Club News - December 2021

Meeting - December 17 @ 7PM In-Person

Members Only - Holiday Party

Out of respect for COVID-19, this year's Holiday Party will be a bit different. Instead of our usual sit down meal year we'll only be doing finger-foods that can be served and eaten outdoors in the courtyard.

When indoors masks must be worn when not eating or drinking. All attendees including children must be vaccinated to attend.

Food will be served outdoors in the Courtyard starting at 7:00PM. At 8:00PM, we will move inside for the other activities planned for the evening. Masks must be worn indoors and chairs can be placed to satisfy local Covid social-distancing guidelines.

How to Participate -

Please bring finger food such as an appetizer or dessert that serves 6 to 8 people. Soft drinks or a bottle of wine are also welcome.
All attendees may participate in our Holiday Gift “Select or Steal” Game (aka a white elephant game). To participate bring a gift that is wrapped and valued at $25 or more. Bonsai-related items or Japanese art are usually preferred by club members but other items like wine and chocolate are also appreciated. Please bring something that you would enjoy receiving if you opened that gift.
Each participant will have the option to select an unwrapped gift from the group of gifts on a table or take an opened gift from another participant. The third person to get their hands on an item gets to keep that item. In other words, an item can only be “stolen” twice. So the second person to do the “steal” on that item takes it home. This enables us to finish the game in a reasonable time frame and adds more drama to the game!
Bring a holiday themed bonsai for a special Show and Tell. The bonsai can be decorated using lights, ornaments, etc. Two years ago life-saver candies were used on one tree! Trees will be displayed indoors and can of any height and size this year.

Soil Making Party

By Richard Phillips

An energetic crew of new members and old timers met at Lynne O’Dell’s and Steve Jensen’s Woodside home to make the bonsai soil for the upcoming repotting season. Under the hands-on direction of the seasoned veterans, the new members learned how to sift, mix, measure and bag the club “recipe” of akadama, pumice and lava. After the dust had settled, almost fifty bags of soil had been made. Each hard-working participant had earned the option of purchasing up to three bags of the newly mixed soil, while the rest went into the club’s inventory for future use.

Kudos to Lynne O’Dell who found the necessary akadama despite a shortage of this critical material caused by the pandemic’s logistics problems. Also, thanks to Lynne for baking the brownies that helped sustain the group as it labored.

Present were Hal Jerman, Lynne O’Dell, Bill Daniels, Tom Grossi, Jenn Tan, Bryan Matsumoto, Richard Murray, Marlon Diokno and Richard Phillips.

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: December Tasks

Recap of November Meeting with Jonas Dupuich

This meeting was focused on pines, building on the previous meeting with Bjorn Bjorholm. It's a lot of material so we decided to create a new article - Pine Autumn Care - Part 2.