Gordon Deeg - Redwood Care
June 21 @7:00pm to 9:30pm
by Lynne O’Dell
Over the years Kusamura Club member Gordon Deeg has done many informative presentations for Kusamura. This month Gordon will discuss various aspects of redwood care including tip pinching, branch cutting, fertilizing and repotting while we pinch the tips of the redwoods that we’ve brought in. Time permitting, he’ll offer advice on your redwood, so bring in your trees for Show and Tell.
We will also be installing our 2024 slate of officers during the meeting.
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: June Tasks
Intermediate Workshop – Saturday, June 29
by Dave Curbow
Another opportunity to work with your trees while getting advice from other Kusamura members.
Location, Time and Cost
We will be meeting in the rear parking lot of St Mark’s Episcopal Church – our usual location for monthly meetings.
Please be there at 12:45PM ready to setup tables and get to work soon afterwards. We will start cleaning up at 3:45PM.
To help offset the cost of renting this facility we are asking everyone who attends to donate by using the on the event page.
Kusamura’s Bonsai Day at Filoli
by Rita Curbow
Display of Kusamura Club trees at Filoli
Filoli has been experiencing record crowds on the weekends this year and that was certainly the case on Saturday May 18. Those of us there from Kusamura enjoyed interacting with the public throughout the day as visitors were eager to learn about the bonsai collection and the art of bonsai itself. We may have even gotten some new members in the club.
Setup of a Kusamura bonsai display started at 9AM before the public arrived. Charlene Fischer, Jenn Tan, Lynne O’Dell, Michael Greenstein, and Rita Curbow displayed a total of 14 trees. The varieties of trees included bougainvillea, ornamental plum in a group style, Potentilla gracilis, star jasmine, azalea, Chinese elm, princess persimmon with fruits just starting to appear, shimpaku juniper, mountain juniper, Vitus vinifera ‘Merlot’ grape, Manuka tea tree, ‘Lilliput’ dwarf jade, and silverberry. Most of these species are not in the Filoli bonsai collection and visitors were especially awed by the flowering bonsai and Jenn’s tokonoma with the ‘Lilliput’ dwarf jade
Our official program for the day started at 10:30AM with a history and critique of the Filoli bonsai collection. Rita Curbow talked about the history of the collection while Michael Greenstein discussed details about the individual trees. The consensus was that the visiting public really enjoyed hearing the stories behind the trees and their progression at Filoli and those of us there agreed that we should do this again going forward. The critique had its own crowd of followers while those manning the special Kusamura display stayed engaged with their own crowd of visitors throughout the morning.
Michael Greenstein discussing Filoli bonsai
After a break for lunch, we had a very lively and engaging bonsai demonstration by Michael Greenstein, Jenn Tan, Lynne O’Dell and Hal Jerman that started at 1:30PM. We had morning visitors who joined us again for the afternoon demonstration. Jenn worked on a shimpaku juniper and demonstrated how to thin its foliage. Jenn did a fabulous job and when she was finished you could see through the tree and imagine small birds wanting to check it out. Lynne O’Dell pruned back a thread-leaf false cypress bringing the foliage in tighter which made that tree look older and more refined. While they were working on these trees, Michael and Hal kept everyone entertained with their humor as they worked on a California native oak that was originally dug up on the Filoli property. After suffering a few mishaps caused by heavy winds at Filoli, the oak needed restyling to deal with severed branches, etc. As Hal is known as Mr. Turnbuckle amongst us who volunteer with him, his expertise in this area along with Michael’s critical eye transformed the oak. Needless to say, the crowd had fun and learned a lot. It was nice to see some fellow Kusamura members amongst the crowd too, some of you attending “Bonsai Day at Filoli” for the first time.
Demonstrations
Overall, the day was a success and as the Club organizer for this event, I, Rita Curbow would like to extend a big THANK YOU to everyone involved including Katherine Glassey, Henk Harkema, Paticia Lee, Charlene Fischer and Dave Curbow who signed up and helped monitor the Kusamura show tables throughout the day. We couldn’t have done it without you guys. Some of you even helped with cleanup at the end of the day.
Lastly, thank you to Filoli for their Corporate Partnership and providing this opportunity for Kusamura. The Filoli staff were very helpful during setup and throughout the day.
Recommended Videos - Exhibitions
by Idris Anderson
GSBF Golden Zoom Presents Yannick Kiggen _ Global Bonsai Styles
Yannick Kiggen
June 3, 2024 – 1 hour 55 minutes
https://youtu.be/-oFVfL7SHWI?si=J6-JBz9zOhBMAeUa
Golden State Bonsai Federation (GSBF) presents another episode of the Golden Zoom Series. Bonsai artists are influenced by the artists surrounding them as well as the teachings of their masters. Different counties have different styling tendencies. Belgium resident Yannick Kiggen discusses different bonsai styles from his perspective and gives his thoughts on different artistic approaches.
GSBF's objective is the support of the art of bonsai through education and outreach for hobbyists and professional bonsai artists. Please visit www.gsbfbonsai.org for information about upcoming events and future Golden Zoom presentations. For further information visit our website www.gsbfbonsai.org