Club News - April 2022
Annual Show – Saturday April 30 & Sunday May 1 @ Addison Elementary School in Palo Alto
It’s time for our annual show! During our two day event you’ll be able to see 60+ bonsai, demonstrations of how to create and care for bonsai and buy a bonsai for yourself. If you’d like to get a taste for what you might see at our show take a look at trees at last year’s show.
Current Santa Clara County Public Health Guidelines will be followed.
Bob Shimon - Saturday at 1:30
Bob will be working on a coastal redwood. This tree will go to the winner of a benefit drawing following the demo.
Biography
Bob and his son Zack started Mendocino Coast Bonsai in 1997 specializing in collected California natives, especially coastal redwoods. Today they also sell Mendocino pygmy cypress, live oaks and Sierra junipers. Bob first became interested in bonsai in the mid-1960s while in college using the first Sunset book as his guide. The military draft took him away from his hobby in 1968 but he made his way back to bonsai in 1985 when he saw a poster and joined the Redwood Empire Bonsai Society in Santa Rosa, California. He has remained an active member of REBS and is a past president of the club. He has done extensive work with redwood bonsai and has a well-earned reputation as an excellent teacher of techniques to develop and maintain these collected trees.
In 2010 one of Bob’s redwoods won “Finest North American Species Bonsai” award at the 3rd U.S. National Bonsai exhibition in Rochester, New York. In 2015 another was selected for the Artisans Cup exhibit in Portland, Oregon.
We always see Bob at the annual Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt Mammoth Sale where he has a great selection of pots and trees for sale.
Sunday @ 1:30: A demonstration by Kusamura members in a style-off competition.
Also at our show -
Exhibit - Over 60 formal displays of trees in the Japanese style, including stands, accent plants and scrolls
Sale - bonsai trees and pots, including 300+ from the collection of John and Sandy Planting (see below)
Children’s Corner - guiding kids to create their own accent plants to take home
Education Space - new this year, visitors can join members to learn about and practice some of the skills we use in bonsai.
Hours
Saturday - Noon to 4pm
Sunday - 11am to 4pm
Location
Multipurpose Room at Addision Elementary School, Palo Alto
1045 Webster Street.
Parking is on street.
John and Sandy Planting Pot Collection For Sale
Over the 60 years that John and Sandy Planting were doing bonsai they collected many, many pots. At this show we'll have 300+ of their pots for sale. Most are shohin, many have signatures. Several were bought during a trip to Japan in the late 1990s and are like new. There are also 20+ pots made and signed by Jim Barrett. Below are a couple of examples.
Monthly Tasks
Each month there are a number of tasks you need to do to your bonsai – from repotting, to fertilizing to spraying for pests. We have put together a checklist, customized for the San Francisco Bay Area to help you. This checklist is adapted from earlier work by Mitsuo Umehara.
This month: April Tasks
Kusamura Participation at Filoli - May 21, 11AM - 4PM
As announced in the 2022 January newsletter, Filoli formed a Community Partnership with Kusamura in October 2021. In lieu of having our normal Friday night meeting in May, the club will be holding an event at Filoli on Saturday, May 21 from 11AM - 4PM. This will be an opportunity for Kusamura to introduce the art of bonsai to members of the visiting public at Filoli that may have never known anything about bonsai before. It will also allow Kusamura members to visit Filoli for free and participate in the various demonstrations and bonsai sale hosted by Kusamura during that timeframe.
The activities that day will include the option to participate in the equivalent of a bonsai workshop at Filoli, tour the permanent collection of bonsai at Filoli which consists of over sixty trees, purchase bonsai and/or bonsai pots offered for sale by Kusamura members, assist with the bonsai sale, as well as get to see the Filoli mansion and gardens and see Filoli's special bonsai display that will be shown throughout the entire month of May.
Recap of Our March Meeting
Idris Anderson and Jennifer “Jenn” Tan presented a very engaging program on air layering at our March meeting. In their forty slide presentation, they covered in minute detail what air layering is, why and how you air layer, when is the best time to air layer, and aftercare needed as well as pitfalls to avoid.
Idris and Jenn got rave reviews from a number of club members. So much so that it was decided that the best way to recap their presentation was to put their actual slides on the club website. They can now be found at - Air Layering - Deeper Cuts. The video recording of the demonstration will also be added in the near future. So stay tuned for that.
The club extends a big THANK YOU to Idris and Jenn for a very informative and fun filled evening. And have fun air layering everyone!
Newsletter Editor: Rita Curbow