No Meeting This Month
Because GSBF Bonsai Rendezvous is happening at the same time as our usual club meeting we have cancelled our club meeting this month.
Monthly Tasks
This month: October 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.
Oakland Autumn Lights Festival at BGLM
Every year the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt (BGLM) participates in the Oakland Autumn Lights Festival in October, an annual fundraiser for the Gardens at Lake Merritt, which includes BGLM.
This year the event is scheduled for October 12, 13, and 14, Thursday through Saturday.
BGLM is using the Sign Up Genius app for online recruiting and registering of volunteers. The app was useful in filling 54% of the shifts for Mammoth 2023. Folks need to get use to the online application. It provides email reminders and updates: Sign Up
Some important guidance and tips below:
- We really, really need help with setup the weekend of Oct 7th & 8th!
- For the 3 nights of the Festival, arrive early for the best parking spaces.
- Please sign up for both night shifts, if at all possible. The folks who have supported the late hours and helped close up the garden are getting on in years and lately they have been left with covering that task all three nights.
- Bring your own lunch/dinner. We will have munchies and on the Festival nights there will be Food Trucks (they normally start service around 5:30 PM).
- Access badges will be available Saturday Oct 7 and Sunday Oct 8. If you cannot make it on those days let Randi know at calshohin@yahoo.com or 650-773-5119.
- We really, really need help with clean up on Sunday Oct 15th.
Thank you for supporting the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt.
Intermediate Workshop – Saturday, October 28
This is a great time to work on Junipers.
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 12:45 PM ready to setup tables and get to work soon afterwards. We will start cleaning up at 3:45 PM.
To help offset the cost of renting this facility we are asking everyone who attends to donate by using the button on the event page.
Phil Richardson - Lodgepole Pine
November 17 @ 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Phil Richardson will be our featured guest speaker styling a collected lodgepole pine. Thirty-one years ago he joined East Bay Bonsai and is currently a member of the bonsai clubs of San Francisco, Gold Country, and Sierra Bonsai. He is the current president of the Nevada County Bonsai Club and has an extensive nursery of collected and styled bonsai at his Moonshine Ranch Bonsai in Grass Valley. After 25 years as a professional horn player and music teacher he retired to concentrate on bonsai. He has vended his trees at the past couple Shohin and GSBF conventions and has been collecting with Scott Chadd and Bolet in the White Mountains and Mammoth Lakes for many years. His lodgepoles are typically styled in a bunjin or cascade style. Phil will bring lodgepoles that he has styled and share his extensive knowledge of the species. The demo tree will be raffled.
September Meeting Recap - Jonas Dupuich
Jonas Dupuich, our go-to local bonsai master, was with us again at our meeting on September 15, 2023. We always enjoy his expertise, his gentle manner, and his ability to handle a room (as well as a tree). He was in top form. The presentation and discussion was lively and well-paced. His slides were excellent at illustrating his points.
He first gave us an update on the Pacific Bonsai Exhibition which is slated for the last weekend in October 2024. The venue has not finally been determined. The show could go back to the Bridgeyard, which has its merits, but he and Eric Schrader are looking at other possibilities, including the new center under construction at Lake Merritt. Ideally, they would like more space to allow for more visitors and more vendors.
Jonas’ topic for the evening was Bonsai Design, which is the subject of the second chapter in a new book he is currently writing. Throughout the evening he was taking notes of points he wanted to remember to add to the chapter.
Jonas began with a question: Has anyone ever had instruction in how to design a bonsai tree? We get so caught up in tools, species, techniques like wiring and repotting and pruning that we are left with little or no knowledge about how to design a tree.
1st Question: How many of you have studied or been taught bonsai design? Anyone had experience on instruction in how to design?
ell, not really. We know the standard stuff like finding the front, checking out the nebari, locating the first branch, the key branch, the apex. We know the old bonsai adage: let the tree lead the dance, that is, let the tree tell you what design comes to it naturally, or can come to it artificially with lots of technique.
The best way to begin to learn about design, according to Jonas, is to internalize what we have seen in great trees. At this point Jonas said it was time for a pop quiz. He handed out sheets of paper with design templates, simple line drawings of trunks without branches. The quiz was to draw primary branches and the silhouette of foliage.
2nd Question: How do you know where the branches go if you have never been taught design? Where do you cut? Where do you allow to extend? How do you place the tree in the pot: off center? Tilted one way or another?
Jonas then introduced the idea of flow that was the subject of most of the evening’s discussion. Very little is taught or written about bonsai design. David De Groot’s Principles of Bonsai Design, which Jonas highly recommends, is the only book Jonas knows on bonsai design.
Show books from great international exhibitions like the Kokufu-ten are great places to see and study the designs of lots of great trees.
3rd Question: What do you do when you first get a tree? At what point does all your cleaning work lead you to that inevitable question about design
Suggestion: trace out the primary branches of a great tree in an exhibition book (or from nature), then without looking back at the photograph, try to place branches and foliage on the tree in your drawing, then compare with the tree you admired.
How do you look at a tree? Jonas suggested that we look especially at the flow and silhouette of a tree. He began his slide show of trees, many from the Kokufu-ten, his commentary and blitz of questions mixed with our responses and more questions.
(Photos courtesy and copyright by Jonas Dupuich)
Concept of Flow: All bonsai trees have a flow, either left to right, or right to left. Symmetry is boring. Flow allows us to decide how to prune the tree to determine silhouette and apex. Is most of the tree on left or right of a center line? If to the left, what else confirms a leftward flow? The key branch, the apex, the lean, the left of center apex, the mass of foliage. Angles of slopes on either side of the bonsai triangle also help determine the flow. Look also at the shape of silhouette; which way does it flow? If one side is a long left slope and the other a short right slope, we can see the tree is leaning to the right. Look for the key branch, the longest branch on the tree; usually the flow is in the direction of this branch. Some trees are more subtle. When you have a slender trunk, in an oval or rectangular pot, you don’t center the tree but leave more space in the direction of the tree’s flow. The lowest branch often indicates flow to that side. Negative space is a big topic. Recently, Jonas is frequently asked about negative space. How do we incorporate negative space into design? The characteristics of a particular species can also figure in design. What story/history is the tree is telling? Effects of weather, for example, inform the design?
Christine asked about terminology she hears in bonsai talk; terms like asymmetry vs balance, dynamic design, and tension vs harmony. Jonas took a note to be sure to address these in his new book. All of these are helpful ways of seeing and addressing design. And so are concepts like traditional (Japanese) or naturalistic style (Walter Pall).
“Evidence of people in the tree is the definition of bonsai.”
The age of a tree is also part of the tree’s story, take deadwood for example. The tree is old and we like age in bonsai. Other narrative cues like weather may help make up the tree’s story and therefore influence its design. Wind (swept), ice (split or broken).
We spent the rest of the evening viewing photos of many trees, analyzing, asking which way goes the flow? Many easy to figure. Then we saw a number of trees that were ambiguous. Very dynamic trees. Would we want to leave them ambiguous? Would we want to take steps (pruning, bending, tilting, placement in the pot) to move to a more definitive flow? What would be gained or lost?
Two tidbits along the way: (1) The accent plant is placed in the direction of the tree’s flow; (2) The apex (from the side view) never goes/ turns back, is never behind the center line, but toward the viewer/ leaning toward the front.
Barbara Phillips then asked a question: What does Jonas see as the future of bonsai? Jonas’s response: There are changes in fashion sometimes determined by economics. How much money in the economy is going toward bonsai? The more money, the stiffer and more artificial, the more worked or overworked. The less money, the more naturalistic design, trees look older, even unkempt.
In the US, Jonas sees huge appreciation for character and age but there is also a radical disinterest in time-based techniques. In bonsai shows, trees have become younger. More look like they were dug up yesterday. Will there be growing interest in time-based techniques or in a hurry-up culture? Do we prefer trees that look like they have been developed over time, or do we like instant dig up and put in a pot. Clearly we discern Jonas’s bias.
“Age, character, and beauty—the three things I look for in bonsai.
Recommended Videos - Bonsai Garden Design
Inspired as we were by the three bonsai gardens of three of our own members, Lynne O’Dell, Christine Weigen, and Michael Goldstein, here is an extension of that tour: videos and blogs from a number of beautiful gardens around the world, including how to build benches and stands, how to arrange gardens, and of course many beautiful trees in the displays. Enjoy all over again.
Bonsai Garden Design
Bonsai Empire | blog
https://www.bonsaiempire.com/blog/bonsai-garden
This blog has photos of gardens in Japan, China, Singapore, and the US—so many different pole and bench designs and arrangements.
Bonsai Bench
Bonsai Empire | blog
https://www.bonsaiempire.com/blog/building-bench
You can see the finished product in the blog above. In this blog are the plans and procedures to build the bench.
How to Build Bonsai Benches and Shade Structure
Eisei-en Bonsai | 9 minutes
Early on in the development of his garden outside of Nashville, Bjorn builds basic structures for the display of his trees.
Garden Design
Bonsai Mirai | 23 minutes
Ryan Neil’s tour of Mirai and discussion of garden design, problems, solutions, opportunities.
How to Build an Outdoor Display Stand for the Garden
Baikoen Bonsai Club | 16 minutes
Building concrete block stands with Jason Chan.
Artistic Bonsai Garden Designs | How To Set Up Your Own Beautiful Bonsai Garden Ideas
Homes Décor Designs | 9 minutes
Not from a bonsai practitioner, more like a house beautiful designer, nevertheless this video includes many good shots of a variety of benches and garden designs.
Building a Bonsai Garden
Tree, Flower, Plants | 3 minutes
Many shots of inspiring bonsai gardens.
David Benavente Bonsai garden
Bonsai Empire | 8 minutes
Video tour of David Benavente’s beautiful garden. David is one of the best bonsai masters in Europe. His garden is just outside of Madrid, Spain.
Andres Alvarez Bonsai Garden
Bonsai Empire | 6 minutes
Terrific video tour of the garden of another bonsai master in Spain.
Omiya Bonsai Museum
Bonsai Empire | 8 minutes
The Omiya Bonsai Art Museum hosts a collection of stunning trees since it opened in 2010. The Museum also offers insights into Bonsai history, culture, tools, and pots—a must visit when you are next in Tokyo. This video focuses on the trees but some good views too of the layout of the garden, a variety of display structures, and tokonoma.
Newsletter Editor: Jenn Tan