Fog City Bonsai May 2018 Newsletter of the Bonsai Society of San Francisco San Francisco County Fair Building, Lincoln Way between 9 th and 10 th Avenues Cow Palace Bonsai Exhibit Events at-a-glance .. May 10: General Meeting – Deciduous Defoliation with Jonas Dupuich . May 17: Free Third Thursday Member Workshop. Jun 14: General Meeting – Black Pine Decandling with Brian Schindler and Bernard Marque Jun 21: Free Third Thursday Member Workshop In this issue ... President’s Message, p. 1 San Francisco Cow Palace Show, p. 2 John Thompson, Guest Speaker, p. 3 San Francico Cherry Blossom Show, p. 4 SF Botanical Garden Sale, and SFBG/BSSF Workday, p. 4 BSSF Meetings and Events, p. 4 BSSF Announcements, p. 5 Other Bonsai Events, p. 6 BSSF Officers and Directors, p. 7 President’s Message Andrea Burhoe My thanks to all of you who helped make the recent displays we put on—San Francisco Flower and Garden Show and Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival—as successful as they were. For those of you who were new to doing this, I hope it was a fun experience. These shows are a lot of work and worry for us, but the result—seeing the pleasure others take in our trees and the pleasure of seeing them in a formal display for us and others to enjoy—seems to me worth the effort. We have some interesting events coming up including another evening with Jonas Dupuich continuing the development of deciduous trees on May 10. The following Thursday (Third Thursday) would be a great time to bring your deciduous trees and practice what you learned on your own trees. Then, on July 12 (a Saturday) our soil work party. Be sure to put it on your calendar. It’s a fun day and great time to get your soil for next year ready. Sadly, our editor, Diana Lum will be resigning as of the June newsletter. We will miss her unendingly patient, meticulous and knowledgeable work for the club in writing, photographing and putting together this newsletter. This means, of course, that a replacement is needed. If you have any skills or interest in this line, please let me know 1
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Fog City Bonsai May 2018 - BSSF · The bonsai exhibit was put on by BSSF, Yamato Bonsai Kai of Hayward, and the San Francisco Suiseki Society. The tradition of BSSF being involved
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Fog City Bonsai May 2018
Newsletter of the Bonsai Society of San FranciscoSan Francisco County Fair Building, Lincoln Way between 9th and 10th Avenues
Cow Palace Bonsai Exhibit
Events at-a-glance ..
May 10: General Meeting – Deciduous Defoliationwith Jonas Dupuich
. May 17: Free Third Thursday Member Workshop.
Jun 14: General Meeting – Black Pine Decandlingwith Brian Schindler and Bernard Marque
Jun 21: Free Third Thursday Member Workshop
In this issue ...
President’s Message, p. 1
San Francisco Cow Palace Show, p. 2
John Thompson, Guest Speaker, p. 3
San Francico Cherry Blossom Show, p. 4
SF Botanical Garden Sale, and SFBG/BSSF Workday, p. 4
BSSF Meetings and Events, p. 4
BSSF Announcements, p. 5
Other Bonsai Events, p. 6
BSSF Officers and Directors, p. 7
President’s MessageAndrea Burhoe
My thanks to all of you who helped make the recentdisplays we put on—San Francisco Flowerand Garden Show and Japanese Cherry BlossomFestival—as successful as they were. Forthose of you who were new to doing this, I hope itwas a fun experience. These shows are a lotof work and worry for us, but the result—seeing thepleasure others take in our trees and thepleasure of seeing them in a formal display for usand others to enjoy—seems to me worth theeffort.
We have some interesting events coming upincluding another evening with Jonas Dupuich continuing the development of deciduous trees onMay 10. The following Thursday (Third Thursday)would be a great time to bring your deciduous treesand practice what you learned on your own trees.Then, on July 12 (a Saturday) our soil work party.Be sure to put it on your calendar. It’s a fun day andgreat time to get your soil for next year ready.
Sadly, our editor, Diana Lum will be resigning as ofthe June newsletter. We will miss her unendinglypatient, meticulous and knowledgeable work for theclub in writing, photographing and putting togetherthis newsletter. This means, of course, that areplacement is needed. If you have any skills orinterest in this line, please let me know
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San Francisco Cow Palace ShowBrian Schindler
Congratulations on a beautiful show and thanks toall of the members who helped at the 2018 SanFrancisco Flower and Garden Show. The trees wereof a very high quality and overall the show was asgood a club show as I have seen. The high opinionof our show was not just mine, but was shared byJonas Dupuich. Check out his blog on his websiteBonsai Tonight. Everyday, people came up to me toexpress their joy at seeing such a great exhibit ofbonsai. To top it off, the commute to the Cow Palacewas a lot shorter than San Mateo for most of us.
Our club had wonderful participation with at least 33members able to provide a security shift and 15members submitting trees for our exhibit. Specialthanks to Ann Norton for bringing our foundingmember, John Boyce. It's always great to see John.He also thought that the show was really good. Somany people took shifts that the owner of the showinitially had some discomfort as to the number ofwrist bands requested by us. By the close of theshow she personally expressed her gratitude for ourparticipation.
When the show committee decided to proceed withhaving an exhibit at the San Francisco Flower Showwe had several goals to meet -- to present as gooda show as we could with high quality bonsai; toprovide education to the public on the developmentof bonsai trees; and to experience bonding with ourfellow club members. I think that we succeeded onall the major points. We presented an excellentdisplay of bonsai. We got the opportunity to sharetime with fellow members and, the public had theopportunity to learn about the Art of Bonsai andBonsai clubs in the area.
Finally, I want to thank several people for their help.Andrea, Bernard, Debra, Lucky, and Catherine allprovided tremendous assistance. Even someone astechnologically challenged as I was able to learn touse the Square following Catherine's detailedinstructions. The architectural bonsai acrobat, EricSchrader, was in charge of the bonsai setup. Theflow from tree to tree is not easy to assemble, andhe created a beautiful exhibit. One of the highlightsof the show was his avant-garde take on balance inbonsai and guy-wires.
Photos from the Show
BSSF Logo Tree
Photos by Diana Lum and Dave Gomberg
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John Thompson, Guest SpeakerLucky Fung
John Thompson, Oak bonsai enthusiast, was
special guest at our monthly meeting in April. John
has a wealth of bonsai experience as an artist and
a bonsai community advocate with the Golden
State Bonsai Federation. His favorite tree is Oak
and this was obvious as he worked his magic,
shared his knowledge and styled a Cork Oak
bonsai.
Examples of different varieties of Oaks Photo by Eric Schrader
There are over 20 varieties of California natives.
Several different Oak species were on display for
members and guests to see: a Coastal Live Oak,
a Cork Oak and a Blue Oak.
John spoke of Oaks reaching for the sky (sun), a
deciduous tree whose branches grow up and out.
This is different than a pine tree, an evergreen,
whose branches grow down.
John styled a Cork Oak in a nursery container.
He discussed the importance of finding the front
and best viewing angle. He tilted, raised one side
of the bottom of the container with wedges to
achieve the best position.
John imagines the bonsai on a gyroscope to seek
the best line. John cleared the top soil around the
nebari (base) of trunk appearing at the surface.
Ideally the nebari should be flared with the surface
roots slightly visible. John grows his Oaks with
50% to 75% akadama. He has had great success
with this.
The Cork Oak had 3 trunks and he considered
eliminating one trunk. To help visualize what the tree
would look like, he used a small piece of cloth to
cover the trunk to be eliminated. He then removed
the undesirable trunk; immediate improvement was
observed.
John cut back a long branch growing up which had
the same diameter throughout to a smaller lower
branch to achieve taper. He also cut back some
shoots to increase lighting into the interior. Clean
cuts on bigger branches are important to insure the
wound heals, collar closes and over time has a
natural look. He used cut paste to cover the wound.
After John finished pruning the tree, he wired the
bonsai starting with the largest branch first and from
bottom to top. The wire should be removed in a few
months. John uses Dr. Earth Root Zone Starter. He
also mentioned Miracle Gro. He advises using
sphagnum moss to keep the surface of the soil
moist.
John Thompson discusses styling of Oaks Photo by Ryan Iwata
His goal this evening was to achieve a silhouette, an
arc which is pleasing and natural. And it was a huge
success!
John encouraged questions and allowed us to come
up to watch him style. The Cork Oak will be
auctioned off at our club meeting in the fall.
John - Thanks for sharing your knowledge and
experience. It was an amazing evening!!!
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Our own Eric Schrader will give a shortpresentation about bonsai--kind of anintroduction to the art and techniques so youmight come at 11:00 AM to hear that. He willbe in the Auditorium.
San Francisco Cherry Blossom ShowBrian Schindler
On the weekend of April 21-22 BSSF participated in
the 51st Annual San Francisco Cherry Blossom
Festival. For those of you who have never gone to the
festival, it is a huge event with tens of thousands of
people attending.
The bonsai exhibit was put on by BSSF, Yamato
Bonsai Kai of Hayward, and the San Francisco
Suiseki Society. The tradition of BSSF being involved
in the bonsai show at the Cherry Blossom Festival
goes back over 20 years. More than 1500 people
came to admire the bonsai and suiseki. Many thanks
to those who participated for a lovely exhibit of bonsai.
Thankfully, this should be the last show report of this
year. Sheesh, two shows in weeks is a lot!
Above: Photos from the bonsai exhibit at the SF Cherry Blossom Festival