June ACBS Meeting

June 4th 7-9 pm at the Cuyahoga Valley Arts Center

BRING YOUR OWN TREE Let’s just relax and bring our own trees to work on and show to each other. You might bring your Hokkaido Elm to show around, or the Octopus style Shimpaku that we worked on last month. Or . . . . whatever. Right NOW is the best time to work on material, especially if you want to pot it.

Need advice on a tree? Bring it. You may get more ideas than one little tree deserves.

Akron Canton Bonsai Society

First Thursday of Each Month

(except December)

7 – 9 p.m.

Cuyahoga Valley Art Center

2131 Front Street, Cuyahoga Falls, OH

ACBS is a member of Bonsai Clubs International

Ken's Mangled Style Workshop with Shipaku Junipers

Here are a few shots from Ken's workshop at the May ACBS meeting. Ken called this style of tree "mangle-ations" or "mangled style." He also related that he believes the Japanese word is "Fuko abuncho ?"

Whatever you call them, it was a lot of fun and the members put together some good trees. The 1st pictures are before and after of some of last night's trees.

Also with some of the trees, a srtipped "shari" was created before wiring and shaping. As the tree grows the shari will turn into an interesting feature of the trunk when the raffia is removed after the growing season and as the tree ages.

Octopus Style Workshop at May 2009 Meeting

Our own Ken Huth will lead a workshop with shimpaku juniper on Octopus style (tako-zukuri) $15 will do it all: tree, raffia, wire, fun, help . . . . the whole bit.

No one has done more for ACBS than Ken Huth! And once again Ken swings into action. You may have seen him working on this at the last meeting. He started with a young shimpaku juniper whip, wrapped it with raffia, then wired it and . . . . then he did the twist – round and round and back and forth. It brought the height of the tree from about 24 inches down to about 8 inches. WOW! (Yes, you do hear considerable crunching and snapping, but that’s why you have the raffia wrapped around it – to hold all of the pieces together. ;-) The next step on the plant shown would be to thin the branches, then wire them into the usual, first-branch, second-branch, back branch, etc. This is an EXCELLENT technique to learn! The technique is the same that you can use on branches that are too long and have too much space between the secondary branches. Besides it looks like great fun!! And Ken is looking forward to leading this workshop as much as I’m looking forward to taking it.

So join us, 7-9 pm at the Cuyahoga Valley Art Center 2131 Front Street Cuyahoga Falls, OH.