Club News - August 2022

Special Event August 20 @9AM

Kusamura Club Members Only

Each August Kusamura Bonsai Club takes a break from regular meetings and does something different. Often this is a tour of some of our members’ bonsai trees at home followed by a potluck BBQ. This year we’re doing something different. First we’re going to visit a local supplier of bonsai supplies. Then we’ll visit the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt. Below are the details.

Stop 1 - Bonsai Tonight Shop

Jonas Dupuich, writer of BonsaiTonight blog and a frequent presenter at our monthly meetings also sells bonsai material thru his website store.bonsaitonight.com The primary focus is tools, soil, wire, pots and related supplies although about twenty good to high quality trees will be available too. He has a lot of good-to-excellent and show-quality pots. You might find the perfect pot for your tree. Check out his website but don’t pre-order. In-Person prices will be a bit lower - and of course you may see something else you want during our visit.

Stop 2 - Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt

Visit some of the best bonsai in California in this living museum. Members from Kusamura and other clubs in the area helped design and build this garden then donated their best trees to the collection. See Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt for more details about the collection

Directions and Carpooling

You must come to the church's rear parking lot to get directions to the first stop and parking. This is St. Mark’s Episcopal Church – . 600 Colorado Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306

Because of limited parking at both stops we strongly encourage carpooling.

Meet in the parking lot at 9AM. We’ll divide into cars and leave at 9:30AM.

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: August Tasks

Planning Ahead - New Meetings September and Beyond

by Dave Curbow

In our survey of club members last year 90% expressed interest in a second meeting that serves as a workshop. Covid and other things have made it difficult to get this started but we’re happy to announce that September will be our first month with two meetings. We will have our regular 3rd Friday evening meeting and then a week later we will have our first Saturday afternoon workshop meeting.

This new workshop assumes you have basic skills and can work independently. The goal is to improve your skills and your trees under some guidance by senior club members. This is separate from the Beginning Workshops taught by Richard Phillis and Rita Curbow that are intended to teach new members basic bonsai skills.

Because club members also expressed interest in doing a series of meetings focused on junipers and maples we’re going to start that as well. In September Jonas Dupuich will lead the first of three juniper-focused meetings over the next year. The September 16 meeting will focus on how to look at your juniper and identify it’s good and bad points. The second meeting will (probably) be on juniper design / styling / development and maintenance. This will probably be in January 2023. The third juniper meeting will be on long term development and will probably be between May and July. We’re also planning a series on maples. More details to come.

Workshop Date - Saturday, September 24

The second September meeting will be on Saturday 24 at 12:30pm. Michael Greenstein, our Dr Bonsai, will be leading this workshop. You’ll be asked to bring one or two junipers to the workshop. Before the workshop we want you to evaluate your trees using what you learned at the Sept 16 meeting. Come to the meeting with a couple of questions about what should be done first to improve your tree. Michael and/or one of the other senior club members will talk with each person in turn. Then you’ll be working on your tree - so bring tools and wire.

Workshop Location

We’ll be meeting in the parking lot of the church - same location we had our sale last August. Why outside? There are a few reasons. First, lighting inside the building isn’t bright enough for detail work. There’s much better lighting outside. Second, Covid is still with us and because we’ll have two or maybe three people at a table the risk of transmission is reduced outside. Finally, clean up will be much easier. But we will have to move tables and chairs further - out to the parking lot and then back. We are asking everyone to be there at 12:30 to help setup. At 1pm we’ll kick off the workshop and work until 3:30. We have to have everything cleaned up by 4pm. There will be more details in next month’s newsletter.

Assuming the September workshop goes well we will do plan others for October, November and beyond.

Beginning Workshop Update - Sunday, September 18

There will NOT be a beginning workshop in August. The next scheduled date is Sunday, September 18. There will be two sessions: Morning from 9:30AM - 12:30PM and Afternoon from 1:00PM - 4:00PM at the home of Richard and Barbara Phillips

Stay tuned for more details about the Beginning Workshop in next month’s newsletter. But mark your calendar for the September 18 date.

Newsletter Editor Passes the Baton

by Charlene Fischer

We all owe Rita Curbow a huge thank you for her work as Editor for the last ten years. Looking through our historical records it appears initially that correspondence to the club members was via a one page letter that was mimeographed and sent through the mail. In the 1970s the club President prepared a one page newsletter.

When I joined the club in the 1990s, Susan Charles and Stephanie North were coEditors of the newsletter. They worked in this capacity until they passed it to Nancy Eaton in April 2000. Nancy had been Editor in the past and at that time she went on to do this job again for the next four years. Sandy Vrooman took over from her and then she passed the baton to Jerry Carpenter two years later. This was in July 2006. During Jerry’s tenure Dave Curbow started contributing various articles periodically especially articles about pines. When Bang Vo took over as Editor from Jerry in July 2009 Dave and Rita both worked with Bang as periodic individual contributors.

Rita officially began her tenure as Editor with the November 2012 newsletter. Through much of her tenure Bang Vo handled the newsletter publishing as he could get the newsletter printed for free. Eventually the club decided that since the vast majority of members were receiving and reading the newsletter via email, we no longer had to print and mail everyone a copy. Only a handful of members receive a hard copy today.

Today the VP of the club is responsible for drafting the details of the upcoming monthly meeting. And other members are acknowledged in the newsletter when they contribute articles. For example, the current Show Chair usually contributes details about our upcoming show. And it was in March 2012 that the Recap of Our Monthly Meeting article first appeared when Dave Curbow wrote a recap of the February meeting. Rita chose to make the recap a standard during her ten years as Editor. Says Rita “In the past, bonsai related articles written by others outside the club were included in our monthly newsletter. I think it’s important that the club has a written history of the bonsai techniques that are being taught within the club. This enables new members of the club to revisit those articles on our club website and improve their learning curve.”

Although Rita has enjoyed being the Editor, she is ready to pass the baton to a new member to bring their perspective and style to the newsletter.

With gratitude I want to introduce Jenn Tan as our incoming Editor. We all saw Jenn at our club meeting last year when she and Idris Anderson did the presentation on air layering. Jenn has a wonderful collection of deciduous bonsai, which are her favorite. She has met many of you at the beginning workshops and also works with the team at Filoli. Thank you Jenn for taking on this position.

Special Donation of Trees, Pots and Stands to Kusamura

by Charlene Fischer and Hal Jerman

In July Kusamura received a collection of bonsai trees and several pots and stands from the San Mateo Arboretum Society. The Society received these items through a donation from Wendy Rowlands. Wendy worked with bonsai for thirty years and due to a move wasn’t able to keep her trees. Hal Jerman and Charlene Fischer are caring for the trees in anticipation of our potting parties in the Fall and Spring. This endeavor is a joint collaboration with the San Mateo Arboretum Society. We want to thank Wendy Rowlands for her generous donation to the Society for their interest in working with us to get these trees to good homes in the future.

Recap of Our January Meeting on Shohin with Juan Cruz

There were nineteen members present at our July 15 meeting plus four or more tuned in via zoom. Juan Cruz gave us a very informative and engaging presentation on how one should care for shohin. Being a thermodynamics engineer, Juan said that thinking about how energy is explained by the four laws of thermodynamics helped him understand what he needed to do in order to create healthy and beautiful bonsai. Thermodynamics is the branch of science that deals with the quantitative relationship between heat and other forms of energy.

Juan first started out by talking about what exactly is a shohin. While Juan suggested that the exact size of a bonsai is not that important, he himself categorizes his trees based on how he carries them. For example, keishi and shito can be carried with two fingers. Mame and shohin can be carried with one hand while chu and dai require both hands and sometimes even two people.

<table>

To properly measure a tree for its size, measure from the base of the tree to the top of the tree and don’t include the height of the pot in the measurement. For a cascade, measure from the topmost part of the tree to the bottommost part of the tree. In general the smaller the tree, the harder it is to care for. Comparatively speaking, chu and dai size trees are much easier to work with in the art of bonsai.

Juan said you can’t follow the rules of bonsai applied to larger trees when creating shohin and other smaller size bonsai. For example, don’t worry about the spacing of branches on a shohin. You can have a tree with branches in any location, including on the inside of curves because you will likely want them anywhere you can get them.

To help everyone understand how bonsai can be looked at from the perspective of thermodynamics, Juan explained its four major laws and provided examples along the way.

Laws of Thermodynamics

First Law: Energy Conservation: "Energy can never be created or destroyed." It can only be transferred from one form to another. From a bonsai perspective, Juan said we must provide the energy the tree needs by watering, fertilizing and properly pruning it.

Second Law: "Entropy always increases with time.” Entropy is simply a measure of disorder and left unchecked disorder increases over time.

Juan said as an example, no matter what you do, something might happen to your tree. A squirrel knocks your tree off the bench, something eats all the new growth, the tree just dies unexpectedly, etc. I would add that bonsai cannot be created in a single process but must be continuously worked on. If you ignore them, they will get unhealthy and eventually die. An unhealthy tree unattended will continue on its downward spiral.

Third law: As things go to zero, entropy also goes to zero. At absolute zero, there is least disorder or there is perfect order. Therefore, the entropy at perfect order is taken as zero. Juan said as an example, the more bonsai you have, the less time you have to care for each tree.

0th or Zeroth Law: Thermal equilibrium is transitive. Two systems in equilibrium with a third system are in thermal equilibrium with each other. As an example, Juan said if your tree is in balance with its pot, they are at equilibrium. His other example was: no bonsai, no chaos.

I would add that if the amount of time you are spending on your bonsai is in equilibrium with the amount of time you want and need to spend, there is no chaos. I’m not sure if that is an example of the third law or the Zeroth or possibly neither. I myself was left a bit confused by this Third Law.

Energy Conservation on Your Bonsai

When Juan once asked his bonsai master "What makes a great bonsai?” the master answered "Energy balance.” In bonsai, energy is limited by the size of the pot. If you want a bigger tree you would put it in a bigger pot. If you want to keep the tree smaller, you would put it in a smaller pot.

Controlling the energy of the tree is the most important thing for small trees such as shohin. Losing just one leaf on a smaller tree has a much bigger impact than on a bigger tree. One way we can control the amount of energy the tree is getting is by fertilizing it or not. But remember that there is only so much fertilizer you can put in a pot. To properly access how much fertilizer a tree needs you need to look at what is happening with the tree. For example, is it Spring and it is just coming out of its Winter dormancy? If so, Juan would not fertilize shohin size trees because he doesn’t want the tree to grow too fast. Otherwise, he would get long internodes on the new growth.

Of course, you need to manage the energy of the tree throughout the entire year. Juan drew a diagram as he discussed “time of year versus energy”.

Most trees will have an energy spurt in the Spring and a smaller spurt in the Fall. You repot the tree in the Spring to reduce the energy the tree has at that time. Cut the foliage to reduce the energy at that time also. Once the energy has stabilized and the leaves have hardened off, Juan starts to fertilize the tree. Juan would continue to fertilize the tree through the summer. Then he would stop fertilizing just before its second smaller growth spurt in the Fall. Usually this is the end of September. Note that the second growth spurt that occurs in the Fall will have less energy than the growth spurt in the Spring. So Juan would fertilize again just before that growth spurt but with less fertilizer. In that second growth spurt you can expect to get even smaller leaves, needles, etc on the tree.

For pines, Juan would fertilize a little toward the end of the first candle growth. He fertilizes again as it starts to enter its second growth spurt in the Fall.

Juan’s favorite fertilizer is Alaska Fish Fertilizer which comes as a liquid and is available at Home Depot.

In short, if you’re trying to grow your tree, fertilize it more. If you want to keep it smaller, use less fertilizer or don’t fertilize at all.

How Do You Grow Shohin?

Start in a small pot, don’t put in a big pot. The size of the bark on a tree is impacted by the size of the pot. Shohin bark that crackles or flakes will have smaller size crackles. Pay attention to the size of the bark on trees that have distinctive bark. In this situation you would not want to try to turn a larger size tree into a shohin because the bark would never look proportional to its tree size.

Styling Shohin

Junipers can be twisted really nice and tight. However they can get tired. Keep them deprived too long and they will die. Once they start to look a little weak, Juan will pot it into a slightly bigger pot for a couple of years. Signs of weakness: doesn’t back-bud as often, not as green as it should be, etc.

Once the tree gets healthy, Juan repots it and puts it back in the smaller pot.

Watering Shohin

One of the hardest things about growing shohin is keeping them properly watered. Shohin can dry out very quickly.

Juan keeps his shohin in a container that has holes drilled in a horizontal row in the sides of the container. The container is filled with gravel up to just above the level of the holes. Then Juan places one or more shohin on top of the gravel. Roots will start to grow through the drain holes in the shohin pot and seek the water in the container. Therefore the shohin will have access to all the water in the container as needed. It’s extremely important that the bonsai roots in the pot itself are not submerged in the water in the container. Otherwise, you will get root rot and the tree would eventually die.

You wouldn’t do this for larger size bonsai trees as larger bonsai don’t dry out as quickly as shohin and smaller size bonsai.

Trees sitting on trays of gravel aren’t affected by the slight humidity difference because we have relatively dry air here in the Bay Area.

Wisteria and weeping willow can be put in water in hot summer months but left too long roots will rot.

All bonsai really need to live outdoors. Juan says what we call indoor plants are actually plants that in nature live in the understory of other trees and have a constant temperature. Indoor plants also have an affinity to grow larger leaves to increase exposure to light.

Juan highly recommends we do not rely on automatic sprinklers to water any bonsai no matter what size they may be.

Does the lifespan of a tree change when it is a bonsai?

Yes, because the tree in nature is limited by the distance or height to which it can push water to the outer tips. In bonsai, that height is always possible, so trees have the potential to live longer as bonsai. But the tree must be properly maintained. If the tree is looking stressed in its current pot, Juan will up pot the tree into a slightly larger pot and let the tree get healthier and then put it back into the smaller pot. You really have to be on the look out for these type of issues more so when you are working with shohin and smaller size trees.

Where do you find shohin and other material?

You can find it anywhere really. Seedlings can be found growing in your yard or by a sidewalk in your neighborhood. There was also the discussion of collecting material by air layering which is popular with certain members in our club. Is taking air layers good for shohin? It depends. You can easily grow roots for an air layered pine. But if the bark has big crackling it’s not going to look right on a shohin pine. So again “it depends.”

Lessons Juan Learned in Bonsai

First, enjoy it! If not, find another hobby that you do enjoy.

Always try to look at your bonsai from a different angle.

Be crazy. Bonsai enthusiasts are nuts. At least other people think so.

The answer to most bonsai questions is “It depends.”

It depends on what the tree is doing at that time and how healthy it is, and what do you like, etc. So, when working with a more knowledgeable person in bonsai, learn to ask the right question. Two people might go in two totally different directions with the same bonsai material. It’s really about what style of tree you want it to be. If you have a specific vision for a tree, acknowledge that and then ask “How do I get there?” versus “what do I do with this?” At the same time, you must respect nature and do what works for a given species of tree. Juan used a dwarf type of bamboo as an example. Don’t fight nature.