Club News - May 2018
Meeting - May 18 @ 7PM
New Members Workshop
Our May Club meeting welcomes the community and club members who bought trees at our April Show and would like advice on their care. Club members Michael Greenstein and Ryan Nichols will lead the discussion. Michael is a long-standing bonsai enthusiast who is skilled at bonsai development and adept at teaching others. Ryan is new to our club but not to the bonsai community. After studying and teaching ornamental horticulture at Cal Poly, he continues to give bonsai seminars and styling demonstrations.
Experienced club members are asked to bring in a few tools and be prepared to assist new members with their trees during this workshop.
Note: This month’s meeting will end a bit early because of another special event starting shortly afterwards in the Fellowship Hall.
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: May Tasks
"Introduction to Bonsai" Class on May 26
To be taught by Richard Phillips.
Members and prospective members should mark this on their calendar for Saturday, May 26th. The class will run from 9:00 am - 12:00 noon at the home of Richard and Barbara Phillips in Menlo Park. A nominal fee for materials will be collected for supplies used in the class. For more info or to sign up, please visit us during our May Meeting.
Nominees for the 2018-2019 Term
Nominations for the upcoming fiscal year will be announced at our May meeting. Any nominations from the membership at large will be done at this time also as all nominations will be voted upon at this meeting. Those elected will be sworn in at our monthly meeting on Friday, June 15 with terms effective July 1.
Annual Show Recap
A huge “Thank you” to everyone who showed trees (eighty displays including six shohin) and helped with putting on our show (thirty-five volunteers). Here are a few words I overheard from our visitors: “exquisite”, “stunning”, “WOW”, “is that real?” and “beautiful”. The central azalea display was particularly exciting and several people said they thought it was not real but I assured them no super glue or grafting had been involved. Twenty-seven members showed trees and we had seventeen stories. About four people told me the stories added another dimension to the show “drawing them in” to what they were seeing.
Just think about all the work we did including: choosing our speakers, planning and holding planting parties, renting the facility and tables, doing publicity, preparing and printing postcards and flyers, collecting trees from members who are not driving, picking up items from the shed, installing banners, interacting with nurseries, installing lighting, setting up and breaking down the show, conducting plant sales, coordinating dining, doing the children’s corner, setting up the projector and audio system, selling tickets, receiving visitors, monitoring the show room, preparing tree labels, preparing stories, and doing photography. I want to specifically thank Barbara Phillips (publicity and children’s corner); Christoph, Richard and Mark (tree delivery, shed and lighting work); John and Christoph (banner); John (gift cards); Idris (stories); Diane Churchill (dining); Hal Jerman (plant sale); Michael Greenstein, Jerry Carpenter, JC Zhang, Richard Phillips, and Lynne O’Dell (Sunday demonstration) and Lynne O’Dell (show co-chair).
Speaking of demonstrations, both days were a huge hit. The azalea by Laura and Darren Wong was such mature stock and we could easily see its potential as a future show tree. The Sunday demonstration was standing room only and really fun to see the saikei creations come together.
Our guest book had forty-five signatures, but I know we had more like five hundred guests! The experiment with the fitted black tablecloths seemed successful and the added cost to have Peninsula Party setup and take down the eight-foot tables was a good decision. The photography team was there again and you should look forward to seeing several trees up on our website soon.
Kid’s Corner Recap
This year we had twenty-eight happy children make their own bonsai to take home with them. Many thanks to Lynne O'Dell, Kathryn Low and Richard Phillips who helped make this a successful part of our show. At one time Richard had, with the help of one of the dads, five kids that were making bonsai and they wrapped it up by doing a rain dance when they were watering in their tree. It was lots of fun and everyone had a good time.
Presidents Message
II second Charlene’s appreciation to the many members who wore multiple hats at the 2018 Annual Show and a special thank you to Charlene Fischer who worked tirelessly as Show Chair throughout the entire year to put the 2018 Annual Show together.