Club News - February 2023
Eric Schrader - Juniper Design, Styling & Development
February 17 @ 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
This month we're pleased to welcome Eric Schrader of Bonsaifi back for another demonstration.
This is the second of our series of programs on juniper bonsai. The purpose of this one is to discuss how to take a "new to you" tree, find the style that works for that tree and then the initial styling. Eric will be working on a large 5-gallon sized Shimpaku that has has never been styled. It is similar to a tree you might find at a growing ground.
This demo is just the first step in the progression of this tree’s transformation. Over the next 3 years we will work on it several more times, showing how successive refinement will make it into a bonsai worth showing in our club show. Expect wood to be flying and branches bending as Eric Schrader shows us how to take the first steps.
You may want to review the first program in this series - Evaluating Junipers by Jonas Dupuich.
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: February Tasks
Annual Mammoth Auction & Sale 2023 – Feb 18-19
The Annual Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt Mammoth Auction & Sale will be held on Saturday, Feb 18 and Sunday, Feb 19 at the Lakeside Park Garden Center, 666 Bellevue Ave., Oakland, CA.
Saturday features a live auction with the Auction Preview starting at noon and auction starting at 1:15 PM.
Sunday the vendor tables are available 9 AM - 3 PM, and plant, pot, and supply sales can be found from 10 AM - 3 PM.
For updates, driving directions, and other info about the event visit bonsailakemerritt.com.
Final Potting Party – February 26
Our final potting party will be Sunday, February 26 from 10AM until 4PM or earlier depending on the number of trees we all bring to work on. In the event of anticipated heavy rains, we will notify you via an email the day before.
Club potting parties are held to work on trees that can be sold at our Annual Show (this year that’s April 29-30). We can work on material that can be repotted in the winter which includes deciduous trees, junipers, pines, cedars, etc. Soil, pots, and wire are provided as well as some club owned trees in need of some attention. You will have an opportunity to purchase a tree during the potting party. For members who can come early to help with setup or stay late to put things away, your assistance is greatly appreciated. You don’t have to stay the whole day.
Donuts will be provided, but also consider bringing a bag lunch.
January Meeting Recap – Michael Greenstein – Repotting Oaks
At our club meeting on January 20, 2023, Michael Greenstein talked about oaks and also repotted an oak that has been in development in a wooden box for several years. His conversation with his audience was full of bonsai tips, acquired in his many years of devotion to bonsai. He brought with him four of his own oaks: a Cork Oak he acquired from Tosh; a Coast Live Oak from John Planting (it was very weak when Michael acquired it; it’s strong enough now and old enough now to begin developing rough mature bark and acorns); a Blue Oak in an exposed root style which is very much like a Valley Oak with smaller leaves, that he got from Summer Winds (it was headed to the trash bin), and finally a smaller Valley Oak.
“You can make oaks very powerful or delicate.”
Michael defoliates all his deciduous oaks, usually in June or July, after the leaves have hardened. Defoliation is for refinement, especially for decreasing the size of the leaves. Defoliation is not generally appropriate for trees still in development until the major branches are well developed.
Unlike pines, for example, strong branches on oaks can go up and down, not simply in one direction. This is their nature and we should not be afraid to incorporate this in the bonsai design.
California bonsai enthusiasts should definitely have oaks and redwoods in their collections according to Michael. They are not trees that grow in Japan, but they flourish in California and have strong features worthy of admiration and development as bonsai.
It is risky and difficult to collect oaks because they live in dry locations with long tap roots. Sometimes there is no other root and when you cut the taproot you will lose the tree. It’s best to have a plan to dig up gradually. Or develop an oak from acorns or from seedlings with patience and time.
If you decide to grow an oak from an acorn, two months after the seed has sprouted remove the tree from the soil and shorten the tap root by about 50%. This will cause the tree to start growing lateral roots.
Michael discussed the Excel database for all his trees, with dates for when acquired and repotted, its progress over time, steps in its development, and other information about each tree’s history. He is happy to share this Excel database with club members for their own use.
He cautioned that no tree will bulk up in a bonsai pot. Development in the ground and then in a grow box for several more years is advised if you want a big trunk.
Advantages: root volume and air. Michael builds his own 18 x 18 x 6” wood boxes with stainless steel screws. A good wood box made of redwood can last as long as 10 years. He adds eyelet screws to the box so that he can add wires to pull branches into position. He prefers to this method rather than wiring because wire marks can cut in quickly on fast growing oak branches.
Because Michael has problems with squirrels in his garden he covers the surface of his trees with with heavy duty plastic screen (Amazon Link). To hold he screen in place he uses stainless steel turkey lacing pins (Amazon Link). He also recommended prepping the box with heat wires to aid in root development for weak trees. The bottom heat encourages rapid root growth: a key to the recovery of weak trees. He suggested that as a smaller and easier to acquire solution for a smaller container, one can use an Anderson flat 15 x 15 x 4”, screen to fit available. Michael’s directions for Building a Wooden Bonsai Grow Box are on Kusamura’s website.
Michael puts all his oaks in unglazed pots. However, he has seen others use glazed pots for deciduous oaks. This is an aesthetic choice but he believes oaks need as much air to breath as possible.
Repotting the Oak
When preparing the pot Michael uses molded screens (Amazon link) because they're long lasting easier to use than the old style of plastic screening. He advises using copper wire for securing screens and for tie downs, because aluminum stretches and breaks. But rather than using annealed copper wire Michael buys spools of non-annealed copper wire because it's cheaper. (Amazon Link). 16 gauge is appropriate for smaller trees, but 14 or even 12 may be needed for larger trees.
Roots really like the insides of the redwood box. He uses a cheap weeder to liberate roots along the deep edges. “Dig yourself a little trench and the tree will come out easier.” You should almost never bareroot a tree because you are losing the mycorrhiza.Michael keeps old soil to inoculate the new soil with mycorrhiza, a fungus that mediates nutrients. We are told not to fertilize for a month, now you know why, to permit mycorrhiza to re-establish.
Recommended Videos
Go Big in 2023! Here are three videos by bonsai professionals who do not hesitate to go big, whether on a small tree that undergoes a big bend or large trees that need taming. Do you hesitate to acquire and work on such materials because you don’t know what in the heck to do with them? These videos are for you. Technical focus is on big bends but there is so much more here to learn from the pros.
Demonstration for the Bonsai Association Belgium Trophy
This may be my favorite bonsai video. What will, what can David Benavente do with this impossible, tall, gangly pine? Difficult material transformed before your eyes. In this demonstration, he creates deadwood with hand tools and torch, then hollows out a section of the long trunk with a Makita die grinder, wraps, and, with rebar, bends to the back then down to the left. He splits crotches of big branches to bend them into a more compact shape. Lots of bending, guy wires, strength of human muscle—all required to place the branches. And lots of finger work to refine the image. Stay with this video, it gets better and better.
How to Trunk Bend a Field-Grown Pine Bonsai
This relatively small Japanese white pine with a thick trunk looks quite good even before Ryan begins to work on it. He uses the wedge technique, rebar, and a jack to make a bend in the short stout trunk. Always a perfectionist, Ryan runs into an overbite problem that he needs to correct, which he does with persistence and patience and his refined technical skills. He then proceeds to style the tree with his usual attention to details. He goes big on a small tree!
Bonsai Demonstration European Bonsai San, Saulieu, France
Taming the Dragon. A team of South Korean bonsai professionals styles this wild pine using all kinds of contraptions, including a ratchet hoist-like mechanism to execute drastic and dramatic bends.
Newsletter Editor: Jenn Tan