Make plans to stop by the Free Third Thursday Workshop on August 19. The workshop begins at 7PM. Summer work! Experienced members of the club will be on hand to give their suggestions and help out. See you there!

Bonsai notes for December - uh, wait a minute- August? Can you believe how cold it is here? If your weather is like mine, then you have been experiencing one of the coldest San Francisco summers in recent memory. My trees are not happy and yours may not be either. Hopefully the sun and heat will make an appearance soon to help force those new pine buds and keep all the leaves from falling off your trees.

Continue to fertilize! When the sun comes back, your trees will need the energy to squeeze one last bit of growth before the days get too short. Also, keep an eye on the moisture in your pots. Your watering schedule may be reduced from daily to twice per week depending on your exposure to wet fog. At the same time, be cautious of those days when the sun comes out and the dry wind blows. Pretty difficult eh?

For your fruiting and flowering trees, start applying some slow release 0-10-10 to facilitate flower bud production for next year.

The new buds on your candle-cut Japanese black pines have been emerging the past month. By now, if you have had good sun, The new needles will be emerging. The are super cute, but resist the urge to touch them. At this stage they are very soft and tender. Do not touch them until November after they have hardened. Until then they will break easily and once broken, will not recover.

Pests! At the end of summer the past couple years I have experienced an invasion of caterpillars. Insecticides are not very useful for preventing them because the poisons take a few days to kill and a single caterpillar can eat 20% of your leaves in one day. In other words, by the time they die, your leaves will be gone. They have voracious appetites! Each morning or evening when you check your trees, keep a look out for wilting or dead leaves that are the first sign that there’s a problem. Most of these caterpillars have excellent camouflage so stare at the area for awhile and for any movement.

Supplies! The annual REBS show is at the end of the month. In addition to a fabulous bonsai display, the REBS show has many vendors and offers a chance to stock up on your bonsai supplies needed for Fall work. In the Fall you will need plenty of wire, pruning tools, and the occasional bonsai pot. You can find it all there so plan to spend an afternoon in Santa Rosa. Better yet, carpool and make a day out of it.

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