profile (whatever that is - I assume it is some sort of fired clay) produce the same problems, but my own experience is that the DE is working well, whereas the turface is not.

Soil isn't everything. The perfect soil mix will not work for you if you have issues with watering practices, fertilizing or extreme weather, and your soil mix should account for those things. If you run a bonsai nursery and you have someone whose job is just to water, every day and twice on some days, you can afford to use soil mixes that I simply can't use. But regardless, by all accounts, trees planted in pumice develop weaker roots than trees planted in other, comparable non-organic components, and I, for one, am done buying pumice.

Outstanding Bonsai for Free

“Unless its out of the goodness of someones heart, I dont like having things given to me for free. I like working hard for what I earn.” ― Sasha Azevedo

Why can't we do both?

My favorite way to acquire bonsai material is to get it for free. This usually requires me to dig. Often, it is an exchange of value. I'm removing landscaping that an owner doesn't want, and the owner is letting me keep the plants that I like. Sometimes, however, you get really lucky and you get really good stuff for free, even though it doesn't mutually benefit the owner. Last summer, I got a chance to dig out some junipers on a hot August Saturday. It was hard work, and we only got two, but we ended up with two pr0stratas with very thick trunks, and even though we pulled them out at the worst possible time of year, they came out with thick root balls and they are thriving.

This was where we were digging, at an ocean view home in Dana Point, with heavy clay soil full of rocks, but populated by 50 year old junipers.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but that thing has a trunk that's about 4"-5" thick.

One of the guys on this dig was chasnsx, who made a video about it on his YouTube channel.

 

We wrapped it up and put it in a huge tub of almost 100% pumice when we got home. Today, it's thriving.

I'm looking forward to styling it later this year.

The GSBF Collection

“Always my collections are made of different influences.”― Jean Paul Gaultier

It is wonderful to see large collections of bonsai masterpieces created by a variety of talented bonsai masters. In Southern California, perhaps the finest of these is the GSBF collection, housed at the Huntington Library. I was able to visit that collection last week, and I put up a gallery of some of my favorite trees from the collection.

Click the photo to see my favorites from the collection. To see them all, you'll have to visit the library yourself. Days, tiimes, prices and other vital information can be found here.

 

2014 Bonsai-a-Thon Exhibits

“An exhibition is the result of your experiments, but the process is never-ending. So an exhibition is not a conclusion.”― Chris Ofili

I love bonsai exhibits. Seeing the artistry and the natural elements combined into living works of art makes me happy. When we see them exhibited in formal displays, we often refer to them as "finished" bonsai trees, but a bonsai tree is never really finished. We just call them finished trees.

To that end, I made another gallery, this time of the "finished" trees and pottery that was on exhibit at the 2014 Bonsai-a-Thon. Click on the photo to see the collection. Enjoy.

 

March Bonsai Tasks

“Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.” ― Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

Spring is upon us. The dead branches of winter are giving way to the fresh new growth of spring. Officially, it doesn't start until later this month, but it feels like it's here. Here's a list of some of the things I can or will do this month:

• Maintenance - The weeds are back. Bugs, too. I'm spraying for bugs, as needed, and plucking weeds as part of my normal watering routine.
  .
• Placement - Anything deciduous that is not sprouting by the 10th will get moved into full sun. If we get a major heat wave, anything with a lot of new tender shoots will get moved into shade. All of the plants get rotated at mid-month to guard against one-sided growth. I'm also going to spread the trees out a bit. That meant adding a bench or two or three.
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• Watering - Watering will be ramped up this month, especially for the fast growers. If I want to slow the growth of some plants, I'll withhold water a bit. I'll be letting my bougainvillea dry out a little more this month, too, to encourage flowering.
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• Feeding - I'm starting regular feedings, initially with a low-nitrogen mix, like a 3-12-7. To reduce alkalinity, I'll add some soil sulphur or iron tone, particularly for any trees that develop good fall color. If I lived in a place with a lot more rain, I'd be reducing acidity with wood ash or gypsum lime.
  .
• Wiring - I'm removing wires from most of the junipers that I wired late last summer or over the winter. I'm going to keep a close eye on the wires that are on my deciduous trees. I'm going to start wiring some of the growth that hardened off over the winter.
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• Pruning - New growth will be pinched clipped back as needed, and root suckers get clipped almost immediately. On flowering and fruiting trees, once the majority of the buds have blossomed, I'll remove the flowers and remaining buds to avoid losing too much energy to the fruits and flowers. Now is a good time to do severe pruning on my elm seedlings and sweetgum seedlings.
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• Grafting - The time to graft junipers and pines has passed, at least in our zone. This is the best month to graft deciduous trees.
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• Transplanting - The next three months are prime time for transplanting, soil replacement and root pruning. All of my deciduous trees will be repotted this spring. All of my conifers that are still in nursery containers from purchases last year will be repotted. Other conifers need to be repotted only every 3 to 5 years, so none of mine that are already in good soil are on track for repotting.
  .
• Collecting - It's a very good time to start collecting. I'm holding off collecting tropical species from landscapes, though. Perhaps in late April or May.
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• Cuttings - From now until May is the best time to be taking cuttings of junipers. I'm told that itt's an especially good time to make pomegranate cuttings, and I plan to do quite a few of those this spring.
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• Seeds - Toward the end of the month, I'll start bringing out the seeds I started cold stratifying around New Year's. I hope I marked them well or can remember what's what. Otherwise, they'll be like a box of chocolates.
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• Planning - With the repotting comes the chance to choose pots, placement and trunk angle. I have a couple of trees that will look much better once I move the position of the trunk. We're coming upon the point where selective pruning of buds can really shape a tree that we want to avoid doing anything drastic to, like my maples.

The days are getting longer. Soon we will have more than 12 hours of daylight each day! Such a relief.

2014 Bonsai-a-Thon Day 2

"Great events make me quiet and calm." ― Queen Victoria

Day two of the 2014  GSBF Bonsai-a-Thon was a lot of fun for me. I took my wife and son on Sunday and we saw the Japanese gardens and toured the art buildings, seeing, among other masterpieces, the famous Pinkie and The Blue Boy.  We had a better-than-expected barbecue lunch with the GSBF folks, too.

The main attraction for me was, once again, the demonstrations by the masters, and once again, we had six of them working side-by-side on different trees. Like on Saturday, I wasn't able to arrive in time to see the start of the demos, but I saw most of them.

Bob Hilvers styled this massive procumbens nana juniper, demonstrating how changing the angle of the trunk can change the entire appearance of your tree.

Al Nelson prepared this spectacular saikei, while promoting one of my favorite lines of poetry ever, from Trees by Joyce Kilmer.

Marcus Juniel worked on a San Jose juniper with a huge curvy trunk, showing techniques for carving out defects and bending heavy branches.

David Nguy styled this California juniper, explaining that it is important to leave growing tips in place while pruning, to maintain the vigor in your tree.

Cheryl Manning worked on this outstanding black pine, and among other things, explained how harmony is achieved by matching the relative movement of the trunk and branches. More movement in the trunk is complimented by branches with good movement.

Frank Goya was done with his saikei by the time I arrived. I assume he had some interesting stuff to say, too, but I only got to see the finished product.

Here are a couple of shots of the vendors' area:

I bought an Itiogawa from California Bonsai Studio. Most expensive tree I've ever purchase - almost $150 with tax. I'm using it as a mother tree for cuttings and scions for grafting.

I'll put up a gallery of the exhibits later.

2014 Bonsai-a-Thon Day 1

"Events tend to recur in cycles." ― W. Clement Stone

And so the cycle brought another GSBF Bonsai-a-Thon, although for me, it was a first. I had some stuff to take care of with my kids, so I didn't arrive until about an hour into the demonstrations. I knew there were going to be six artists doing demos. What I didn't know was that they were all working side-by-side, all at once, until they finished. So I arrived thinking I'd missed the first demo, but I'd catch the last five. As it turns out, I missed the first hour of everyone's demos. That was a bit of a bummer. I still learned a lot by watching the next 90 minutes or so.

Harry Hirao styled this California juniper with the assistance of David Nguy.

Mel Ikeda worked this California juniper and told stories about his dad's old bonsai nursery in Buena Park that closed shortly after I first became interested in bonsai back in the day.

Michael Sykes styled this foemina, and got it into a very shallow pot. I thought about bidding on this one, since I fancy the idea of making my own Goshin someday, but when the bidding got to $400, I knew I wasn't in the running.

Peter Macasieb potted and trained this massive twisted pomegranate. Despite its barren appearance at the end, this tree fetched the best price at the auction - $500.

Tak Skimazu worked on this shohin juniper leaving it in very small, shallow a pot. This one drew a bid of $300.

Cesareo Perez styled this boxwood into a fan shape. He estimated the age to get perhaps 50 years.

In addition to the demos, there were a handful of formally displayed trees, an auction and raffle, and vendors selling everything from trees and suiseki to tools, pots, art and moss.  I bought a few tools and a small-leafed olive. I also bought a rock. I'm not much into the suiseki, but I dropped ten bucks on a stone that looks just like a raw potato.

There it is, my first purchased stone from a bonsai event.

On The Importance of Your Bench

“You can always improve your bench and relief pitching.” ― Keith Hernandez

Maintaining a bonsai collection doesn't require good pitching, but like a baseball team, it does require a solid bench. My benches were mostly in sorry shape. Two of them date back to my prior attempt at doing bonsai. They've been slowly breaking down for more than a decade. Most of my "benches" aren't benches at all. They are a pony wall, a barbecue, a spa cover and some seating areas. So I cleared some space and decided to make some new benches.

Unless you are planning to charge people to tour your back yard, it doesn't take a lot of special planning or carpentry to make a suitable bench. I prefer plain wooden planks and concrete blocks. This setup cost me less than $50 for the lumber, concrete blocks and the sprinkler risers. In a few weeks, I'll probably connect a mister system to those sprinklers, which will add about $15-20 to the cost.

Elsewhere in the yard, I've been adding these along the perimeter walls. Those are about $15 worth of lumber and $6 worth of blocks. I like the fact that I'll be able to grow stuff underneath, too.

My most complicated project was building my four-level benches. This is basically an upturned stair base with 2x6 planks going across. This took a lot of saw cuts, but it only took a couple of hours to make two.

This will be for seedlings and pre-bonsai shohin.

 

The Winter Silhouettes Show Gallery

“Guys understand a waistline. They understand a silhouette.” ― Bill Viola

As I promised, the gallery from the Winter Silhouettes show is now up and on your right.

 

Bonsai Nursery Visit - Upland Nursery

“If I'm out and I pass a store, I just pop in.” ― Nicole Richie

Yeah, and I'm like that with bonsai  nurseries. The other day, I found myself passing Upland Nursery in Orange, located at 1518 N Tustin St, Orange, CA 92867 (714) 538-4500. Upland Nursery is not a bonsai nursery per se, but it does have a bonsai area. It sells a limited stock of seedlings, pre-bonsai and some finished bonsai trees. It also sells pots. I did not see tools or any supplies other than pots for sale. This is very nearly a view of the entire thing. It's a two-row caged enclosure of bonsai material.

The staff are out helping customers in other areas, but presumably there is someone on site who can help you with a question or a problem when you are shopping in the bonsai enclosure. I just didn't see anyone while I was there.

Most of the stuff sold as finished bonsai was run-of-the-mill. Some of it was like mallsai. Some were downright ugly.

The chinese elm above has massive reverse taper and the stick the grower wrapped it around to develop the curves has become embedded in the trunk. I forget the price they were asking, but it was much higher than I would have expected with this kind of defect.

This three-foot tall japanese boxwood was one of the most expensive trees at Upland Nursery. It's also one of the highest priced boxwoods I've ever seen. Frankly, I hope it sells. That would bode well for the value of my collection.

Upland Nursery is a good place to visit if you are in the area and want to look at a bunch of different bonsai trees and maybe pick up a seedling or two of a species you don't have. If something catches your eye at a price you are willing to pay, even better. It is not a full service bonsai nursery, though, and bargains are few and far between. For the prices they are asking, you can get much better material at other bonsai nurseries in Southern California. Unfortunately for the Orange County bonsaiists, those nurseries are in Los Angeles County.

Harry Hirao Cal Juniper Demo at Kofu Kai

“A rock star on tour is a king in his domain.” ― Gene Simmons

It's kind of like that when Harry Hirao does a club demo, like this month at Kofu Kai. Turnout is always huge when Harry styles a collected California bonsai. The folks in attendance this month included five of the twelve people who are doing demos at Bonsai-a-Thon.

For this demo, Harry styled a California juniper he collected about two years ago from his favorite spot in the Mojave desert. Note the height of the foliage in this before picture.

He carved the deadwood, with much assistance from Mel Ikeda and David Nguy, wrapped a large branch with raffia and bent it down with heavy wire, and then finely wired the smaller branches. Manny Martinez narrated some of the work. This tree is probably several hundred years old, and under Harry's aftercare, it has developed thick rich foliage pads near the trunk. California juniper bark tears off naturally in long strips, making it suitable for very attractive shari. In its natural habitat, it grows in brief spurts when rain becomes available, leaving the new shoots thin and prone for long periods of time to the wind and sun. As a result, the new growth is often bent or even twisted and eventually thickens in place with those bends and twists. This gives the trees great character and makes for intersting jin possibilities.

The live branches on California junipers are surprisingly flexible, even when they are somewhat thick.

The tree on your left below is a satsuki azalea that Harry brought just to show us its incredible blooms.

An hour and a half later, the foliage is much lower, pleasingly shaped and ready to be raffled off. Mel, Harry and David (who can't be seen very well here) pose with the tree.

It was a very popular raffle. A lot of people bought a lot of tickets looking for a chance to own one of Harry's trees. Not only did I not win it, but I didn't have a ticket pulled until well into the drawing. I did come away with a bald cypress with a trunk about as thick as a quarter, though, and I got to see Harry and his crew working on some high quality material, so I learned some valuable lessons that will come in handy when I go to style the tree I collected last April.

 

 

Spring Arrives a Month Early

“Punctuality is the politeness of kings.” ― Louis XVIII

Like a partygoer, it is best for spring to never arrive too early or too late. My sweetgums were showing their first leaves of spring last year on March 16. This year, I saw them the first week of February. Spring has come early to Southern California. It's time to start repotting. And I'm really not ready for all the repotting I need to do.

Where Do All The Mallsai Come From?

“One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The vast majority of bonsai trees owned in the United States are owned by people who have one or two trees, mostly junipers, Chinese elms, or dwarf umbrella trees, bought by big box retailers or smaller sellers at malls, swap meets, fairs and similar venues. Most of these are mass produced in China and delivered around the world on container ships. They are grown in soil that drains poorly and are often covered in glue and rocks to seal moisture in so that the trees survive the transoceanic trip. This doesn't help people maintain their trees once they get home, but it allows the growers to keep a large number of trees alive long enough for a very crude styling and sale.

Did you know there are places where you can buy 20,000 mallsai a month?

Obviously you can't grow 20,000 quality trees a month. So they end up looking something like this:

 And when they get older, more developed trees, they often have flaws like this:

And believe it or not, for this "nicer" tree, they wanted $75.

That's why I enjoy growing my own trees from landscape and nursery stock.

Another Bonsai Forum Bites the Dust

 “Avoid popularity; it has many snares, and no real benefit.” ― William Penn

William Penn never ran a bonsai forum on a free platform. You see, there used to be a forum called Ficus Bonsai Forum. It had some useful information, but not very many users, and infrequent posts. Apparently, it was hosted by a free forum service, and its couple of hundred posts and maximum 37 users online at any given time didn't generate enough ad revenue to sustain the forum.

Gone. Now all you get is "ficusbonsai.freeforums.org was removed for inactivity on Jan 28, 2014. For more information please visit http://help.freeforums.org. This page will redirect in __ seconds." Then you get sent to a random forum.

Ficus Bonsai joins the ArtofBonsai forum (which went inactive in 2011) and the International Bonsai Forum (which fell to spammers last year and now seems to be completely offline).

Ten English-language forums I know that are still out there:

• http://bonsainut.com/
• http://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/
• http://bonsaistudygroup.com/
• http://www.bonsaiempire.com/forum
• http://www.bonsaisite.com/forums/
• http://bonsaitreeforums.com/forums/
• http://www.bonsaichat.net/forums.php
• http://www.ausbonsai.com.au/forum/index.php
• http://www.sabonsai.co.za/forum/
• http://www.europeanbonsai.com/

Some good information can be found in these forums.

Bonsai Visions of the West - GBSF 37

“I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.” ― Arnold Schwarzenegger

I'm already pumped for the 2014 Golden State Bonsai Federation Convention 37, which will take place from October 30 to November 2 in Sacramento, California, hosted jointly by GSBF and the American Bonsai Society. Registration opens July 1. The event will be held at the DoubleTree Sacramento located at 2001 Point West Way Sacramento, California 95815. Headliners will include Peter Tea, Kathy Shaner, David De Groot and others.

I went to the 2013 convention in Burbank, but I don't expect to be able to go to No Cal for this one.

Bonsai Carts

“I've had a good day when I don't fall out of the cart.” ― Buddy Hackett

Last week, after a day of hard pruning for four of our trees, we were looking at them and wondering what they would say if they could talk, and it got me thinking of a scene in Caddyshack where Carl Spackler talks about a round of golf with the Dalai Lama that included a shot that went into a ten thousand foot crevice at the base of a glacier. At the end, he recounts how he got stiffed on the tip, except for a promise that "on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." And Carl says "So I got that going for me, which is nice." That's how it was for my trees. They lost limbs, roots, bark, got bent and scraped and tied down. But they didn't fall off the cart and crack their pots, so they've got that going for them, which is nice.

If you start collecting a lot of bonsai trees, or if you start taking lessons, or you start showing trees, eventually, you're going to want to get a cart to transport your trees around the yard, and to and from your car when you take them somewhere. It's just not worth the strain on your back to lug them all around by hand.

You don't have to spend a lot. $40 or less can get you a decent one that will hold 330 pounds. It folds up flat for easy storage and transportation, and it's strong enough to hold most of your trees.

For a little extra money, you can get something fancier, like this:

This is the Northern Industrial Hydraulic Table Cart — 660Lb. Capacity with a hydraulic scissor lift, good for those who can't lift heavy trees, but have heavy trees to move from time to time. At $210 plus shipping ($139 to my area), it's the best value I can find for something with those kinds of features. If you live in the Midwest or Southeast, you might be able to get them right from the store.

Whatever you get, get something. Your back, necks and shoulders will thank you.

 

Six More Weeks of Winter?

“This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.” ― Phil Connors (Groundhog Day)

I heard that Punxsutawney Phil came out and saw his shadow. That means six more weeks of winter. Phil is right 80% of the time, and this year, I hope he's right, because we need rain in Southern California. However, my trees do not seem to think Phil is correct. They are acting like spring is already here.

Chinese elm

Ficus

Indian hawthorn

Olive

Boxwood

New growth is coming out everywhere. In fact, the only species I have that hasn't yet started pushing out new growth is the bald cypress. After all this warm weather, the trees are ready to start making use of the sunlight. Hopefully we don't lose a bunch in a cold spell.

February Bonsai Tasks

“The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.” ― William C. Bryant

 

January brought polar vortex weather to most of the U.S., but Southern California had quite a few days of high winds and temperatures in the 80s and even the 90s. Outside of our weather zone, February heat spells present hazards. If you give in to the weather and start repotting and feeding your trees, but a February or March frost follows, you could weaken or even kill some of your trees. That is less of a threat here. We will not have freezes and frosts destroying any new growth that the Santa Ana winds have teased out of our dormant trees.

 We are still in the dead of winter, but spring feels like it's just around the corner because buds are swelling and the days are getting a minute longer every day. We are overdue for some rain, but that doesn't mean we'll get any, and the hills above my house still haven't turned their normal winter/spring green. Anyhow, dealing with this, here's a list of some of the things I can or will do this month:

• Maintenance - I'll watch for disease and pests, especially aphids, as the weather starts warming up. In Zone 10, where I live, time is running out soon for spraying lime-sulphur dormant spray on deciduous trees. Perhaps I'll scrub a few trunks with a toothbrush to remove algae and moss buildup. Weeds are already making a comeback. I try to pull them all out by the roots when I can. A couple of pots have too many weeds, so I'm going to scrape the top layer of soil off and replace it will some weed-free bonsai soil.
  .
• Placement - If a massive storm is forecast, I'll move some of the more fragile trees under cover. If we expect a frost, I might move some stuff into the garage for a night or two. Some of the deciduous trees are sprouting early. As that happens, I move them into more sun to avoid pale, leggy growth.
  .
• Watering - I'll check the pots daily, and try to water only when the surface is dry. The tropicals get water every other day unless it rains. My native species (except the California juniper) are still down to watering once a week. But when it is warm and windy, everyone else drinks, every day.
  .
• Feeding - Buds are swelling, so I'm fertilizing at half strength. Right now, every other week, so I do half the plants this weekend, half next weekend. I may mix in some soil amendments like sulphur, iron-tone, gypsite for pots that have built up alkalinity from our tap water.
  .
• Wiring - It's a good time to wire bare deciduous trees, but the heaviest bending needs to be delayed until the tree is more active - and flexible.
  .
• Pruning - It's still a great time to prune pines and junipers. It's also a good month to prune fruit trees, either before or after blossums.
  .
• Grafting - This is another good month to attempt grafts, particularly in conifers. This year, in our area, it might not be safe to graft for many more weeks.
  .
• Repotting - We are in peak repotting season for many species of tree. I'm going to be repotting 6 tomorrow. I started repotting some pines and junipers in late January, when temps here were in the 80s for more than a week straight. There are some trees that are draining slowly and need repotting, but shouldn't yet be repotted, so I poked some of them with a chopstick for aeration, and left the chopstick in (I eat Asian food at least once a week, and always bring my chopsticks home, so I have a big cup full of them) to remind me that this tree will need repotting soon. The time to repot deciduous trees is when the buds begin to swell, and that time is already starting for many of them in my yard. So I'm already in the middle of repotting season for the deciduous trees.
  .
• Collecting - I'm putting off collecting warm-weather species like bougainvillea and ficus this month, but if the opportunity comes to collect junipers, pinon pines, oaks, boxwoods or deciduous trees, I'll do it, especially if the trees will become unavailable if I wait.
  .
• Cuttings - From now until May is the best time to be taking cuttings from conifers. I'm doing them in bunched of 72, under big plastic domes that you can get at OC Farm Supply or the Hydroponics stores.
  .
• Seeds - I can still start stratification of seeds this month. I'm mulling over buying a few conifer seeds. Anything that goes into the wine cooler this month will be planted in late April or May, which is still good. I'm sowing, without stratifying, some banyan seeds and (not for use as bonsai) some rainbow eucalyptus seeds.
  .
• Planning - I'm still organizing soil materials, mixing soil ingredients and start mixing soil for my "March repotting". I can't build up much stock in potting soil because I keep having to do my "March repotting" early. I'm washing pumice and diatomite, which I store in 32 gallon cans. I think I'm done with turface. I'm making complete mixes, mostly my 3-to-1 and 4-to-1 mixes; but also making mixes of just organic material for when I want to quickly put together a batch of something other than the 3-to-1 and 4-to-1 mixes. My organic mix is made of high quality potting soil, fine orchid bark, compost and small quantities of worm castings, insect frass, mykos and azomite.

Spring comes next month!

Saikei Demonstration in Pacific Palisades

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations.
Washington Irving
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/scenery.html#a00XpgbI4TwfhCgj.99

"There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations." ― Washington Irving

The second club I ever joined, Dai Ichi Bonsai Kai, is promoting (not sure whether that's officially) the L.A. Public Library, Palisades Branch's "A Saikei Demonstration with Frank Goya, Bonsai Master", taking place tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, February 1, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. in the Library’s Community Room, located at 861 Alma Real Dr., Pacific Palisades, CA 90272.

Saikei is a miniature landscape creation consisting of bonsai trees, other plants, rocks, and ground cover that form a scene from nature. This is a nice one I saw at a show last year.

Mr. Goya, a five decade long practicing artist and one of John Naka's first students, will demonstrate how to make a saikei from scratch, step-by-step, adding the bonsai trees, creating mountains and rivers. The final version will be raffled off to raise money for the Pacific Palisades Library Association. If you go, tell me all about it by dropping a comment, because  I can't make it.

Uyen Truong Sketching My Favorite Bonsai

“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.” ― Pablo Picasso

Last summer, a boxwood I had been training in a canopy oak sort of style was dramatically pruned by Roy Nagatoshi during a demo at Kofu Kai. The tree, which my kids later named Meelo, was allowed to grow out until today, when I thinned out the new shoots a bit before presenting it to Uyen Truong for some further advice and a sketch during his program with the Orange County Bonsai Society.

This was the growth. A pair of large pom-poms, and a single bud halfway between.

After reducing the foliage to about a dozen shoots, I tried sketching out my idea for the tree's future development. Mr. Truong was busy sketching out ideas for some very interesting junipers other club members had brought.

Eventually, it became my turn, and Mr. Truong sketched out his vision for Meelo.

Here's the tree and the sketch. His was much better than mine.

The next step in the process will be to lose the upper branch that moves to the right and to remove the stumps, although we will keep part of the bottom left stump and grow the primary branch out of what's left of it. I'll re-evaluate this tree this summer. It's not my best tree, nor the one with the most potential, but it is my favorite tree. And now I have a very cool watercolor and caligraphy ink sketch of it by Uyen Truong.

Grafting Junipers With Itoigawa Whips

"If you don't like something, change it." ― Maya Angelou

One of the difficulties in growing juniper bonsai is having to often choose between tree varieties that have great trunks and those that have great foliage. But you don't have to choose if you can combine a juniper with a great trunk and a juniper that grows beautiful foliage. To that end, this month's program at Kofu Kai was a whip grafting demo by Peter Macasieb, placing itoigawa foliage onto prostrata juniper understock.

Here's what I learned:

1.    The tools and supplies you need include a sharp grafting knife, disinfectant for the blade, tape to hold the scion in place, some tree sealer and a brush to apply the sealer.

2.    You can graft just about any juniper species foliage on any juniper species understock. Popular species for understock include California juniper, San Jose and prostrata junipers. The most common foliage used for the scions are three varieties of Chinese juniper: shimpaku, kishu and itoigawa. Peter brought some kishu and itoigawa cuttings from home and let the club decide which to use. The majority wanted to see itoigawa.

3.    There is only a limited window of time to do grafting. December is too soon. Mid-March is too late. You want to be using dormant foliage and an understock with little to no sap flow. Now is a good time.

4.    The first step is to take cuttings from the itoigawa and cut them into smaller lengths to use as scions. Peter uses very short scions. He notes than longer scions need more energy to support themselves, while short scions survive better and grow out quickly if the graft is successful. The base of the scions needs to be sliced into a wedge shape, with one side longer than the other.

5.    You need to make an incision into the rootstock into which the scion will be placed. Some people like to make three incisions. Frankly, I didn't understand the explanation of why some folks like to do it that way, so I won't try to convey it here, but Peter generally makes just one cut.

6.    The scion goes into the cut on the rootstock. The side with the longer cut goes against the rootstock. I was left with the impression that, in the perfect instance, the cut will be the same size as the scion, but as long as you can line one side of the scion with one side of the cut, you should be fine. It's easier to show this with an illustration than with the photos I got.

7.    After lining up the cambium of the scion with the cambium of the understock, you have to hold everything in place while you wrap the graft with tape. Some people like to tighten some wire around it, but most people, including Peter, just use plastic gardening tape.

8.    After wrapping the tape securely around the graft, tie it off and cover the whole thing with tree seal.

9.    Aftercare. Some people use plastic bags and a wet patch of sphagnum moss to keep the scions moist for the initial recovery. Peter suggests putting them into complete shade, preferably in a small greenhouse, and misting the grafted tree frequently until the graft shows signs of new growth.

10.    Within a year or two, the scion should be growing vigorously and you can remove the tape and sealant and begin shaping the new whips with wire. After two years, you can remove the original foliage from the tree. As back budding occurs on the original stock, you can rub off the buds to maintain the preferred foliage, and you can end up with something like this.

I'm going to try my hand at grafting next weekend.

Triangles Upon Triangles Upon Triangles

"You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same." ― Jonathan Davis

If I had one of these trees, I'd think it was pretty cool. If I had 50 of these trees, I would probably lose interest in working on bonsai trees.

I appreciate the rules of bonsai, but if we all followed all of the rules, all of the time, we would only have a few dozen trees, and we would have thousands of copies of those few dozen trees. That would not be very interesting.

I think one of the reasons I love California junipers is because they all look so different. For example, take a look at this California juniper styled by Sensei Harry Hirao, on display at the National Arboretum:

I'd like to have one of those on my shelves. I wouldn't want all of my bonsai trees to look like that, either, but variety is what makes nature so outstanding, and variety is something I want in my collection.

California Shohin Seminar January 31 to February 2

“True greatness consists in being great in little things.”― Charles Simmons

 

“Shohin” is a Japanese word meaning a tiny thing. These tiny trees are the subject of the California Shohin Seminar held every other year in Santa Nella, drawing people from all over the country. The seminar will include a shohin exhibit, vendors, raffles, demos, presentations and workshops. This year's Shohin Seminar will be held January 31 through February 2 at the Hotel Mission de Oro, in Santa Nella, California:

• Friday (Jan 31): Registration, Demonstrations, and Exhibit and Vendor areas Set Up.
• Saturday (Feb 1): Exhibit Opens for Viewing, Vendor Sales Critiques, Workshops, Bazaar & Benefit Drawing
• Sunday (Feb 2): Exhibit Open 10:30-Noon. Critique and Demonstration, Business Meeting

Here's how they run it: (link)

Full schedule here: (link)

Workshops: (link)

Registration forms here: (link)

For general information email: [email protected], website: http://www.calshohin.org or phone: Randi Keppeler 650-598-0127

The 50th Anniversary Winter Silhouettes Show

“The hardest thing in fashion is not to be known for a logo, but to be known for a silhouette. ”― Giambattista Valli.

Bonsai trees in winter silhouette exhibits are shown without their foliage to allow people to see the intricate trunk and branch structures. Such exhibits are uncommon, so if you see one is scheduled near you, check it out. This weekend, I went to the Baiko-En Bonsai Kenkyukai Society show, which included a whole lot of elms, zelkova, maple, oak and other deciduous trees in their dormant stage. This is, I am told, the oldest such show in the U.S.

I missed the Saturday activities, but went on Sunday, which featured Lindsay Shiba giving a short discussion and then taking guests around the exhibit room to observe, critique and explain selected trees. I'll put a gallery up later, which will show up as a link on the right column. In the meantime, here's a handful of photos.

This magnificent Chinese elm greeted visitors as they entered the showroom.

This tokonoma display featured a tree, scroll and suiseki belonging to Jim Barrett.

Rows of trees.

Some members of the club working on a foemina juniper forest, not for display in this show.

Speaker Lindsay Shiba shows guests his tree.

Harry Hirao poses with one of his oaks that were on display.

Peter Macasieb, who had some outstanding shohin in the show, looks over another exhibitor's trees.

Meeting the San Diego Bonsai Club

“You stay classy, San Diego. ”― Ron Burgundy

So I met the San Diego Bonsai Club last weekend. And they are a classy group. It's a large, active group of friendly and enthusiastic folks. In this photo, Jim Barrett (the first GSBF president) styles a robusta green juniper, one of the many varieties of Chinese junipers (juniperus chinensis).

I was following up on some business about a boxwood dig that the club did earlier this month. They pulled some really nice multi-trunk trees. I liked the group so much that my daughters and I joined the club. Now we are in 4 clubs, and by the end of the month, that might be 5.

One of the very cool things about the San Diego Bonsai Club is that the club maintains the trees at the Bonsai Pavilion at the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park in Escondido. The club meets in Balboa Park, essentially next door to the San Diego Zoo. I'm hoping to spend a few days in San Diego this year with a Sunday morning at the SDBC followed by an afternoon at the zoo.

No Photography at the 2014 Noelanders Trophy

“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson

One of my favorite shows out of Europe is the Noelanders Trophy. Every year, I can count on some great blog posts and galleries of masterpieces from this show (even if I can't always read the text). I'm not so sure I can this year, however. They've banned photography of the exhibits.

Here's a little peek. Rudy Marinello, above, at Italian Bonsai Dream is seen here working on a tree with Mauro Stemberger in preparation for the Noelanders Trophy. You can also see three of Walter Pall's trees that were accepted into the competition at this link. You won't see any photo galleries of all the trees, though, because the Bonsai Association Belgium won't allow photographs from the 2014 Noelanders Trophy to be taken by the public. Only magazine and newspaper press can bring their cameras into the exhibit hall. If you want to see the trees, you'll have to buy the books, rely on whatever the Bonsai Association Belgium puts on its website (or the participants put on theirs), or send in a sketch artist like Uyen Truong to draw the trees.

Why? Here's their explanation:

Because of the ever growing number of visitors, and as we want people to relax and enjoy thebeauty of our bonsai exhibition, we have decided not to allow photography anymore. Looking at a bonsai takes more than a ‘click’ of one second. All the trees will be photographed professionally, and will be available afterwards in a full colour book for a price less than a memory card. We are sure that every visitor will feel the difference in atmosphere.

Exception
Exception is made for professional photographers taking pictures for magazines and
newspapers. They will get a Noelanders Trophy Press Card at the entrance.

Where?
The prohibition applies only in the exhibition hall. Everyone is free to take pictures at the demos, the traders’ area and the dinner.

Not on web – why?
Bonsai amateurs and professionals invest a huge amount of time to create their piece of art. We all have to respect their view and taste for bonsai. We thank you in advance for your support and wish you a wonderful Noelanders Trophy weekend.

To no one's surprise, attendees and, even more so, people who cannot attend, are unhappy about it. I don't understand their reasons. The only reason that makes sense is that they are trying to make the images scarce to drive their €39 book sales. Perhaps we'll get a look at some of the trees from Mauro Stemberger, Ryan Neil or Walter Paul. Until then, we won't be able to update this photo.

If I had a category called "First World Problems", this would be the top post.

Training Bonsai to Emulate Real Trees

“Even if one tree falls down it wouldn't affect the entire forest." ― Chen Shui-bian

Except when one tree is the entire forest. Have you heard about L'Arbre du Ténéré, the Tree of Ténéré? It was a lone acacia, either Acacia raddiana or Acacia tortilis, and it was the most isolated tree on the planet. Located in northeast Niger in the middle of the Sahara Desert, it was the only tree around for 250 miles. Then, in 1973, it was hit by a drunk driver and destroyed. This is what it looked like before the drunk driver found the only obstacle in his path for 250 miles.

This page has the recent history of the once 300-year-old acacia in photographs. So, as I'm reading about this tree, it occurs to me that it might be interesting to try to train bonsai to look like specific trees we admire. Perhaps a famous tree, like this, or the Lone Cypress, El Árbol del Tule, the Tree of Life, or the Lahaina Banyan Tree, or perhaps just trees we see and admire around us. Many of these trees in nature do not follow the rules of bonsai, but rules in bonsai are really just guidelines. Suggestions. Starting points. Do you really want your collection of trees to be row upon row of triangles inside triangles on top of triangles? I don't.

So I'm starting with L'Arbre du Ténéré. I'm going to begin by looking at what I have to see if any of them might be trainable in the L'Arbre du Ténéré "style". I might be able to do it with a boxwood, or a chinese elm, or a pepper tree, and I'm going to see if it works. The trunk will be easy. The look and feel of the crown will be harder to copy. When I'm done, if I do it right, a lot of my brethren will think it to be an ugly tree in great need of styling, but I will be very happy with it.

Adjusting Acidity and Aklalinity

“...a single thought can change the polarity of our entire body toward either life or death - and can likewise change its entire chemistry toward increasing alkalinity or acidity to strengthen it or weaken it...”― Walter Russell

In chemistry, pH is the measure of the acidity or alkalinity or basicity of a solution. Solutions with a pH below 7 are considered acidic, while those above 7 are considered basic or alkaline. Solutions of exactly 7 are neutral. Pure water has a pH of approximately 7. Most species that are commonly used for bonsai are tolerant of a wide pH range. Most that have a preference (e.g., azalea, bougainvillea, many juniper and coniferous species such as spruce and larch, for example) tend to do better in slightly acidic soil. If you have hard water, you are probably slowly but constantly increasing the pH in your soil, which can weaken acid-loving trees.

So how do you safely add acidity to your soil? There are plenty of products at your local garden center, but there is also a cheap alternative. Coffee grounds. Acid loving plants do well with coffee grounds mixed into the soil, sprinkled on top, or poured on. You can also make a soil drench by soaking 6 cups of coffee grounds in a 5 gallon bucket of water. After 2 or 3 days use this solution to water.  For faster action, add a few tablespoons of vinegar to your next watering. Adding sphagnum or sulfur can also lower the pH of the soil.

Another handful of plants (e.g., boxwoods, maple, weigela and forsythia) prefer alkalinity. The garden center has solutions for this, too - generally, bags of lime (calcium carbonate) that run $10 to $40 and aren't needed very often. The average household has a cheap alternative to this, too.  Eggshells. Eggshells are more than 90% calcium carbonate. And every time you buy a dozen eggs, you get a dozen eggshells for free. I pile them up in their box with the uneaten eggs until the whole thing is full. Then the cartoon goes outside to dry out. Once they are completely dry (which is almost immediately in warm weather) I crush them and stick the pieces into a blender. A few seconds later, I have a little pile of 90%+ calcium carbonate to bag up and use as needed. In addition to the calcium, the eggshells contain about 1% nitrogen, about a half-percent phosphoric acid, and other trace elements that make them a practical fertilizer.

There you have it, two nearly free solutions to your pH level problems.

We Come to Snuff the Looper

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.”― R. Buckminster Fuller

or an ugly gray-brown moth, like the looper turns into. My bougainvillea have been introduced to some loopers. Loopers (disclisioprocta stellata) are green or brown caterpillars that dine on the foliage of bougainvillea. These inchworms look like bougainvillea stems, allowing them to camouflage themselves well. They are hard to avoid. The adult moth lays eggs on the underside of the leaves and the first sign you have them is when your leaves start exhibiting the scallop-shaped indentations of its bite marks. If you see this, and especially if you also see tiny black balls (looper poop) on the leaves, you have loopers.

They hide during the day and feed at night. The juveniles chow down on tender shoots and young leaves. Older loopers munch on mature leaves. They won't kill the plant, but they can defoliate quite a bit of the greenery and what remains will be ugly. Sometimes you can find them with a flashlight at 9 pm, and then you can kill them manually. More likely, you'll need pesticides. Bacillus thuringiensis will control young loopers, but may not work on older ones. Spinosad works against young and mature loopers. I've had success before using diluted neem oil. It smells foul, but it works.

Some Trees That Are Hard to Grow as Bonsai in SoCal

“The cactus thrives in the desert while the fern thrives in the wetland. The fool will try to plant them in the same flowerbox.”― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

My recent loss of a mimosa (the Sensitive Plant) when temperatures dipped below 30° got me looking at some of the species I was contemplating, and wondering if I should stop contemplating them. There are some popular bonsai species that won't typically thrive here in Zone 10, in Southern California.

1. Ilex Serrata (possumhaw berry)

This tree needs a cold dormancy to develop properly. That being the case, they won't grow well row here in Southern california. Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria), Pyracantha & Cotoneaster are good alternatives.

2. Picea Jezonensis. (Jezo Spruce)

This tree also needs a cold dormancy, which Southern California doesn't provide. At least not down here among the flatlanders. With a little extra care, you can grow dwarf Alberta spruce as an alternative.

3.  Callicarpa Japonica (Japanese Beautyberry)

Also needs a cold dormancy, and won't grow here in southern california. Other alternatives: Ilex Vomitoria or Ilex Vomitoria Pendula, Burfordi Holly, Nellie R Stevens Holly, Dwarf Pomegranate, Dwarf Barbados Cherry, Natal Plum, Chickasaw Plum, Surinam Cherry.

I've also heard that Euonymus Japonica struggles here without a cold spell, but I've seen those on display by local bonsaiists, so I'm dubious. The same is true of Chamaecyparis obtusa (Hinoki Cypress), which I'd been told cannot tolerate our Zone 10 summer heat waves. Yet, I've seen healthy specimens.

A Basic Instruction on the What, Why & How of Bonsai

“I don't want to believe. I want to know.”― Carl Sagan

A lot of beginners to bonsai, and a lot of strangers to the hobby of growing bonsai believe they know what bonsai is, and why and how people do what they do in bonsai. And a lot of them are wrong. But you can learn a lot about bonsai in just an hour or two, and this is a good place to start. I'm not sure who this guy is, but this 9 part video of a lecture given to a bonsai club under a tent in the rain is probably the best introduction to bonsai I've seen.

 

If you want to know the basics of bonsai, or even if you know, but want to understand how to explain it to others, this video set is worth watching.

Raffle Donations, Ulterior Motive Edition

“For it is in giving that we receive.”  ― St. Francis of Assisi

Sometimes, what we receive is information. I like information.

Confession: I really don't understand what makes some bonsai so much more valuable and desirable than others. I have some ideas, and can tell the difference between a great tree and an ugly tree, but many of the more subtle differences are still a mystery to me. If they had a bonsai edition of "The Price is Right", I wouldn't end up driving home in a new car.

Asking people doesn't always produce an honest or accurate answer. Some people will look at a masterpiece and launch into a tirade about some minor deviation from Japanese ideals and make it sound like this spectacular tree should just be burned on a cold night. Other people can take your most laughable work and offer you so many words of encouragement that you come away thinking you would get a couple hundred bucks if you put it up on eBay.

But raffle prizes are chosen honestly. If nobody likes it, it sits until the end. If everyone likes it, it gets taken early and you'll hear people groan over their missed chance to win it. So sometimes when I donate stuff to the club's raffle, I'm choosing a donation that will give me a feel for whether the material I'm developing is appealing to others. I donated this boxwood tree to the Christmas raffle at my club this year and was stoked to see it among the first things taken. It's rough material that hasn't had a real styling yet, but it was strong and healthy, and it has been cut back in the right places and allowed to start growing out and I thought it had a lot of potential. At least one person thought so, too.

The winner probably felt lucky to win it, but I might have been even happier. I got reinforcement that I'm picking the right material to work on and I'm doing some stuff right.

January Bonsai Tasks

"Feeling a little blue in January is normal." ― Marilu Henner

This is not the part of California I'm living in, but we are fully in the dead of winter. We don't get extremely cold, but we do get some nights that drop into the 30s or even the 20s.  Not much is happening with most of my trees, which is good because there's so little time to work on trees before dark except on the weekends. Here's a list of some of the things I can or will do this month:

• Maintenance - Deciduous trees benefit from a spray of lime-sulpher dormant spray. Because our climate is so mild, there's no need for me to protect the trees with mulch or put them into a greenhouse for the winter.
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• Placement -  If we expect a frost, I might move some stuff into the garage for a night or two. I lost a young mimosa already this winter because I didn't know it was only hardy from Zone 11. If a massive storm is forecast, I'll move some of the more fragile trees under cover. And I need to move a whole bench of trees that, as I recently discovered, get pounded by gutter overflow when it rains heavily.
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• Watering - I'll check the pots daily, and water only when the surface is dry. The exception to this rule is the tropicals. They get water at least every other day. My natives are still down to watering once a week. That might even be too much. I think I may be losing one of my manzanitas.
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• Feeding - For most of my trees, no feeding this month. Maybe some soil amendments (softening hard soil or adding acidic components to alkaline soils); nothing else until our first February heat wave, or until I see buds swelling, whichever comes first. Exceptions: I'm giving the junipers and boxwoods some 0-10-10 every couple of weeks.
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• Wiring - It's still an excellent time to wire, especially the bare deciduous trees. I've read that some trees are more brittle during the winter, and thus averse to heavy bending, but I'm not actually seeing that in my trees. My California juniper, for example, is extremely flexible.
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• Pruning - This is a very good time to work on shaping trees, particularly pines and deciduous broadleafs. I have five pines that I've been waiting to work on, and this month I make some major branch cuts on all of them. One of them is getting a trunk chop down to the bottom six inches.
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• Grafting - This is another good month to attempt grafts, particularly in conifers. I have a couple of opportunities to sit in on grafting demos this month, and I hope to attend one or both.
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• Transplanting - Aside from pines and putting bare-root saplings into sand and diatomite, I'm doing no transplanting this month.
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• Collecting - I'm putting off collecting this month unless the material will become unavailable if I wait.
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• Cuttings - Hardwood cuttings can still be taken this month. It's still a good time to root juniper cuttings.
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• Seeds - I started a lot of stratification of seeds this month. I'm mulling over buying a few more conifer seeds. Anything that goes into the wine cooler this month will be planted in late March or April, which is good timing.
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• Planning - This is a good time of year to organize soil materials, sift soil ingredients and start mixing soil for March repotting. I'm buying and washing pumice, diatomite and my last bags of turface (I'm phasing out my turface use). I'm making complete mixes, mostly my 3-to-1 and 4-to-1 mixes; but also making mixes of just organic material for when I want to quickly put together a batch of something other than the 3-to-1 and 4-to-1 mixes. My organic mix is made of high quality potting soil, small orchid bark, compost and small quantities of worm castings, insect frass and azomite.

It's a bummer to come home from work in the cold and dark, unable to do much with my trees, but at least the days are finally getting longer.

Go Home, Bonsai. You're Drunk!

“Vladimir leaned forward. “Never dilute vodka. Is sin.”― Jennifer Lane, On Best Behavior

To my dozens of readers, I pose a question that I've not heard asked before in bonsai circles:

Do you give your trees liquor?

I have not tried this myself. But I might. According to information I've found on the Internet, for several years at least, scientists have known that administering diluted vodka and other non-sugary spirits (so no rum, wine, beer) can stunt growth in at least some plants without endangering the plant.

William Miller, director of Cornell’s Flower Bulb Research Program, published findings in the April 2006 issue of HortTechnology, a peer-reviewed journal of horticulture, that giving some plants diluted alcohol, such as whiskey, vodka, gin or tequila, can stunt the growth of a plant’s leaves and stems without affecting the blossoms. The study came after a New York Times reader claimed to have used gin to stunt the growth of paperwhite narcissi without affecting the blooms.

Miller conducted experiments with ethanol, dry gin, unflavored vodka, whiskey, white rum, gold tequila, mint schnapps, red and white wine and pale lager. He reported that solutions greater than 10 percent alcohol were toxic, but solutions between 4 and 6 percent alcohol stunted the paperwhites effectively. Sugar negated the effects.

Miller offered three possible explanations: (a) on a cellular level, the alcohol could be damaging the plant roots' ability to absorb water efficiently; (b) the alcohol could be causing the plant to expend energy extracting water from the solution; and (c) the plant could be using energy to eliminate alcohol it had absorbed.

Common sense tells me that this is a recipe to harm your trees. Or a joke.  I'm a little worried that if I try this experiment on any of my own trees, it'll be like falling for that malicious Internet advice about recharging your cell phone faster by putting it in the microwave for two minutes.

On the other hand, science sometimes surprises us with counterintuitive solutions to our problems. If it turned out that a 5% vodka solution would shorten node lengths and leaf sizes without killing the tree or dulling the blooms on flowering bonsai, that would be pretty cool.

I think I'm going to try this in the spring, using some pairs of very similar Chinese elm seedlings. I have hundreds of those; they are young; I have little invested in them; and they would be easy to replace. If the alcohol solution works, I might try it on some other species. If it doesn't, at least I won't have lost any valuable trees.

The solution could be expensive, too.  The cheapest, strongest vodka I can buy is Nokolai or Jacquin's, which comes in at 100 proof for $8 per liter. I've never tried drinking the stuff. I can't imagine $8/liter vodka being very good. 100 proof is 50% alcohol, so it gives me half a liter of water and half a liter of vodka. To dilute that to 5%, I need to add 9 liters of water, yielding 10 liters of 5% alcohol solution - a little more than 2.6 gallons of water. I'm not sure how long that eight bucks is going to last me. I know this, it's not going to be a good solution to use on all my trees, all the time. When I fertilize with liquid fertilizer, I go through about 7 or 8 mixes in my 2 gallon watering can. That means a single vodka watering of everything would run me $50 to $60. Too steep. But if it works, I might use it from time to time on trees that are exhibiting undesirable leggy growth.

Anyhow, Happy New Year. Don't drink all my undiluted bonsai water tonight.

[Update] I found American Pride Vodka on sale for $8.99 for 1.75L at my local Total Wine & More. Since it is 80 proof instead of 100 proof, the dilution rate is 7 to 1.  That gets the price of my solution down from 2.56 cents per ounce to 2.06 cents per ounce, and for my $9.74 (including the sales tax), I'm getting about 3.7 gallons instead of 2.6 gallons. Much better.

Shown by the Bay, Born in the USA

“If you take advantage of everything America has to offer, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.”  ― Geraldine Ferraro

Are you going to be in the Bay Area over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend? Bay Island Bonsai is having an All-American bonsai exhibit on Saturday and Sunday of that weekend at the Oakland Lakeside Garden Center, 666 Bellevue Avenue, Okland, CA 94610.

Auction on Saturday, with preview at Noon and auction at 1 PM. Bonsai demonstration by Boon Manakitivipart on Sunday at 1PM. Guided tours of the exhibit both Saturday and Sunday. Vendor sales, Club sales, Educational bonsai material for sale. Hours: 10AM – 4PM Saturday and Sunday. Entry to exhibit is free, donations accepted. For more information: (510) 919-5042.

The club is planning a ‘Born in the USA’ exhibit that will be considered international in quality, but will only feature bonsai that were started in the United States.  There will be no imported bonsai in the exhibit. Every displayed tree must have been propagated, locally, in the USA. Like this beautiful redwood.

55 year old Sequoia sempervirens (California Coastal Redwood) bonsai from Brooklyn Botanic Garden. © 2007 Jeffrey O. Gustafson

It should be a good show.

Growing Juniper Bonsai From Seed

"Like the seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring." ― Kahlil Gibran

At times, I hate the winter, even a winter as mild as the kind we endure in Southern California. To get me through those moments, I sometimes break out seeds and remind myself that winter is the only time I can plant some of these seeds to assure myself of a long first growing season for my new plants. My newest project is going to be Chinese Juniper seeds. Here's how I do it:

1. Pre-Soak in hot water: Six hours minimum, overnight at longest. Consider discarding any seeds that float, as they tend to have a very poor chance of germination. I bought my seeds from a reputable seller online, so before beginning this process, I just kept the seeds in a cool, dry place. If you collect the berries yourself, remove the seeds and wash them with warm water three times per day for a week, then store in a cool dry place until you are ready to begin the process.

2.  Drain the water and nick each seed (scarifying) with a sharp knife.

 

3.  Prepare a sterile germination mix. Saturate, then drain the germination mix. Some mixes that people have recommended:

• 3 parts DE, 1 part coarse sand, 1 part peat or compost (I prefer this mix)
• 4 parts seed starter mix, 1 part sand

4.    Put the seeds into a container. Leave at least ¼” empty at the top; sow seeds 1-2” apart 1/3” to ¾” and cover with ¼” of germination mix. This photo was taken before I spaced and covered my seeds. Some people like to add a thin layer of mulch.

5.  Finally, cover it with a lid or plastic wrap and refrigerate at approximately 40 degrees for 60-120 days. (No need for a photo of that, right?)

Starting at about the 30 day mark, inspect your seed container once a week. If the mix is drying out at the surface, water it lightly, keeping the mix damp, but not wet.

If any of your seeds germinate early, remove and plant those ones and leave the rest until your next weekly inspection. As seeds germinate, place them in potting soil outdoors in shady location and/or on a heating mat. Once they are planted, water regularly like any other seedling. 

Transplant your seedlings to 4” pots when they get 2-6” tall.

Some people advocate keeping the seeds on a heating mat at 70-75 degrees for 8-12 weeks before (or in lieu of) cold stratification. I haven't tried that method.

Some people advocate doing the cold stratification in a bag of peat, vermiculite, sand or grit before sowing the seeds.

Don’t give up on the seeds that haven’t germinated in the first 3 months. They may continue to sprout for more than 2 years. Each seed has its own degree of viability. Some will germinate at once; others will go dormant for months or years before germinating. Don't waste your seeds by assuming that they were duds. Give them time.

Bonsai-A-Thon XVIII 2014

"A good example has twice the value of good advice." ― Turkish Proverb

Bonsai-A-Thon XVIII will be held at The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens, located at 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, on Saturday February 22 & Sunday February 23, 2014.

Bonsai-A-Thon is the annual fundraiser for the GSBF Collection at The Huntington. I've never been to it before, but I'm planning to attend this year, at least one of the days. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. both days. Admission is free with Bonsai-A-Thon “early bird” registration between 8:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Attendees will have access to all the Huntington collections on this trip as well as all bonsai activities. Here are the schedules:

Saturday, February 23rd 2013

• 7:30 – 9:30 am: Early Bird Registration: Free pass to all of The Huntington Gardens; Pancake breakfast available.
• 8:00 – 5:00 pm: Bazaar and bonsai exhibits: Top quality tools, pots and trees on sale; Masterpiece trees on display.
• 10:00 – 11:30 am: Guided tour by Jim Folsom: Highlights of plans for future expansion of Japanese Garden.
• 10:00 – Noon: Morning Demonstrations: Initial training and advanced techniques
• 11:30 – 1:30 pm: Lunch: Hotdogs and hamburgers available.
• 1:00 – 2:45: Afternoon Demonstrations.
• Demo presenters: Harry Hirao, Mel Ikeda, Peter Macasieb, Cesareo Perez, Tak Shimazu, Michael Sykes

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

• 7:30 – 9:30 am: Early Bird Registration: Free pass to all of The Huntington Gardens; Pancake breakfast available.
• 8:00 – 5:00 pm: Bazaar and bonsai exhibits: Top quality tools, pots and trees on sale; Masterpiece trees on display.
• 9:00 – Noon Trident Maple Workshop led by Ted Matson – limited to 10 people, for details, contact Ted at [email protected].
• 10:00 – 11:30 am: Guided tour by Jim Folsom: Highlights of plans for future expansion of Japanese Garden.
• 10:00 – Noon: Morning Demonstrations: Initial training and advanced techniques
• 11:30 – 1:30 pm: Lunch: Hotdogs and hamburgers available.
• 1:00 – 2:45: Afternoon Demonstrations.
• 3:00 – 4:30 Raffle and Live Auction: Demonstration trees and donated trees, pots
• Demo presenters: Frank Goya, Bob Hilvers, Marcus Juniel, Cheryl Manning, Al Nelson, David Nguy

Other Features

• Extensive Bazaar Area –Select vendors selling top-quality tools, pots and trees (raw material to display-ready)
• Masterpiece trees on display
• Bonsai Exhibit - By Baiko-En Bonsai Kenkyukai Society
• Special Exhibit - local potters and their trees

For more information, contact Marge Blasingame, (626) 579-0420 [email protected].

My Bonsai Christmas Gifts

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.” ― Charles M. Schulz

Not surprisingly, I got a few bonsai related Christmas gifts this year, including two new concave cutters (6 3/4" and 10 1/2") and these little shimpaku junipers that my wife drove 60 miles to score for me.

I'm going to make shohin out of them.

Merry Christmas!