Kathy Shaner: Taking Your Bonsai to the Next Level
July Meeting Notes

What you do to your trees and when you do it is critical to their health and progress.
With that admonishment Kathy Shaner held class with BSSF members’ trees in a discussion about taking your tree to the next level of development. The conversation that ensued became an opportunity to discuss fertilizers, pinching, pruning, wiring and styling, wood carving and dead wood enhancement techniques.

Also we discussed the importance of knowing the way trees grow.
This knowledge comes to Kathy from a deep commitment spanning many years including apprenticeship in Japan and continuing to learn as she tends to the trees as curator of the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merrit and as teacher to hundreds of bonsai enthusiasts across the US.

BSSF members brought a variety of trees each of which Kathy examined and then talked about what she saw and discussed how the look of the tree could be improved upon.

Beginning with a small deciduous shrub commonly grown to resemble trees in bonsai. The potential bonsai had no clear leader and all foliage growing out on the ends of long branches away from the trunk. In order to train this material to better represent a tree Kathy suggested raising the largest trunk to clearly represent the main line of the tree. She explained how brittle thick wood can be moved gradually over time by attaching bamboo to the trunk and incrementally repositioning. Next the foliage needed to be cut back hard to force inner growth. Kathy explained how we must take advantage of the growing season, to force growth where it is needed.

She recommended that the tree be given regular feeding during the coming months and continually cut back to force inner growth while the main trunk is gradually guyed into place. Many of us face similar challenges with nursery or collected materials where old wood needs to be moved and growth redirected.

There were a number of different kinds of junipers of different ages. For a younger tree without much foliage development Kathy recommended heavy feeding and letting the tree grow out to provide the most opportunities for further development. Conversely with a mature tree with lots of ramification cleaning out of the foliage and thinning the branches to reveal the structure of the tree was prescribed. A collected Chinese juniper with extensive dead wood was used to discuss wood carving techniques and various dead wood preservation solutions.

Kathy was clearly inspired with the quality and selection of the material, which was offered. She emphasized how each tree has an individual story to tell and about how foliage and branches grow differently and how that should guide us in what we do to direct and influence them by exposure to sunlight, fertilization and wiring. With the respective owners permission she demonstrated some of the techniques she was describing.

It was a long intense session which lasted late into the night. Kathy has much to impart and like John Boyce’s old byline “Pieces of Bonsai” she shared her knowledge and experience with the club. -J.E.

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