Last month, Clinton Nesci was our demonstrator and his topic was forests. He brought two old settings, one a liquidambar group of seven trees and the other a large Japanese maple forest of eight trees. Both needed repotting and restyling. While forests are fun for all skill levels, Clinton believes they are trickier than most […]
This month, long term member and bonsai maestro, John March will explain how to best prepare our trees for show. Whether a club show or competition, there is a lot more to presenting a tree than a nice pot and good foliage. John will walk us through all the steps necessary to show your tree
It has been wonderful to have a break from the constant wet weather of the last few weeks and I, like many of you I’m sure, have been very busy repotting trees every chance I get! We are starting to get some warmer days, although there are most likely some cold nights still to come.
Our show dates are now finalised- 2nd- 4th September. Our flyer is below. That means we all should be looking at our trees now and deciding which ones we want to show and working them appropriately. We can’t have a bonsai show without bonsai trees and that means your trees. As a club, we like
The Origins of Jins and Sharis In nature these occur naturally without the aid of human intervention on junipers. There is a variety of a mountain juniper called a nezu and the natural jins and sharis are made by a blight fungus, which belongs to the family of mould that causes athlete’s foot and this
In preparation for our move from temporary residence in Commonwealth Park, up to our existing facility within the National Arboretum, we increased our holding of bonsai and penjing from around 30 trees up to a number over 100. In order to do this, we relied heavily on the bonsai community to increase their loans and
Grewia is an evergreen native of South Africa and is a beautiful flowering plant but seldom seen in bonsai displays. I am basing this article on two short, early attempts and the grewia I have now had for two years. In gardens, the grewia grows to be a substantial bush and is happy in sun
This month is one of our planned focus workshops for the year, focusing on a group planting of a deciduous species of your choice. Suitable trees include maples, liquidambars, elms, ash or one of the deciduous conifers (Taxodium or Metasequoia). Young trees are best suited for this style, to be spaced and grouped together in
Our June meeting saw Michael Kempson explain how he works his junipers to achieve fantastic results. Bringing a record amount trees for any demonstration (all juniper), Michael had every base covered and showed his junipers’ development from fairly raw stock (albeit with excellent bones) to refined trees. It was an inspired way of showing the
Clinton has once again agreed to demonstrate for our club. It’s always a pleasure to see Clinton in action. As you all know, Clinton has worked full time in the family nursery since 1989 and holds a Nursery Trade Certificate. He was the president and taught at the School of Bonsai for many years where
