August 2005 Column

We have some business to attend to, which I will be bringing up at the general meeting, but I thought that I should touch on it here as well. In November we will have the election of new officers and board members who will be responsible for running the club for the next year. While the current board is doing a fine job it is important that newer members become involved in the business aspects of the club. This is vital so that the club does not stagnate but instead can continue to provide programs that are relevant to the entire membership and helpful to beginners in particular. If you are new to the club, and would like to become involved, speak to a member of the current board. We will need a new President, Vice-President and Secretary for the upcoming year and we also could use more board members at large. Think about what programs you would like to see in the future and find out how getting involved in the planning can open your eyes to the larger world of bonsai.

The board voted that membership for new members will be raised to $30 to include $5 for a nametag; renewing membership will remain $25 per year. This is to encourage the use of nametags at meetings so that everyone has an easier time being friendly. If you are already a member and would like a nametag please speak to Steve Jang, they cost $5. You can e-mail him at midgetrees@sbcglobal.net or call him at (650) 571-8159. Also of interest to newer members: we have posted an electronic copy of the New Member Packet to the website. Go to the main page and click on the link to download and print it out.

We have set a date for the Asian Art Museum exhibit, it will be the second weekend in December; the 10th and 11th. This will be a small show that displays the best of what our club produces. We are looking for any interested members to sign up for security and demonstration shifts. This includes a free pass to get into the museum (and free parking!) which will be presenting a special exhibit during this time called: ?Traditions Unbound: Groundbreaking Painters from 18th-Century Kyoto?

The club is once again working to put together Hapi Coats and T-shirts for members to buy. This time we are looking to use a local embroidery shop which will charge only $5 per item (in addition to the cost of the coat/t-shirt-hat etc). With our show coming up at the Asian Art Museum it is more important than ever that members have hapi coats to wear.

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The club has had an active month with many more activities coming up. Welcome to all the new members who came to us for the Basics Workshop. I hope to see all of you at upcoming general meetings and third Thursday workshops. Don?t forget to come back for the second session of the Basics Workshop for more instruction and a lesson on repotting.

Thanks to everyone who attended the Dorothy Day Community Center social. Working at the community center helps both the center and our club by improving the garden there and providing opportunities for our members to learn about working on bonsai. We have already scheduled the next event which will be on the second Saturday in August (the 13th) at noon. Once again there will be a barbecue and lots of work getting done in the garden. I hope to see you there. I especially encourage newer members to attend, even if you have little or no experience you and the garden can benefit from an afternoon of work.

The maple that I defoliated last month is back in leaf and growing strong. It?s been a little foggy in my yard of late but the leaves are coming out strong anyway. Three of my little pines that I candle cut in June are budding back all over the place to the point that I have had to thin out the buds before they get so tightly clustered that they form a large bulge on the branch. And, despite my doom-saying, all but one of the pine seedlings that I root cut made it through the process and are thriving. I am hoping to repot them into individual containers in the spring and start fertilizing like mad.

I spent third Thursday rewiring and defoliating my little olive clump. The trunks were going all over the place before the wiring but are now looking much more orderly and interesting. I will be feeding it a lot and letting it rest for the remainder of the year. When I was just beginning to get into bonsai I didn?t really understand why people put wire on a tree. Even after the first few times that I tried wiring something the reason still wasn?t apparent to me. It wasn?t until I took a piece of material that looked all shaggy and uninteresting and wired the entire tree into a nicely shaped bonsai that I realized how important wiring really is. Don?t just throw a little wire on here and there and expect a huge transformation. Go through and systematically wire the entire tree and position each branch precisely?then the finished product will look more refined and you will understand why wiring is important.

Finally, the club is working toward putting on a winter show at the Asian Art Museum. The show will be small and will showcase the very best of what BSSF has to offer. Please speak to myself or John Edwards if you have any trees, accents or suiseki that you would like us to consider using.

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I posted a photo of all my Knobcone pine seedlings to the website a few weeks ago in the show and tell section?but I have now gone ahead and dug them out of the flat and cut off the tap roots. I used KLN rooting hormone on them in the process; on a couple I used it undiluted, which seems like it didn’t work out, they showed almost immediate signs of salt burn and died within a day. On most of the rest I used it in the recommended dilution and planted the now cuttings in neat little rows. Even so, I think that many of them may die since I may have waited too long to perform the procedure. Those articles in Bonsai Today don’t really specify the exact procedure; they just give you a few bits of information. I left a few of the trees with roots intact, just trimming them a little and transplanting them. I started with 38; hopefully after all the trauma at least a dozen will make it. If anyone has any suggestions for how exactly this should be done please let me know. I plan to try again with Black Pine or possibly a different California native.

While I was chopping away at trees I decided to defoliate my Maple. With all the hot weather here I figured that it was time to get down to it. This is the second year that I have defoliated this tree and it shows all the more signs of vigor for the treatment. The leaves have reduced slightly from last year and the ramification has increased greatly. After I defoliated it I noticed that there are roots from the tree growing through and over the moss that I added for the spring show…I considered repotting it but decided against it in the end since it was repotted in February of this year already.

I would like to encourage everyone to come out to the Dorothy Day Community Center for the club work day on Saturday June 11th. Dorothy Day has a great little bonsai garden which benefits greatly from the efforts of our club. It is a great opportunity to work on material that is enjoyed by many people. There will be refreshments and socializing and plenty of bonsai to go around.

After Tim Kong’s program on Redwoods I came home and took another look at the redwoods in my yard. I had just finished roughly styling the biggest one at the meeting, but the others were in need of a little care. I have four, ranging from the behemoth that I worked on at the meeting to a shohin. One of them I trimmed back hard a month ago, the others I took a pair of scissors to and cut off everything that didn’t work with my final design. I find that it is relatively easy to develop a silhouette on redwoods, but just like other trees it takes a lot more effort to refine the branches and make them look really great.

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April has been a busy time for me; apart from my new duties as a father, I am trying to keep up with the growth of my bonsai. I took the inagural session of the John Boyce workshop and worked on a couple junipers: one California and one Shimpaku. I am realizing that I have a lot of material in my back yard that suddenly needs to be worked on. The Shimpaku is small and originally came from the basics workshop last spring. I let it grow for most of last year to fatten the trunk a little; but could no longer resist the urge to style it. John had me make short jin out of the larger, low branches; then we trimmed back the smaller branches and wired them into place. It’s shaping up to be a nice little shohin. The California Juniper is a tall guy, but skinny. I didn’t do much more than trim it back; it hopefully will back bud in the right spots. John assured me that it would…once it’s done it will be an interesting medium-sized bunjin.

John Edwards and I, with contributons from Andrea, Tim, Bernard and J.D., put on a display at the Friends of the Urban Forest benefit art auction on the 25th. This was a great opportunity for our club to get out and be seen by a lot of people that are interested in trees and art. We had a great response to the display; talked to a few prospective members; saw Mayor Newsom speak about trees and “greening” the city; and even got a lead for a large donation to the club.

Thanks to Tim Kong and Steve Jang for spearheading our club’s contribution to this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival. Once again I was unable to attend, but I heard that it was a great success and that the display was fantastic. Collaborations like Cherry Blossom and the FUF display help to strengthen our ties to the community and make our presence known so that more people who are interested in bonsai have the opportunity to learn from us.

Thanks also to John Boyce for a nice demonstration in March. I enjoyed hearing the story of his travels through Japan and how it influenced his bonsai designs. Taking the long-term approach to bonsai is something that everyone should think about. I try to work both on material that will develop quickly (like redwoods that I have collected from canyons in Mendocino county) and material that will develop over a long time (like Knobcone pine seedlings started from a cone I collected in the Santa Cruz Mountains) so that I have something to learn refinement techniques on and I have something to learn stock developement techniques on. I don’t know how much I’ve got right at this point, but I’ll keep trying, all the while enjoying the passage of time and the growth of my trees. That is what bonsai is all about.

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April ‘05

A warm welcome to all of those members who joined our club after seeing the show at the Cow Palace. I saw the show for the first time about three years ago and decided to join. Bonsai is a wonderful way to connect with the world around you, be it people or nature. It will make you pay attention to the weather like never before, appreciate the angle of the sun and its variation through the year, and learn about all those fascinating full sized trees. It will give you access to a community which includes many amazing people, all of them willing to help in your hoticultural-artistic endeavors. After three years I am still a beginner, so stick with it for five and you’ll find your efforts beginning to be rewarded, although your concsciousness will have long been greatly expanded.

I want to thank all of our members for once again putting together a great display. Special thanks go to Diana Lum for coordinating the entire effort, but thanks also to all the docents, sales staff and demonstrators for making this such a fun and successful show.

Don’t forget that the club has another show coming up soon, albeit a smaller one. The bonsai display at The Cherry Blossom Festival happens in the Sakura room of the Radisson Miyako hotel in Japan Town. Saturday and sSunday April 23-24 10am-5pm both days.

Finally, (although it is first on my mind these days) I should mention that Dory and I welcomed our son Bryce Edward Schrader into the world at 10:19pm on March 22nd. He weighed in at 8 lbs 8.1 oz and was 20 inches long. Dory, he and I are home and have recovered fully from the whole experience, although I am getting a lot less sleep than I did previously. There are photos on my website: www.phutu.com & I will try to bring a few into the meeting for those interested-but-unwired folks.

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February was a busy time for me. I started the month off by working on my little pine. I’ve had it for a couple years now and it is really coming along. I repotted it, tilting the angle a bit further to the right; then I removed the top in favor of a branch that I bent up and around to become the new apex which increased the taper and the movement of the trunk. In the process I was hoping to shorten the tree a little; It’s right on the edge of what people consider shohin…although I think it is a little too large still.

Throughout the weeks I have slowly repotted almost all of my trees. Tim helped me with a couple redwoods, which I brought in for show and tell. Then I repotted my large oak tree before bringing it in for the third Thursday Walter Pall workshop. I hacked off a bunch of large old dead branches and cleaned the tree up. Thanks to John Edwards and Walter for coming up with the best front. I had planted the tree in a large pot with the two trunks spread as far as possible, but we determined that the tree looked much better with the smaller trunk slightly behind the larger one. After seeing my oak Steve Jang invited me over to his house to see the Cork oak that he saved from Sudden Oak Death; it has a lot of small branches, unlike mine. I will spend the coming years developing those small branches on my oak so that it looks like a natural tree.

I have also been digging trees out of my front yard. For the last couple years whenever I got something that was too small to work on I would plant it in my little front plot to let it go wild for a while. I dug up a couple oaks and potted them after cutting off the large root systems and leaving smaller roots near the trunk. I repotted a couple young pines that I have into smaller containers to see how the trees look when they develop more slowly. With bonsai it always seems that things are years away.

Thanks to all the people who brought in trees to the February meeting for show and tell. I am always amazed at the variety of things that people are working on…from John Boyce’s tiny quince to Tim’s massive deciduous conifers.

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I took the beginner’s workshop that John Edwards taught this past summer. From it I refreshed my knowledge of the basic styles and techniques in bonsai and took away a one gallon Shimpaku Juniper….(I wish someone would settle the whole shimpaku as a variety versus shimpaku as all juniper argument for good.) I hadn’t done anything to it since the workshop; I was thinking that I would let a few of the larger low branches grow for another year to fatten up the trunk before I really did any styling. But after helping Kathy with a Juniper in October and having John Boyce help me with one at our January third thursday workshop I decided to repot it over the weekend. It went into a somewhat oversized bonsai container after a meticulous root clean and trim. Of course I am now remembering that the last time I took a one gallon juniper and repotted it into a bonsai container it died…I’ve killed more trees in the last year than I can count. I cut off the longest parts of the large branches and the top to reduce the foliage mass and then stopped. All of those dead trees have taught me to be a little more cautious when it comes to the amount of work that I do at one time.

I want to thank Jay McDonald for his display of Show and Tell trees at the January meeting. I think that for a while now many of the rest of us have forgotten the value of the Show and Tell table. While Jay tends to bring in trees that are refined and potted in nice containers, not everyone has to do that. Show and tell is an educational tool for everyone in the club. From the freshest beginner to the grissled veterans, seeing other people’s projects and triumphs can inspire, amuse and enrich the minds of everyone. I’ll be bringing a couple things to the February meeting, if your name appears in the show and tell section please bring a few things and if it doesn’t, but you have a tree that you recently worked on consider bringing it in.

I’m happy to say that the seasonal work calendar, which John Boyce, John Edwards, myself and Aaron Newton have been working on is available on the main page of the website. This is a great tool for beginners and intermediate students alike who need a reminder of when to do what work. Please feel free to download the file and print copies for yourself. Remember that the guidlines are for San Francisco only and may not be appropriate for other locations. And for those of you who do not have access to a computer just ask me at a meeting, I should have a couple extra copies on hand.

Finally, Walter Pall will be conducting a day-long third thursday workshop this month. See the program notes for details; I think that everyone should consider taking this workshop. Walter is well known for collecting and working on collected material, but even if you don’t have anything collected he can do wonders. The club will have five gallon junipers available for sale for $25 which are healthy and ready to be worked on. So for a total price of $65 for the whole day workshop and material you can walk away with the beginnings of a really nice tree.

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Many thanks to Marco Invernizzi for his assistance and advice in our November special workshop. My pine tree went from having just a mass of disheveled needles and branches on top to looking like a nice tree in training. Marco helped me select a front, modify the planned planting angle, clean up and jin three branches, raffia a large branch and wire all the major branches. I continued wiring the next morning on my own to move some of the smaller branches into place. It was such a transformation that I have been taking every chance to look at the tree while I am in my yard so that I can plan the next stage of work for next year and in the years to follow. I wish that I had taken the full day workshop so that I could have worked on some of my other material with Marco as well.

I also want to thank everyone that signed up for the workshops. As John Edwards and I have often written, hands on workshops with experienced bonsai teachers are the best and fastest way to improve your skills and techniques. In the year to come we will be scheduling more workshops and I hope that we will have participation equal to what we had in November. I think it is worth mentioning that the club plans to have Marco back next year if arrangements can be made for another workshop.

Also keep your ears peeled for a big announcement regarding monthly workshops. The club is trying to schedule a monthly intermediate / advanced workshop similar to the ones that Mas Imazumi provided to the club in years past. Once we have an instructor, time and price established I will be looking for people who are willing to commit to recurring lessons. These workshops will require that you sign up for a year’s worth of lessons. The benefits of this format are innumerable, participants will quickly advance their knowledge and be able to understand through recurring monthly instruction many of the more subtle or difficult aspects of the art of bonsai. Think about it! And start gathering appropriate material! (the club will be providing good material in upcoming raffles!)

I am looking forward to our Holiday party for a chance to socialize with other club members. It seems that the last few months I have been so busy working on my own trees at the meetings that I haven’t even had a chance to talk to many of you. The club will be providing beverages and some food for the party but I encourage you all to bring your favorite dish to share with everyone. I especially encourage some of the newer members who were not able to come to the November workshop to stop in. As one member told me last year, “It’s great to get a holiday present from the club” (hint: there are door prizes!….yeah free bonsai stuff!)

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I had a great time at the Valerie Monroe wiring workshop. This past February on the advice of John Edwards, who happened to be standing near me while I looked around, I bought a tall juniper at the Mammoth Fundraiser at the Collection North. It looked like a three foot tall drunken Christmas tree at the time. At the spring show I used it as a demonstration tree, it took me a couple hours, but the initial styling went well in my opinion. I then let it grow freely for most of the season; It started off sending out juvenile foliage and then slowly reverted back to scale foliage. I brought it into the workshop because it seemed like a year’s worth of growth had made it a little disheveled looking. I spent most of the time cleaning out the foliage pads and wiring the branches into place. I think that it’s now one of my favorite trees. It’s amazing how a little wiring can really transform a tree into something so much more interesting and beautiful. Thanks to Val and also to John Boyce who has been helping me with this tree.

I spent the day of October 19th over at the Collection North helping Kathy Shaner repot trees. Kathy and Mr. Mitsuya have determined that the best time to repot all the junipers is at the beginning of our rainy season since it gives the tree a long period of high humidity and low temperatures to re-establish a root structure. This is a little contrary to what I have been taught in the past, although people say that juniper is so forgiving that you can repot it almost anytime. Kathy and I bare-rooted a California Juniper and placed it out in the pouring rain while we mixed soil and prepared the pot for planting. Normally you should prepare everything in advance of removing the soil to minimize exposure of the roots, but with cool weather and rain falling the tree was perfectly happy waiting for a few minutes. I also helped to remove the shade cloth from over the backstage area. With winter upon us it is important that trees receive as much light as possible. Even deciduous trees benefit from direct sunlight; it warms the pots and roots, dries the soil from the drenching rain and stimulates the buds in the spring.

I suggest that everyone visit the collection sometime in the coming months. Seeing the trees in winter silhouette is a treat for me. Amazingly, due to our wacky weather, many of the Azaleas are blooming right now! They have also recently installed a giant juniper outside the front entrance to greet visitors. Take some time to visit, or even better become a docent!

Finally, I have to give my thanks to Cuong Ta who joined the club a few months ago. While at the 3rd Thursday workshop in October Cuong showed me a couple bonsai pots that he had made. He was trying to make one for a quince that he has, but after talking to Tim and I he realized that what he made wasn’t ideal…so it was back to the drawing board for him and a free pot that is perfect for my Olive tree! Thanks Cuong!

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Well, Fall is officially here and I can no longer pretend that the hot weather is still part of summer. This growing season has seen a lot of change in my yard. I relandscaped the yard and built new benches to support the trees; but more than that I saw a large number of my trees pass on. I find it very frustrating when a tree dies. My greatest loss was of my cascade pine. I had bought it a couple years ago and finally repotted it this spring. I am guessing that the stress of that repotting combined with a little too much attention from me is what did it in. I also lost a bunch of collected material; there were four trees that I collected in Tiburon of which only one is still alive. The lesson in all this is that one should never feel like they are beyond killing trees. I hope that in the seasons to come that I will show more aptitude and have a little more luck. I don’t plan to stop collecting, but I hope that those trees didn’t die for nothing. With the experience that I gained in trying to keep them alive I hope that the next trees will be luckier.

John Boyce and I, with the help of Aaron Newton and John Edwards have been compiling a calendar of guidlines for seasonal bonsai care in San Francisco. We hope to be passing out copies at the holiday party; it is a great at-a-glance reference for maintaining your trees. In the coming year we will also be compiling more detailed information and hope to put out a work calendar for each month.

I want to encourage all members of the club to participate as much as possible in the upcoming workshop programs. Although I was absent, I heard that very few people brought material for Mike Page’s carving demonstration. Our next two meetings are also workshops so bring in material! Valerie Monroe is an expert in wiring techniques; almost all trees will benefit from a little wiring and reshaping, bring in a tree that you have been neglecting and reshape it into one of your favorites! Marco Invernizzi is an Italian born, Japanese trained bonsai master; his experience with working on trees is enormous so don’t be afraid to bring in material for the November third thursday workshop! I saw trees that he worked on last year during his visit and was greatly impressed with the results. If you don’t have material to work on then you have been missing out on all of the great sales around the Bay Area. Our club auction is one of many; keep your eyes and ears peeled for upcoming sales…one of the largest happens at the Collection North in the Spring but Redwood Empire recently had a silent auction; East Bay had their auction recently as well, as did Marin Bonsai and Sei Boku in San Mateo. There’s lots of great material out there waiting to be worked on!

Finally, at the November meeting we will hold the annual elections for board members and officers. There are currently five members of the board who will be resigning with the end of this year so if you have an interest in running the club come talk to me or John Edwards. New members are encouraged to join the board; you don’t have to be a bonsai master to provide assistance and direction to the club.

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I am feeling oddly disconnected from bonsai at the moment. August is always a hard month for me; I spend four weeks away from home. I spent two weeks in Humboldt county recently and on the drive up highway 101 I was surprised to see that some of the trees were showing fall foliage and dropping leaves. When I came home a few days ago I looked around at my bonsai only to find that there was an odd assortment of behavior happening there too. My Chinese elm seems to have stopped growing for the season and is looking like it thinks it is fall. On the other hand all the redwoods that I have are pumping out new growth at an incredible rate. It seems that a cool august for the state of California has confused some of the trees.

I recently contacted the gentleman in charge of “Forest Products” for the Inyo National Forest near Bishop, CA. I learned that the members of our club could organize a collecting trip into the white mountians to collect Utah juniper and Pinyon pine for a very small fee: $5 per tree. I was in the white mountains earlier this summer and remember seeing some fantastic junipers that would make great bonsai; the deadwood has incredible character and many of the junipers are stunted and growing out of rock crevices. It is a long drive from San Francisco to Bishop, so I think I will also look into collecting in National Forest areas that are a bit closer. Please let me know if you have any interest in this kind of activity.

My stint at the California State fair is just beginning as I write this and I find myself walking around the city of Roseville in the morning looking at some of the remaining gorgeous oaks that haven’t been cleared away for houses and golf courses. There seems to be a bumper crop of acorns on many of them this year; if anyone is interested in some acorns let me know, I collected a few hundred, mostly from Blue oaks.

Finally, as most of you know, September is our club auction; please carefully look through your collections for material that is being neglected and consider donating it to the club. I know that I have a few trees that will probably be better off in the hands of someone else, and you probably do too. Also don’t forget all those unused pots and old magazines that could be better used by someone else.

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From The President

Well, as some of you know, I have the month of July off from work. This year I spent a great deal of the month landscaping my back yard. I had to relocate most of my trees to my front porch for a couple weeks while I was jackhammering cement out and building a rock wall and new stands for the trees. I have to thank Tim Kong and Jennie Low for the opportunity to get cheap landscaping plants. I had gone to some nurseries and was delaying buying plants because I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted when I realized that much of what I wanted for my garden was already sitting on my bonsai bench. The rest I collected from a property in Cupertino that was going to be cleared for new house developement.

I’m really happy with the result of the landscaping, but moving my trees forced me to conduct an interesting exercise in valuation. Knowing that the trees were relatively open to theft on my front porch I was reluctant to expose any of the nicest ones. However, I had very limited space available to keep them in the back yard. So, as I carried armloads of trees out I whittled down my collection to the trees that I cared about the most. It has made me realize that I could dispose of much of the material that I have without much guilt; I have earmarked some of it for the auction in September. Take a moment and try the same exercise. Actually physically moving each one of your trees will make you pay attention to the ones that you might usually ignore…think about why you never work on those trees and ask yourself if it is time for that particular piece of material to move on.

I went hiking again last week, this time to Desolation Wilderness, just west of Lake Tahoe. I was surprised to find some really nice specimens of California Junipers up there…check the message boards on our website for some photos of my favorites. Often our presentors will talk about high mountain trees and the way that they grow in nature; I found these trees to be quite inspiring and I hope that you do as well. It seems that the more of these types of trees we see the more capable we become in our imitations of them.

Don’t forget to bring trees to the august meeting…Mike Page will be doing a program on carving and will be choosing material brought by members to use in his demonstration.

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Bonsai means different things to different people: that I learned while attending the basics class given by John Edwards a couple weeks ago. With so many people who are new to the art I found a great variety of opinions on what bonsai can be all about. Sometimes people who know the least are the ones that we can learn the most from. Basics class participants took a bushy Juniper and learned by doing an initial styling. My own bush turned out to be pretty nice, I decided to leave on a couple of the low large branches to fatten the trunk a little, but in a few years it should be looking good. Check out the Show and Tell section of the website for a photo of my tree and a couple others.

I spent a week in the Canadian Rockies recently and found that the trees in the north are different from the ones that I admired while growing up in California. With an abundance of Lodgepole Pines, Engelmann Spruce and Subalpine Fir I was getting whiplash as I drove along the highways. I found that trees in this area are not generally as gnarled as they can be in the high deserts of California, but they have their own character all the same. Nearing the tree line on the mountain it was mostly the spruce that remained; and unlike in other high areas that I have visited, they seemed to resist the forces of nature more successfully. Many people are familiar with what is called the “Krummholz” form of a tree, where wind and extreme temperatures combine to reduce a species that normally grows to a hundred feet high to a sculpted bush. In the Canadian rockies I observed an intermediate form; many of the spruce still grew upright, but instead of having stronger growth at the tops of the tree, it was the base that grew most vigourously. The protection of being low to the ground seemed to encourage the lower limbs to expand more freely than the top. The result is a bit odd, but interesting to study all the same.

In a couple spots there were also some Larch, which I had never seen growing in the wild before. The trees had a whispy look to them, but the older and larger specimens seemed to develop nice pads of foliage.

This month we are fortunate to have Boon Manakitivipart as our guest demonstrator. Boon is well know in the Bay Area and around the coutry as an incredible bonsai artist. I hope to see a large crowd for what promises to be a great talk and demonstration on Shohin bonsai.

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It’s been a collection North sorta month for me and many members of the club. I wasn’t able to make it to the weeding party, but I heard that everyone had a great time and that the Merritt College pruners and the docents at the garden that day really liked the pizza. Tim Kong gave me a hard time for not coming out…but some people have to work…I was over there a couple weeks ago on a Monday to help Bob Gould and John Castle with the construction of a new shed in the reserve area behind the docent house. The collection’s a really nice place to spend an afternoon so if you didn’t make it out this time think about coming next time or signing up for docent duty. I will have sign-up sheets at the meeting as usual for anyone that wants to be a docent.

This month at the general meeting we will have a short discussion and a vote by the membership regarding the fate of the BSSF Logo tree. Please come and make your voice heard.

A fond farewell to Ron Stultz who has moved to Oregon to be with his children and grandchildren. Ron was a great guy and helped out tremendously with many club duties, he was a member of the board and he has done the docent scheduling for our spring show for the last few years. Good Luck to Ron, I know he’ll be reading this since he made the mistake of leaving us a forwarding address =hehe=

I was in attendance at the third thursday workshop this month and was lucky enough to get some one-on-one instruction from John E. and John B. since there were only four people! HAA! That’ll teach all of you not to show up! I did some wiring of my gnarly little Chinese Elm so that instead of standing there with its “arms in the air” it looked more like a tree again. I was inspired after my very first meeting, when Jim Gremel did a talk on these elms, to style one in the way that he does - like a pine tree. It’s a little more difficult than I imagined though since Elms don’t seem to like to have their branches trained downward; they head back skyward at their first opportunity. This is my second year training this one which I got from Lone Pine Nursery; I think it will be at least another three years before the branch structure is as full as I would like it despite the speed with which they grow.

Finally, Tim Kong and I are planning a soil mixing trip to Rice Trucking in Half Moon Bay on Monday, June 7th. If enough people are interested we will mix the soil there, otherwise we will return to Tim’s house and mix it in his driveway. The following Monday, June 14th we will be working at Tim’s house on Juniper slab plantings…a great opportunity for beginners especially to gain experience with muck, slabs, and junipers. All are welcome, please contact either Tim or myself if you are interested in coming for both or either. Tim: 387-7398 Eric: 970-8810 or use the contact link at left.

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May ‘04 From the President

The end of April has brought some really hot weather to my yard and I find myself trying to keep my smaller trees and recently repotted ones from drying out and wilting. Sheesh!

I had a great time once again at the Third Thursday workshop; this time I sliced and diced a Seiju elm, removing a large “slingshot” pair of branches and using the removed sections to make cuttings. This material makes such great small trees that I figure of the 100 or so cuttings I have planted in sand I can have little bonsai out of at least a few of them in only three or four years. We’ll see I guess; right now I just need to keep them all from drying out in the hot sun (by putting them in the shade and misting them.)

I didn’t manage to make it down to the Cherry Blossom festival this year but Tim Kong tells me that our club wow’d them with all the best trees in the show. Mike Page even made an appearance on the KRON 4 show “Henry’s Garden” to do a little explaining and demonstrating on bonsai techniques, during which our club got a really nice plug! I encourage you all to check out photos from the show on the IBC general forum at this address:

http://internetbonsaiclub.org/galleries/viewtopic.php?t=963

I want to encourage everyone to try to make it to the group work day at the Collection North on May 22nd. Especially for the newer members this is a great way to get to know people in the club and also to see the collection. Working in the garden gives a sense of satisfaction that just visiting cannot. And since the club will be providing lunch you have even more reason to come out!

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In the weeks after our big show there are so many things to think about. First, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of the new members that join us after seeing the exhibit at the Cow Palace. Only two years ago, although it seems like much more, I saw the exhibit and made my way to the April meeting. With almost no experience in bonsai I was eager to see what a bonsai club was all about. I had such a great time that I started to attend regularly. I hope that the encouragement that I received then will also be fostered on all of the new members now. This month’s program is perfect for the beginning enthusiast as boxwood is a resilient and forgiving material that makes great bonsai….now if it would only grow faster…but while you are waiting for it to grow over the years you can practice your carving skills.

Second, following the show I think it is appropriate to thank all the members of the club who contributed so much so that the show would be such a success. From the organizers, to the security and sales staff, to the members who brought trees for show and sale, everyone deserves a big thanks. I had no trouble finding people to fill the times for the ongoing demonstrations, and I had a great time giving a couple myself. I found that people at the garden show were generally very interested in the techniques and principles used in creating bonsai; and I managed to do my first ever complete rough styling of a tree by myself! I hope that in the years to come the Juniper that I worked on will become a really great tree.

The board is set to finalize the donation of our logo tree to the collection north at this month’s board meeting. There will be further dicussion on the subject and I encourage all members who want to express their opinions on the matter to attend the board meeting. I have heard from quite a few members and they seem to be split on the decision in much the same way that the board was. The meeting will start promptly at 7pm on the 26th of this month, same place.

Put a mark on your calendars now for our annual mass volunteering day at the collection North. This year we will be doing garden maintenance at the collection in conjuction with the Merritt College pruning class on Saturday May 22nd. The collection is a great place to spend a day; refreshments will be provided by the club. If you can’t make it on May 22nd there are openings for docent duty throughout the year; please take a look at the schedule on the website at: http://www.gsbf-bonsai.org/collectionnorth/docent.htm I will also try to have a printed copy to hand around at the general meetings.

Also, for all you newer members and even not so new members, if there is enough interest we will be offering our Bonsai Basics class sometime in the coming months. Bonsai basics is a workshop program; members bring their own tools, the cost of $30 includes instruction by John Edwards and material (generally 1-gallon Juniper from a nursery.) If you are interested please talk to either John or myself.

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For a few months now, there has been a discussion between the directors of the Collection North and BSSF. ?The issue is our logo tree. ?The tree has been permanently on display at the garden since it was styled by Mr. Mitsuya in December, and was there prior to that on a lease from BSSF. ?The Directors of the garden feel that the trees in the garden need to be wholly under the control of the curator and director and have thus asked that BSSF transfer ownership of the tree to the Collection permanently. ?It is currently the ONLY tree in the collection that is not owned by the collection. ??After a lengthy discussion, the board voted in a close decision to allow the tree to be donated to the Collection North with the stipulations that we be allowed to continue to use it as our logo and for our shows; and that if the tree is ever to be sold or otherwise disposed of that we have the first option to purchase it. ??This issue is important to us all, so I would like to hear from all concerned members before ownership of the tree is actually transferred. ?Please feel free to e-mail me or call me 415-970-8810 to express your opinion and concerns.
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I was happy with the turnout on such a rainy day for the collecting trip in Tiburon.? The people that were there had an easier than expected time digging the trees out of the ground since it was rain saturated.? The sun even broke through the clouds around noon, just in time for us to enjoy a little bit of lunch before returning to work.? The second date on the 28th had to be canceled due to scheduling conflicts; I am working to reschedule it and will inform everyone as soon as I know of a new date. We are also attempting to organize collecting trips to other destinations; if you own land that could be used by the club for collecting, or know of someone who would allow access please let me or another board member know.
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The show is coming up fast; I would once again like to encourage everyone in the club to bring in trees.? Our show receives more visitors than any other local bonsai show; we are the ambassadors of the bonsai community to the larger gardening public.? At this year?s show we will be educating the public about how easy and rewarding it is to become a bonsai artist with some special displays.? The first is a display of redwood trees, which highlights the incredible versatility of this locally available material.? Second, we will have an educational table with information about the basic progression of a juniper from four-inch nursery material to aged and elegant bonsai.? The table will also provide information about clubs around the area, the Collection North and nurseries that specialize in bonsai.? Third, thanks to the garden show, we will have a pagoda-style entrance to separate our show from the adjacent sales area.? Finally, courtesy of Gordon Deeg, we will have a real Tokanoma alcove for the logo tree.

As a final note, I want to encourage members to wear name tags at meetings. Especially considering the number of newer members, name tags facilitate an easy interaction between members of the club who are unfamiliar. Official and attractive name tags are available from Steve and Lorretta Jang for $5. Contact them at (650) 571-8159 or e-mail them.

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From the President

I’ve managed to secure two dates for people to collect material from a site in Tiburon. It is a Japanese style garden that is being removed to make way for a new building and new landscaping. There are many junipers as well as some pines, and maples. There are rocks of many different sizes as well as iris and other miscellaneous plants. The first day is Monday February 2nd which is coming up very soon and the second day is Saturday Feb 28th. A donation of $20 per participant is required, you can come either or both days. There is a lot of material so be prepared with picks and shovels and some strong arms! To get there take 101 north, exit Tiburon Blvd, head east for about a mile, turn right onto Greenwood Cove / Greenwood Bay dr (there is a gas station on the corner) immediately bear left onto Greenwood Beach drive and drive up past the apartment compexes to a small gravel parking lot on the right hand side at the top of a small hill. The house is next to a bird sanctuary, there is a wooden fence between it and the road and it sits right on the waterfront. The address is 382 Greenwood Beach Drive. We will be starting at 8:30am. There is enough room for one or two vehicles at a time to enter the property. There are no bathroom facilities on site, but there is currently running water. Special thanks to our webmaster, this opportunity came to us because of our website.

It is a sad day when you learn that a friend has passed away; I would like to express my sympathy to Doug Gee and his family on the passing of his partner Pearl Kishimoto. Pearl was a valuable member of our club and she will be missed.

I had a great time at the January workhop; Tim Kong provided some Ginkgo cuttings and I made some plywood boxes, which when put together made for the beginnings of a great little forest. J.D. Durst and Aaron Newton also partook in the madness of attaching cuttings to a piece of plywood with screws. This type of craziness works best with Ginkgo, but it seems like trying it with Willow cuttings would work as well. You can see a photo of the one that I made on the website, hopefully it will look really good in a couple years.

I remind you that annual membership dues are payable in January. If you have not paid your dues please forward them to Daryl as soon as possible; unpaid members will not receive the March newsletter.

Finally, I want to encourage members to participate in the discussions that happen on our club website. If you have a question, and can’t wait for a meeting, post it in the Q & A section. If you just restyled one of your favorite trees, take a photo and post it to the Show and Tell area. Also, check in from time to time for updates on workshops, collecting trips and other club activities. Go to www.bssf.org to check it all out.

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I was deeply saddened to learn that Mas Imazumi passed away on December 24th. Many members of our club were more well acquainted with him than I but I feel the loss as deeply as any. I met Mas for the first time at the most recent East Bay Bonsai Society show and then again when I visited Jim Gremel in the fall. Even in these two brief meetings I could feel the admiration and gratitude that so many people feel toward him, and I could tell that it was well deserved.

To quote Boon Manakitivipart from a recent posting to the IBC general forum:

“He was one of our bonsai pioneers. He taught all over the country and all over the world. To mention all his achievement would humble all of us.”

Many thanks go out to all of you who did the extra work to make the holiday party a success. I was glad that everyone had such a great time and that everyone walked away with a door prize.

This new year brings many new possibilities and exciting changes to our club as we have seen many new members coming in recently and an influx of new people to the Board. I encourage all of you to contact me or other members of the board if you have any suggestions or requests for programming, or just to let us know how the programming has influenced your bonsai experiences.

It’s not too early to start thinking about which trees in your collection you would like to include in the March show at the Cow Palace. I would like to emphasize that every member of the club is encouraged to bring trees for the show. If you need assistance in making the trees ready for show bring them to the third Thursday workshop.

Please don’t forget to join us for our upcoming January meeting, Jim Gremel will be our speaker, and as always, he will have wire and pots available for sale.

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The time has flown by and this will be my final column as President of B.S.S.F. I think I have frequently mentioned that it has been a pleasure to lead the Club with supportive Officers and Board Members. The “State of the Club” is very financially solvent. We have over 80 members.

Our average attendance at meetings is just over 30 persons. Third Thursday workshops are doing well. Thanks John Edwards, Tim Kong and John Boyce for your kindness to our members and helping new bonsai students get their educational needs met.

Thank you to Craig Thompson, Dave Gomberg, Diana Lum and Tim Kong who helped make Walter Pall’s visit to San Francisco special. Also, his visit could not have taken place without the assistance and sponsorship of Golden State Bonsai Federation and it’s members, John Kitigawa, Bill Hashimoto,and Michelle Jaffe. Thanks to all our members who brought special refreshments for the meeting.
Those of us who were able to meet Walter and see and feel his enthusiasm for bonsai will long remember him. I have heard that Walter Pall will probably be back touring through California next October. We hope he will be able to fit our club into his schedule.

The people who went on the Lone Pine Shopping trip had a nice time. We saw the magnificent growing fields. We took advantage of the opportunity to purchase bonsai stock and other nursery items at discount. Ian and Janet Price welcomed us into the nursery with open arms and offers of umbrellas. We didn’t get wet.

I am looking forward to the New Year. Our new Officers and Board will have many programs and new ideas to share with us, the members. Please continue to support our Club by renewing your dues, joining us in celebrating the holidays at the December 11th potluck party, and coming to meetings.

Happy Holidays to one and all.

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Congratulations to the newly elected officers and Board:

President

Eric Schrader

Vice President

John Edwards

Treasurer

Daryl T. Quijano

Secretary

Alex Hatch

Board Members

Tim Kong
Aaron Newton
Joe Presti

The new officers and board will take office January 1, 2004. Board members whose terms continue are John Boyce (permanent board member), Sandra Meyer (immediate past president), and board members Ben Petrasanta, Ron Stultz, Joyce Kafader, Elaine Lee, and Richard MacDougal.

It has been a pleasure to work with the Board and Officers these past two years. I want to especially thank Lorraine Locke-Nacamulli for the many years she has served as Vice President. She has worked long and hard to locate demonstrators, plan outings, parties and special workshops. Our outgoing board members include Bob Carlson, Joe Dellea, Dave Gomberg, Charlie Howell, and Ed Holm (who also served as Librarian).

We still have some bonsai clothing in stock. Please place orders from clothing in stock, mugs, and pins by calling Sandra Meyer (415) 661-0464. They make nice gifts.

Please mark your calendars and come to the Walter Pall lecture/critique November 13 at 7:30 PM. Mr. Pall is coming to us from the Golden State Bonsai Federation 2003 Convention. He is a world famous Bonsaist. He will critique our club members’ trees. In so doing we will learn his views about Bonsai. He prefers to work with collected trees. His views on styling are an alternative to Japanese traditional style. Please feel free to come to the third Thursday members’ workshop with trees you are preparing for the spring show. Thank you to John Boyce, John Edwards and Tim Kong for leading the October meeting bonsai critique.

We will pass a sign up sheet on Thursday, November 13th meeting for the December Holiday Potluck Dinner. There will be a lot of good food, music and a chance to socialize with fellow members and guests as we close a very successful year for the Bonsai Society of San Francisco.

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Last month was a busy one for B.S.S.F. The month began with Mr. Mitsuya’s demonstration/styling of the Club Logo Tree.

Thank you to all of you who helped arrange for the event to take place and to those members who attended it. It included the styling demonstration by Mr. Mitsuya, with Kathy Shaner serving as the translator. Kathy led a garden tour as well. It was nice to see some of our long-time members come out to see the tree and tell us some of its history. Thanks, Andrea, John Boyce, Gary Tom and the members of Kathy’s workshop who set the ball in motion so to speak.

John Boyce once again, raised a great amount of money for the club as our auctioneer at the September meeting. Proceeds from the auction are used to support the lectures, demonstrations, workshops and other events held through the year. It was very well attended, lots of trees, pots etc. and very interesting to learn about the trees.

The October 9th General Meeting will be a mini-show, preparation for our spring show. Please look over your bonsai and bring in a tree or its photo to the meeting. Several members will offer advice to you on a one-to-one basis as to how your tree can be prepared for showing. Choose your tree now and you will be able to work on it at club workshops to prepare for the show.

The Election of B.S.S.F. Officers and Board members will be held October 9th instead of November. The election is being moved up to allow more time for Mr. Walter Pall to present his critique at the November 13th meeting.

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I hope you had the chance to attend the Redwood Empire Bonsai Society 20th Annual Bonsai Show last month. They had a magnificent exhibition, demonstrations by Kathy Shaner and Mr. Yasuo Mitsuya, and an opportunity to purchase a wide variety of bonsai materials.

Several of our members helped out when Dennis Makishima, led a Bonsai Basics Workshop for members of Dorothy Day Community (DDC) Bonsai Club and Youth Cares - Integenerational Project last August 13th at Dorothy Day Community. DDC Bonsai Club president is our member, Harriet Sebastian. Ben Petrasanta, our award-winning newsletter editor, is the Activity Director for Dorothy Day Community. Ben and Harriet have been instrumental in establishing a bonsai garden in the midst of the Tenderloin. During Tim Kong’s presidency the Board unanimously approved the adoption of DDC Bonsai Club as a “Little Sister Club”. Tim Kong, John Edwards, Burton & Sandra Meyers volunteer with Dorothy Day’s group and have lent their own trees to be on display in the garden. John Boyce donated a priced 85 year old juniper strata and Jay McDonald donated a very promising Wisteria. DDC Bonsai Garden is modeled after the Collection North’s dry stream design. Thank you to Dennis for taking time out from his busy schedule as the President of the Golden State Bonsai Federation to reach out to the elders and teen bonsai enthusiasts. John Boyce assisted in the hands-on workshop with Aaron Newton, Burt and Sandra Meyer helping out also.

Thanks to Andrea Burhoe for contacting Kathy Shaner who facilitated obtaining Mr. Mitsuya to lead a demonstration of styling on our club logo tree Sunday Sept. 7th in the Garden. Mr. Mitsuya is a famous bonsai master under whom Kathy Shaner, Dennis Makishima, and Boon studied.

We obtained a very large donation/consignment of bonsai pots and stands, some of which will be available for purchase at the October general meeting. September 11th will be our Annual Auction. John Boyce will conduct the auction of bonsai and related materials. Please bring any clean pots and bonsai materials you care to donate. This is our big fundraiser, generating money to be used for our lecturers and demonstrators throughout the coming year. The plants you donate do not have to be in “bonsai finished style”…they can be in nursery containers. Please don’t forget to bring some cash and/or your checkbooks. There will be refreshments and lots of things to learn as John Boyce tells you anecdotes about the trees.

If you placed an order for Bonsai clothing you can pick your order up at the September meeting. too.

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This past month I had to spend quite a bit of time in my garden pinching my trees. The warm sunnier days we had caused my zelkova to “take off” again. Surprisingly, the weeds did not overrun the bonsai pots. Please remember the principle of turning your pots on a regular basis so they don’t reach towards the sun and get lopsided.

It was very interesting to watch Boon do demonstration on black pines last month. I am sure John Edwards will review the demonstration in his article. How do you do it John? Catch all the fine details of the demonstrations? He tells me he takes notes. I watched him and he is not always writing during the demos. He must have a splendid memory.

By the time this newsletter reaches you the bonsai clothing orders will be here. Thank you all for your patience. One of the key staff at the factory had to take an emergency medical leave. I will be contacting those of you who have orders to be picked up and paid for.

John Thompson will be at our August 14th meeting to lead an oak workshop. Please bring the oaks you worked on with John at last year’s program, or any oak of your choice.

On Saturday August 16th our Club will have a garden tour at the Collection North Garden, 666 Bellevue, Oakland from 10:00 a.m. to around 1 p.m. including tours, lunch, and sign-ups for docenting. The Collection needs the help of all of us who can spare a few hours once a month, or even on an “on-call” basis. It is easy to docent, you meet nice people who come into the garden, meet other bonsai clubs’ members, and get to be in the lovely garden. Elsewhere in this newsletter you may see some Haiku inspired by the Garden.

Please check the calendar of events for several fine bonsai exhibitions this month, including Gold Country Bonsai Club on August 16 and 17th and Redwood Empire Bonsai Society’s show and sale Sat. and Sunday August 23 and 24th.

Aaron Newton has the renovated web site up and running. Check it out at www.gsbf-bonsai.org/SanFrancisco-bssf/ It is now an interactive site with lots of information to view and share with other bonsai enthusiasts. Thanks to Aaron and to Ron Nakken for their hard work.

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Last month Club members were busy in a variety of bonsai activities: weeding and pruning in the North Collection Garden; docenting there; attending Gary Tom’s juniper workshop; the general and workshop meetings. We do continue to meet during the summer.

Thank you Gary Tom for leading the Juniper workshop. John Edwards was his assistant. The workshop size was limited so that participants could have the greatest amount of individual time with Gary. There will be other small sized workshops in the future. This last one was so popular that not all the people who responded could fit into the few slots.

The third Thursday members’ workshop was filled to capacity also. Tim Kong, John Edwards, and Joyce Kafader are working on a new system to better enable participants to get assistance from the facilitators.

The happi coats, sweatshirts and tee shirts you ordered should be available at the July 10 meeting.

I am looking forward to the July 10th general meeting. One of our former members, Boon Manakitivipart, is going to do a demonstration. As of press time I did not know what it will be. I fondly recall meeting Boon in the early days, when he had his first bonsai garden on a roof top here in the city. He is now a world renowned Bonsai Master. It is a privilege for our Club to have Boon return to us for a demonstration. See you at the meeting!

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Thank you to Bob Gould for a very educational demonstration on satsuki azalea last month. As I watched the demo I learned all the many reasons why my previous attempts at azaleas and satsuki azaleas failed. I think he helped several of us overcome our “fear of satsuki” as bonsai. I was unable to make it to the Satsuki exhibition at the Garden Center, but I am sure it was magnificent.

Burt and I had over 100 people visit the Bonsai Collection North during our monthly Saturday afternoon docent duty. By the time the newsletter reaches you many of us will have helped out at a garden weeding and pruning day May 31st. There is always a need for weeding services and docents for the garden. It is almost completely maintained by volunteer members of Federation bonsai clubs.

Please note the many corrections in e-mail addresses for our members. If you did not get a 2003 Roster you can get one at our June meeting.

I’m looking forward to Bill Castellon’s black pine demonstration at our June 12th membership meeting. Hope to see you there!

Recently Burt and I went on a trip to Reno with Ben Petrasanta and residents of several senior housing units. On board the bus were none other than Mr.and Mrs. Chester Barnes. Chester was one of the founding members of Bonsai Society of San Francisco. He is still enjoying bonsai. He told us some stories about the early days of the club and some of our long-time members. Did you know that the Bonsai Society of San Francisco was founded in 1960? In the early days the members met inside The City Hall.

Gary Tom led the juniper workshop on June first. Space was very limited. Members worked on San Jose Junipers under the direction of Gary with John Edwards assisting. Thanks to both of our former Presidents for continuing to lead quality educational programs for our members.

This month we can look forward to Bill Castellon’s demonstration on black pine at the June 12th meeting. Hope to see you there.

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