Winter: a Good Time for Study

by Michael Rusnak
While our hardy trees are dormant and tucked away under the mulch and snow, winter is the time of the year when you might have a chance to do some bonsai studying--and perhaps hone or expand on bonsai skills, get ideas for projects, and maybe find some inspiration from other clubs, books and posts from other tree people.

A project in DeGroot's book

This time of the year I like to sit and review some of my favorite books.  One book that I come back to again and again is a small book by David DeGroot, entitled Basic Bonsai Design.  It that was designed for workshops, and is a small wire bound book.  What I have always liked about it is that it lays out some basic principals along with a few projects where the author begins with nursery stock. For someone new to the art, it shows a clear path for creating your own bonsai.  He discusses the process of visualizing and planning a project, making the initial pruning and wiring to begin to develop the tree.  It is concisely written and easy to follow.  I used this section several years ago when I started some literati pine projects. I thought it was very helpful. The book is available through the American Bonsai Society at this link for $16.

The internet is an inexhaustible library for information to help with bonsai skills and ideas.  I enjoy looking at photos of the trees that other clubs publish. It's just exciting to see what other clubs and well-known bonsai artists produce.  There are two places that I really like and have found myself going back to over and over again--one for just plain and simple joy and inspiration, and another that excites me to think more ambitiously about working on seemingly impossible material.

Example of inspiring sequence on TedyBoy's blog

For inspiration, there is nothing quite like looking at the remarkable array of trees by the Indonesian bonsai artist Tedy Boy.  The photos and drawings on his blog are just a marvel. If nothing else, take a look at what he does with shimpaku junipers.  The shapes that he works the trees into are simply exciting to see and they sort of pull you out of the box of what you might have been thinking you could do with some of your own projects.  Here's another link to another gallery post that show lots of sketches.  Just scroll down and click on any of the photos. 

The second internet spot that I have kept going back to are the Youtube posts by the English bonsai artist Graham Potter. Potter has made me think about how I might be able to move to the next level and reach for more ambitious projects and ways of creating bonsai.  Also, he often works on material that is similar to what I like best-- an old beat up shrub that the neighbors have ripped out of their lawns and put out on the curb. His series of videos are practically an on-line course in the art of carving and conceiving what can be done with this type of large material. Take a moment or two to watch one of his videos, you won't be disappointed and it will start you thinking of what projects are possible if you can get that discarded shrub to live in a pot.

Shapes on the Winter Skyline

Winter is also a good opportunity to really study shapes.  The bare winter tree lines with their black branches against the gray sky make for a wonderful study of shapes.

One of the skills that I most admire in other bonsai people is the ability to make a good, interesting and believable apex. Along the winter skyline, you can catch some of the phenomenal apexes that nature creates.  Sometimes the snow sort of highlights curves and features of trees. If you have a camera handy, photographing such magnificent trees can serve as a reference of what trunk movement near the top really looks like.  They can also inspire. The old Scots pine (photo) near a cemetery in Kent, Ohio is practically a classic literati bunjin style.  Nature just shows you how its done.

Anyway, that will keep you thinking and getting ready for a new season.  The best is yet to come.

Ideas for Protecting Your Hardy Trees for the Winter

by Michael Rusnak
This is a mostly repeat of an earlier post from a few years ago, but then again getting trees ready for winter is an annual task, so  the ideas bear repeating.

Although pines and other winter hardy trees need their dormant period rest, because bonsai are kept in shallow pots there is a danger of your trees drying out, or being damaged during the winter months.  Without some protection, winter may weaken or damage a bonsai, or in some cases, an unprotected tree may not survive.  So some protection of the roots is prudent to keep the tree moist and healthy.

One way used by many of our club members, and that has worked for my own pines over many seasons is to heel the tree into the ground, along with a covering of mulch. Good spots for heeling in your trees include land scaped areas near the house.  Such locations give you the added benefit of wind protection from the house and in between shrubbery.  Plus you may already have plenty of mulch in these areas.
To do this I simply use a rake or garden hoe to pull away the landscaping mulch.  I like to carve a long shallow trench about as deep as the pots.  The long trench allows me to put up several trees at once and it seems much quicker than trying to heel them one at a time.  Once a shallow trench is cleared, just place the trees in the trench, and rake the dirt back in and around the potted trees.   Then pull some mulch back over the pots as well.  Below is a photo of some of my trees heeled in and covered for the season.

Trees healed into a shallow trench and covered with mulch

For most trees, I've typically heeled them pot and all, as long as the pot is of such quality that it can withstand the freezing without cracking apart.  If you are unsure about your pot, healing the tree into the ground works just as well if you slip you bonsai out of the pot.  From experience with, it is disappointing in the spring to bring the bonsai out of the ground and find that your pot has burst apart from the frost. So take note as to how the pot is going to hold up. 

I also like to use the tomato garden for some of my larger plants. It is close to the area where I keep a lot of the larger trees that I work with, so I don't have to carry them as far, and it seems to work real well for the bigger pines.  During a lot of winters, they stay coated with snow.

In the tomato garden

Another handy spot that I use are the window wells around the house.  In these spots, I put trees that are still in good-sized nursery pots.  The sunken well is handy and well out of the wind. Adding a little straw around the pots will also help protect the trees and is not too hard to clean out in the spring.

Window well seems to work OK for some

Two maples packed in mulch in the garage

Lastly, I keep some of the less hardy trees like my Japanese maples in an unheated garage that is attached to the house.  Putting the bonsai into a plastic milk crates or shallow boxes and then packing some mulch around each pot is a way to help them stay moist and well protected. In the photo, two trees are fit into the crate by stacking them.  I set the larger one first into the crate with a layer of mulch packed around the pot and then stacked the smaller onto it, and finishing with a second layer of mulch.

Also, since they are in the garage, keep in mind that dormant trees will still use a little water. Be sure to check these trees occasionally. Watering them is necessary.  Be especially vigilant if your trees are in very shallow pots.  I lost two prized maples a few winters ago that happened to be in shallow pots, and were watered the same as those in deeper ones.  But at some point the moister wasn't adequate and trees had dried out. It was painful to loose two incredible maples. So keep a close eye  on them.

Hopefully, your trees will emerge healthy and ready for the new season with a nice flush of enlightening bright green foliage.  After, all "If winter comes can spring be far behind?"

2012 ACBS Virtual Fall Show

Amur maple sports its color in the evening light

The Akron Canton Bonsai Society (Ohio, USA) presents a Virtual Fall Show. 

We invite all of our local and internet bonsai friends to visit our gallery spot at this link, and see our virtual fall show. Just click on the "2012 Virtual Show" spot there, and you'll see the gallery of trees at their peak colors.

Among our club, a fall show has been something we have always wanted to put together, but timing is a problem. Since the colors of our deciduous trees change by the day, and since the timing of when trees are at their peak can vary among species, it can be a real challenge to plan an actual fall show.

Instead, we present to our bonsai internet friends this virtual show of our trees in their full fall colors.

As our trees make their move to color and toward dormancy this month and into November, we will continue to add photographs to the show as members take them.  We hope to also include some of our larch forests that our club put together this past spring.

Please visit the gallery spot often in the next couple of months, so as to not miss pictures of these trees. And to our internet friends who may live in other climates, we would like to convey some of the excitement and majesty that nature offers in this amazing time of the year.  Kind of like fresh sweet corn or garden tomatoes, the color lasts only a short time.  Some of the trees change by the day. It goes without saying that such wonderful fall color is another of the many reasons why we love the art of bonsai.

ACBS 2013 Project-- A Sprawling Landscape Penjing

a penjin with rocks and junipers

by Michael Rusnak
"Penjing" or a landscape planting will be the subject of this coming year's ACBS's club project. The art of penjing has its origins in China, and the root meaning of the word is "tray scenery." There are several kinds of penjing plantings, some involve rocks, land and water features, along with small scale trees, sometimes planted on rocks. According to Wiki, there are"legends dating from at least the 3rd and 4th centuries of Daoist persons said to have had the power to shrink whole landscapes down to small vessel size," and the earliest known drawing "dates from 706 and is found in a wall mural on a corridor leading to the tomb of Prince Zhang Huai" 

Carlton explains the concept

As fascinating and novel as many penjing plannings can be, ACBS's own Carlton Buck has a much grander scheme in mind.  At the October meeting, he laid out a patchwork of eleven separate sketches which he pieced together across a table to form the plan of one expansive composition.   Referring to these sketches, he proposed making 11 separate tray plantings, each to be developed by a club member as an individual planting, and each designed to be a part of the whole.  All eleven sections are conceived in such a way that they will fit together to from a single, sprawling landscape composition.  He proposed that each member would develop and take care of one section. At our club exhibitions, perhaps as early as next summer, the tray plantings would be put together according to the drawings and displayed as a total landscape .

This ambitions project is wide in its scope and novel in conception. It will also require that club members commit to creating an individual penjing that also works within the grander scheme.  The project is unprecedented for our club, and it would take a certain amount of coordination and commitment on the part of several members of the club.

It's also incredibly exciting!

Total plan overview

Portion of landscape plan. Shaded areas indicate land features and open areas near the rocks are water features

First Bonsai

by Michael Rusnak
I know it sounds cliche, but kind of like your first love, there is something about your first bonsai.  Something close and something you just never forget.  I don't mean one of the cut-flower-like junipers that so many of us purchased somewhere only to find it was dead in short order--or when you bought it.  I mean that first tree that you worked with and kept alive.

Carlton's boxwood

At the August ACBS meeting, while I was going around taking some photos of members' trees, I really admired the small  Kingsville boxwood that Carlton was tweaking.  For a small scale tree, it had an sturdy trunk. Plus its tight umbrella-shaped foliage crown--bright green and healthy-- off-set to the left, giving it a semi-cascade appearance. Anyway, the thing just looked great.  At some point in the discussion, Carlton added --"This was my first tree."  When he said that it stopped me.  I could tell from his expression that he had a genuine reverence for the tree and that it held a special place in his collection.  After all, it's the first one he kept alive, learned to re-pot, shape and prune.

Over the years most of of our members' trees seem to have some kind of story behind them-- and I suppose this sort of history is part of the appeal of the art of bonsai. This boxwood used to be in my sister's yard, and this yew was pulled out of a road ditch when my son was small, and so forth.

After the meeting, I was thinking that I still have my first tree, and I that haven't  really worked on it much over the last several seasons.  It was a nursery stock juniper that I tried to train for four or five seasons.  It was not just my first tree but one I kept alive. Unlike Carlton's boxwood, this one has just been sort of let go.  It's sitting in an area with several other junipers in nursery containers that I've been letting grow wild to thicken their trunks.

Anyway, when I got home I took it out and took a look at it. This exceptionally dry summer has beaten up the tree, and it was a mess with lots of weeds in the pot. I spent a few minutes just cleaning it up, getting rid of the weeds and dead leaves and stuff in the pot.  I then got out the clippers and cut away all of the dead sections, and proceeded to pinch back the foliage.  I decided that it wasn't that bad after I cleaned it up a bit. I left a few shoots that had extended near the top, thinking that if I fed it heavy now and early next season, I might be able to coax it into throwing up a strong shoot. This plan might make it's trunk continue over and upward a bit adding another level, like a tall literati that is often made from a staked juniper--see sketch.

While I was cleaning up the juniper, it occurred to me how many things I had learned or began to learn with this tree.  It was my first successful attempt at re-potting, and the first time I really tried to do a little wiring.  One thing I absolutely remember about this tree is that it was a sort of low sideways growing shrub.  I recall that it put out a real strong shoot, and I wired it upward so it would grow more into an informal upright tree.  I was surprised how it kept extending throughout that first season.

Here's something else I actually forgot about until now--a fat green caterpillar sort of taught me how to pinch the tree.  I remember coming out one day and looking at it, I noticed one small branch section was sort of mowed, mowed right down to little green nubs.  I looked closely, saw the caterpillar, sort of a tomato worm-like creature that I immediately cut in half with my clippers.  I was mad about the damage. A few weeks later, though, when new bright green shoots appeared expanding sideways, upward and elsewhere lush and thick all over from the nubs, I couldn't believe it. the branch looked better than anything I had tried to pinch out.  I felt bad about my rash act of cutting up the caterpillar.  He had nailed it. I understood better what people were talking about when they said pinch it way back.  So in a sense he showed me how to prune.

Much neglected

Anyway, I now felt ashamed that I hadn't paid much attention to this juniper, this special tree. In the same growing area, I spotted my first pine.  It was also overgrown and in need of some work. It was a black pine that I bought as nursery stock about that same summer I killed the caterpillar.  Back then, I was learning all from books, and you saw black pine in all or the the books on bonsai. The black pine was also the first tree that I thought to take a picture of before I began working on it.  That's my son in the picture--he's 27 now and an attorney working in D.C.  So that's how long it's been. And he, along with the tree, sort of mark the passage of time.

Although it's late now in the season, I gave the tree a little work, .  But thinned out, it's structure and what I was trying to do with it shows. I need to come back next weekend to do some wiring, especially in the upper section of the tree.

Thinning will add buds next year 

Black pine 1995

As with the juniper, working on the pine, I recalled it was the first time I really did some drastic pruning to begin a project.  I mean it took some time for me to work up the courage to saw off the top three feet of the tree when I started all those years ago.  It just seemed so crazy.  I also had to cut off a lot of root to fit it into a training pot. This was also the first go at stuff like pinching back foliage candles, and working to pull down and develop some branches. Looking at the cleaned up tree after part of an afternoon, I think if some small buds pop out next season, it should look presentable again about June.

So at the very least, our trees have an influence over us. But there is more. Carlton's understated remark --that it was my first tree was remarkable in a way.  It reminded me of how attached we are to them.  I thought of the little Japanese folk tale I read somewhere about a samurai who was out of fire wood on a cold night, and in order to make a fire for a guest, had to burn his beloved bonsai.  He did this without a word to his guest, keeping his emotions, his attachment to the trees to himself. Somehow, the folk tale seems more powerful in what he gave up.

Stan Hywet Exhibit

What a terrific opportunity for the ACBS to exhibit our trees in this lush, colorful and well-lit setting--the conservatory of Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens in Akron, Ohio. Stan Hywet Hall is as well-known for its Japanese and other gardens as it is for the mansion.

The week and a half long exhibit from August 4th through August 12th, 2012, entitled "The Art of Bonsai," was comprised of trees from nearly 20 ACBS members.  The gardens were hosting multiple events there throughout the week, including tours, a butterfly exhibit, weddings, and outdoor plays.  All of this meant a steady stream of visitors and great  exposure for our club--and for bonsai.  In addition, Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Roxanne Washington did a feature article on the exhibit in the garden section just prior to the event -- our own Gib and Matt were quoted on the history and object of bonsai.

Dan's juniper--it just gets better every year.

An ACBS show is always an exciting event.  It is enlightening to watch how from year to year members' trees are developing, and some are on the way to becoming genuine specimen bonsai. All you have to do is look back at our gallery pictures from past shows and you can see what has been accomplished. From season to season, they improve.  I have now gotten to the point that I simply love certain trees belonging to other members of the club, and I look for them right away.  It's like "Where's your big juniper, I've been looking forward to seeing it," or "Yeah, it's Dan's tree, but it's kind of mine too--because I like it so much." We sort of feel possessive toward our favorite member trees the way we do with old rock songs from back in high school-- you know, "That's my song," only instead it's "That's my tree."

I also liked seeing what members have done with their trees this year, and maybe I can learn something else from the way they've been styled or how the foliage has been pinched back.  In this sense, we learn the art together. And at the risk of sounding goofy, as a club and as individuals, our skills keep growing with our trees. More photos of the trees and the exhibit, as well as past shows, can be seen on our gallery spot.

At any rate, this has been an exciting event for our club, and we hope that the Stan Hywet exhibit brought the northeastern Ohio gardening community a chance to experience and appreciate the art of bonsai--especially our trees that looked so magnificent now in the height of summer.

ACBS to present "Art of Bonsai" exhibit at Stan Hywet Hall in Akron

"Art of Bonsai" Exhibit at Stan Hywet Hall in Akron, Ohio runs from August 4th to 12th

ACBS is pleased to announce that our members' trees will be exhibited in Stan Hywet Hall's magnificent gardens in Akron, Ohio. The week and a half long exhibit--from August 4th through August 12th -- is entitled "The Art of Bonsai." Stan Hywet Hall is as well-known for its Japanese and other gardens as it is for the mansion.

This is an exciting event for our club, and we hope that this will be a chance for the northeastern Ohio gardening community to experience and appreciate the art of bonsai--especially our pines and other trees that are looking right now so magnificent in the height of summer.


The exhibit will be open from 10:00 to 6:00 daily at Stan Hywet 714 N. Portage Path, Akron, Ohio 44303--see this link for a map.


Please join us for this event.  Later in August, photographs of the exhibit will be posted here on our events blog as well as on our gallery site.

Growing Season Projects

At the July meeting, ACBS members shared some of their summer growing season projects.  Here are three gems.

1. Magnificent and sublime, this is a real specimen tree.  It's hard to believe what can be created out of discarded and overgrown shrubs.  You can see photos of this tree--as well as it's companion tree, pictured in the right hand column with the caption "Dan's Juniper"-- in some of our past exhibitions at our gallery site. In this video, Dan gives a 360 degree tour of one of his famous junipers:

2. It takes a healthy tree (and a brave man), but in this video, Carlton shows us how he is using leaf pruning and defoliation to further develop trident forest.  The results will be smaller leaves and greater ramification in the branches.  Photos of this forest at past ACBS shows can also be found on our gallery site.  

3. Fun with junipers--When neighbors rip out their overgrown shrubbery, we are there.  Unwanted shrubbery makes perfect stater material.  First, the price is right, since it's free.  Second, if they've often done the work of digging it out for you.  And third, there's often a lot of close in branches to choose from on a fairly hefty trunk.  Some cool junipers can also be found in inexpensive nursery stock. In this short video, Mike gives a tour of some juniper projects:

Akron–Canton Bonsai Society  

presents a

Bonsai Exhibition

June 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th

Cuyahoga Valley Art Center

2131 Front Street

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Admission: free

Hours concurrent with Irish Fest

 

The exhibition will feature local bonsai artists and contain examples of various bonsai styles and species, including pines, elms, flowering and tropical trees. 

Andy Smith Visits ACBS

Andy Smith discusses collected ponerosa pines.

One of the remarkable qualities about bonsai is its adaptability.  Although the art of bonsai originated in Asia, it can be adapted for native tree species from anywhere in the world. Among the tree species native to North America, probably the most well-known, internationally, for making outstanding bonsai is the ponderosa pine.

Andy Smith of Deadwood South Dakota recently presented a workshop with collected ponderosa pines for the Akron Canton Bonsai Society.  During the day-long event, Andy offered a slide presentation that showed the incredible character of the species.  The remarkable turns and undulations of these mountain trees tell stories of their struggles to survive in the tough rocky environment at high elevations in South Dakota.

He also talked about methods he has developed over the years to coax the trees from their growing places with minimal damage to the root systems. This often involves a crow bar and wedges, as well as a shovel, but he has learned to greatly increase his survival rate.


The trees offered to ACBS members were collected in areas where forestry management aims to thin the numbers of trees. He secures a permit to collect from the U.S. Forestry Service.

Andy demonstrated how to plant the collected specimens into training pots.  He explained that in most cases the trees are growing in small cracks in the rocks, and they are living in what little soil there is. Such growing conditions create a very dense root ball.  He used a chop stick he created spaces between the packed roots in order to allow watering to be more uniform. For the transplant into training pots, he recommended a fairly gritty soil mix.  He also believes that waiting out the coming summer season before attempting any styling on the trees would give the best chance for survival.  Being patient will allow the tree to recover and get healthy over the course of this season. Then in subsequent years, begin working on any pruning, wiring and other styling considerations. 


Many of the collected trees were estimated to be 40 to 60 years old.  The incredibly textured bark, as well as the deadwood and movement seen in some of the trunks of the trees was testimony to both the age and the conditions under which the trees were growing. The combination of these qualities, along the flexibility of the branches should, in time, make them excellent bonsai.

As few ACBS members in the have experience working with ponderosa pines, it might be helpful to also study information from clubs in western states.  A good summary of care and development of ponderosa pine for bonsai has been posted by the Phoenix Bonsai Club, which has a number of members who work with poderosas, at this link.   

Over the next several seasons, members are encouraged to bring their trees to club meetings, so that we can learn from each other and see how they are being styled and how develop. 

Much thanks to Andy for making the trek to Ohio, and also to our own Gib and Mat who planned and organized the event.

Larch Forest Project-- Demo & Workshop

Ken and ACBS president Mat with the completed forest on a slab.

What a terrific April meeting.

I have to say, Ken pulled off a hat trick with this combined demo and workshop.  As he discussed some of the basics of creating a forest planting, Ken built this wonderful grove on a fiberglass slab.   In the photos at the right, you can see the larch seedlings spread out on the table as he selects the trees by size, thickness and number of side branches during the assembly. Ken explained why he chooses to prune the larches back at one point over another along the trunk for the forest, and how to clip the tap root so that the seedling would fit into the group.  He also discussed placeing the trees in such a way that the planting appeared natural and not contrived.

Having placed and worked all of the trees into the soil, he pointed out how he would next come back and prune the height of each tree so that the largest, and more dominant trees formed the apex of the entire composition.  At the same time, the smaller trees to the back and side contributed a sense of depth, and a feeling of the forest spread out across the horizon.  There was also a sense of perspective with the smaller trees now beginning to appear further away.

One of the of the notable points of Ken's forest was in his soil mix.  In addition to the mixture of grit (haydite and builder's sand) and organic material, Ken adds sphagnum moss right into the soil mix.  While some books recommend such techniques as using a mix clay and sphagnum to make a rim for a slab planting, putting the sphagnum right into the soil binds the mix, and seems to work well for holding the group in place. 

In the workshop, members put together their own forest groups, although on a smaller scale, using the bundles of nine larches as well as larger seedlings.

Below are several photos of our newly created groves.  (More pictures posted shortly) It will be fun to follow all of these forests over the next several years to see how they flush-out and develop--and also see them in their fall colors. In the coming years, we will add these to our Virtual Fall Show--you can see photos of trees from past autumns posted on ACBS's gallery spot at http://picasaweb.google.com/akroncantonbonsai

 .

Larches Are Ready for Your Forest Planting

Well, the Larches are here and they are healthy and perfect for a grove or forest planting.  Much thanks to ACBS member Ken Huth of Ken's World of Bonsai for getting them for us.

I stopped by Ken's place Sunday afternoon, and Ken and Gib already had the work done ahead of schedule. So thanks also to Gib for pitching in to help Ken bundle them up to they are ready to go for the April meeting. Since the work was already done, it was time for some fun in the form of clipping and cutting--it's never dull at Ken's.

While I was there, several members  of the  Columbus Club  were visiting, clipping, planting and working on projects of their own.  

Ken (far right) works on this 50 + larches went into this forest planting

With the help of all of his guests, Ken put together this large 50+ tree forest planting out of some of larches from the same batch as those we will be using for our club project. The larches you see in the planting have to be pruned back considerably. It took two guys and a wheel barrel to move the finished project to its spot in the sun.  Very cool.  And it should look amazing in the fall.

Larch Project: Forest Planting Basics

Larch grove--fall and spring

by Michael Rusnak
Soon we will begin working with our larch seedlings.  Prior to the meeting, please think about what you want to do with your seedlings so you know what to bring.  Some members may want to bring materials to begin their projects, while other may want to just keep their seedlings moist and then pot them up at home. 

Members may want to plant the seedlings and grow them as individual bonsai projects.  This can be accomplished by growing your larch in progressively larger nursery pots over several seasons.  Ample watering and feeding will aid in trunk development.  Members may also want to try planting seedlings in the open ground. You can also begin to develop the trunks by some preliminary pruning, as well as adjusting the planting angle.

Members may want to create a grove or forest planting.  For beginners, even a small grove planting of three or five seedlings can be a good learning  experience, as well as a fun project.  There are a couple of options to think about for creating your forest.  One way is to first plant seedlings individually in separate nursery containers, and allow them to allow to develop a bit over a few seasons, and then in a year or two assemble these now older seedlings into the forest.

You could also create your forest by planting it in a seed tray.  Seed trays are a handy and inexpensive training pot for a beginning forest--whether you are going to make your forest now or in a few seasons.  Seed trays are deep enough to permit ample soil for the seedlings to continue to grow and develop.  The tray will train the roots of the group for a later transfer  into a shallow pot or onto a slab. At the same time, the tray  allow you to artistically place the seedlings into an believable arrangement.

Chan's diagrams for group plantings--worth studying

Author Peter Chan's book Bonsai Master Class has an excellent chapter on creating forest plantings.  He suggests the use of seed trays to create the forest, and has photos of the process.  Additionally, he discusses such artistic points as how use empty space in the composition and how to create a senses of perspective by using seedlings of varying sizes-- largest near the front and offset center, smaller toward the back and side.  He also adds considerations such as the larger trees will dominate the competition for light and so smaller trees will often bend, turn or angle slightly away from the larger one.   In some, for example the smaller trees on the outer edge will angle slightly outward.  See the pattern diagrams from Chan's book for good ideas on where to place seedlings in group plantings.

Planting your seedling group on a slab now is also an option, and a few members did this several  years ago at a club workshop.   At the meeting, Ken will walk us through the process of building the slab arrangement with use of sphagnum moss and other soil types to accomplish the planting. The photos of Gib's larch forest was actually done at the past club workshop, and it continues to thrive and develop.

Again, please think about what you want to do with your seedlings before the April meeting so you know what to bring.  If you plan to begin working on your project, you will need :bring tools, soil, and containers for either individual trees or group planting.  Some members may instead want to just keep their seedlings moist and then pot them up at home.  

Much thanks to our own charter member Ken Huth of Ken's World of Bonsai for acquiring the larch seedlings for this project and for all of his help and expertise.  Greatly appreciated--on this club project, as well as many others.  See Ken's website for more on his nursery:  http://www.kensworldofbonsai.com/

ACBS March Meeting: Natonal Bonsai Collection

Japanese maple of the National Collection in its spring colors

The photographs will speak for themselves at the ACBS March meeting when Mike shares slides of some of the trees from the National Bonsai Collection at the National Arboretum in Washington D.C.
Here's a brief rundown of items that were on exhibit at the time of the visit in March of 2011, and will be included in the slide show.

• The earlier (than N.E. Ohio) D.C. spring meant that several specimen maples were featured in the main courtyard, and they were just beginning to leaf out.  
• Several dormant deciduous trees allowed for an unobstructed view of their finely tapered trunks and branch structures.  
• A number of sizable and very old pines--one that dated to the 1600's and originally a gift to the United States from Japan-- were also on exhibit.   
• Trees by the legendary American Bonsai artist John Naka.  In particular Naka's famous forest planting that makes ample use of perspective was on display (see photo below).
• Tropical bonsai
• You'll be inspired by more abstract and "wild" tradition of the trees in the Chinese pavilion.  You instantly know you are in a different world. (see photo below)
• Also of interest to club members: photos of many remarkable, large-sized viewing stones and their custom-carved wooden stands.  

So don't miss the photos and discussion of these amazing and inspiring "big-league"e trees.

John Naka's famous forest

Exceptional Japanese maple just leafing out in March 2011

Dramatic Motion of Chinese trees