Club News - June 2022

Meeting – June 17 @ 7PM – In-Person and via Zoom

Gordon Deeg - An Introduction to Azaleas as Bonsai

Club member Gordon Deeg will be sharing his knowledge on how to style and care for satsuki azalea bonsai. Gordon is known for his collection of satsuki azalea and will be bringing some of his trees in to share with us.

Gordon is the former Chairman of the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt. Now he is the Garden Master and a teacher there. In addition he is President of the California Shohin Society and a long term member of Kusamura, Sei Boku Bonsai Kai and Bay Area Satsuki Aikokai.

Members are asked to bring in one azalea bonsai that they would like input on from Gordon - if there’s time. 

Azaleas were last covered at our club meeting in October 2015. Refer to the October and November 2015 issues of our newsletters to read what Darren Wong and the late Jim Ransohoff had to say about azalea bonsai care.

Photos from 2022 Show Now Online

If you didn't get a chance to visit our April 30 / June 1 show in Palo Alto you can still see many of the trees that were on display. Go to Club Show - 2022.

Long-Term Member Jim Thompson Passes Away

Jim Thompson (born June 7, 1934) passed away peacefully at home in Redwood City on May 6, 2022, with his loving wife Sally by his side.

Jim was born in San Francisco, California. Shortly after graduating with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley Jim served in the US Air Force at Fuchu Air Station in Japan for 2-1/2 years as First Lieutenant – Communications Officer, where he was Officer-in-Charge of a Communications Terminal Station and responsible for 50 Airmen. While in Japan from 1958 - 1960, Jim studied bonsai with bonsai master Yuji Yoshimura, who became the first bonsai master to teach bonsai to non-Japanese citizens after WWII and was instrumental in bringing the art of bonsai to the United States.

After his return from duty in Japan, Jim continued to train with various bonsai masters as a bonsai hobbyist. Over time Jim amassed quite an impressive collection of bonsai including yamadori. Jim joined Kusamura in the early 1970s and enjoyed giving demonstrations at monthly meetings throughout the years. Many of us today can remember Jim giving demonstrations in both air-layering and grafting. Jim had a high-success rate in both techniques.

Around 2004 Jim started volunteering at Filoli to help take care of their bonsai collection. Jim continued in this capacity for possibly twelve or more years by which time he had been joined by other members of Kusamura. Today a group of eight Kusamura members maintain Filoli’s bonsai collection.

In his professional career, Jim was an Engineer and went on to found his own company.

Along with family and friends, Jim will be dearly missed by all those who knew him in the Club.

A Celebration of Life for Jim will be held on June 11, 2022 at 10:30am at Menlo Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park.

To learn more see: Obituary for Jim Thompson 

Installation of Officers and Board of Directors

This month we will hold the installation of Officers and Board of Directors nominated and elected in May for the 2022 – 2023 term. They are as follows:

• Charlene Fischer — President
• Dave Curbow — Vice President
• Hal Jerman — Treasurer
• Idris Anderson — Recording Secretary
• Barbara Phillips — Corresponding Secretary
• Lynne O’Dell — Board of Directors
• Christoph Dressel — Board of Directors
• Jiechang “JC” Zhang — Board of Directors
• Michael Greenstein — Board of Directors
• Marsha Mekisich — Board of Directors
• David Martinez Moreno — Board of Directors
• Richard Phillips – Past-President

Swearing in of new officers and board of directors will take place at our June meeting effective July 1. The swearing in will be conducted by long-term club member Ed Poggensee.

The Nominating Committee, Rita Curbow and Richard Murray, thank all of you who voted via email in this election. Thirty-three members voted.

The Club also extends a big THANK YOU to Maryann Hinden, Richard Murray and Christine Weigen for their past two years of service as a Board of Director.

Beginner’s Workshop on Saturday, June 25

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. Rita Curbow will be there to assist also.

We had quite the crowd in May. Attendees included Gabriel Lobo, Ren You, Jenn Tan, David Knick along with Austin and Lucas, Nathan Szajnberg, JC Zhang, Maryann Hinden, Kathryn Low and Steve Christensen. Kudos to Ren You who chipped in and helped Kathryn Low repot her very large tree.

A number of other club members dropped by throughout the day. Idris and Suzanne even brought Willoughby which was fun!

To sign up for the workshop on June 25, or for more details, contact Richard Phillips .

Kusamura at Filoli on May 21

On Saturday, May 21 Kusamura hosted a day of bonsai demonstrations at Filoli on the lawn adjacent to the Dining Terrace where Filoli was exhibiting their own collection of bonsai. It was a lovely day and we had forty or more members attend. For some, it was their first visit to Filoli while others brought their families and remembered a tradition they hadn’t done in quite some time. Either way, the demonstrations were well received by both the membership and the public at large. In fact, we’ve had at least four people join the Club since our event.

We started the day by holding three demonstrations simultaneously starting at 11am. Michael Greenstein took on shortening and creating more deadwood on a California juniper. This was a tree in the Filoli collection that had been donated by the late Bill Scott, who joined the club in the 1970s. Everyone was very happy with the resulting tree.

While Michael was working on the California juniper, Idris Anderson demonstrated how to carve deadwood on a collected Mountain juniper using a Dremel tool. Chips were flying as visitors looked on. The owner of the tree is very happy with her work. Meanwhile, Charlene Fischer started the repot of a wisteria from the Filoli collection. She was assisted by Donna Farmar.

All three demonstrations started at 11am but by 1pm it was obvious that our lineup of nine demonstrations for the day was too ambitious. But that was okay; everyone was having fun and good things were being done. The afternoon demonstrations included repotting a shimpaku raft and adding more trees, creating a shohin kingsville boxwood grove, thinning out a maple and thinning an olive to pairs of two and opening it up.

The afternoon began with repotting and reworking a shimpaku juniper raft owned by Ethan Kim. The raft was moved from a plastic pot to an oval ceramic pot donated by Melissa Bozzuto in honor of her father John Planting. This pot is wider and deeper than the original plastic tray pot Ethan had. Seven additional shimpaku of various heights and sizes were added to create a forest with both live trees and dead trees resulting in quite a spectacular bonsai. This was a group effort with Valerie Monroe, Rita Curbow, Ethan Kim, Christine Weigen, Lynne O’Dell and Gabriel Lobo assisting Michael Greenstein in the process.

While the raft was being worked on Charlene demonstrated pruning a maple. Both demos involved a lot of interaction with the visitors and that added to the fun. 

Our last round of demonstrations for the day included Jenn Tan and Hal Jerman demonstrating the creation of a kingsville boxwood grove. This was a shohin demonstration and turned out lovely. While this was going on, Charlene Fischer got assistance from Ethan Kim as they thinned out the olive tree that is in the Filoli bonsai collection.

Throughout the day, Hal Jerman answered visitors’ questions about the Filoli bonsai collection while Jenn Tan and JC Zhang talked with visitors at our Show and Tell tables. The bonsai at the Show and Tell tables were provided by Michael Greenstein, Jenn Tan, Lynne O’Dell and Rita Curbow.

In the Filoli Clock Tower Gift Shop bonsai from the collection of Suresh “Mo” Mohan were offered for sale as well as shohin size pots from the collection of Sandy Planting.

As the Club organizer for this event I want to thank everyone who participated in the demonstrations and/or who did various jobs in the background to make the day run smoothly. That includes Christine Weigen who posted photos on Instagram for the day while Krishna Farol-Schenck from Filoli handled Facebook. And finally, kudos to Kathy King, Activities Coordinator from Filoli who did a great job for us that day too!

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="100" gal_title="Newsletter - June 2022"]

Newsletter Editor: Rita Curbow