May ACBS Meeting Brings Excitement Over Projects

The May meeting of the Akron-Canton Bonsai Society brought a lot of excitement over the new growing season, and over all of the various club projects that members will be continuing through the summer.
There were a couple of crab apples at the meeting that were grown from stumps last summer that were currently in bloom. Despite their only partial development, they offered a good variety of color to the meeting and brought lost of speculation about how they'll look in future seasons. Also, maples, azaleas, boxwood, juniper and black pine were shared at the meeting. Cheryl B brought in a Korean lilac that had multiple buds ready to break open. Hopefully she'll send us a
picture that we can post.
Given the tough winter we had this year, and record setting rains--as well as a May 6 frost--it was refreshing to see the bonsai begin to break out. There is just something happy in the bright green of fresh new foliage.

April Meeting Brings Out the Trees

With the long and tough winter we had in northeast Ohio, most of us have trouble remembering what green looks like. But the April meeting of the Akron-Canton Bonsai Society finally brought out the trees. Members were sharing some of their spring projects that were trying real hard to bud out. To mention just a few. Anne begins working with a trident maple, and Carlton shared a couple of projects-- his forest planting and a dawn redwood.
There is something about the bright shade of green in freshly opened leaf buds that just makes a person happy to look at them. That vibrant green also cues you to think about a new growing season, and visualize what your bonsai trees might become. More project updates to follow. I'm especially looking forward to seeing how our members' pine plantings and extreme bending attempts from last season develop.

Planning at the January Meeting

The typical northeast Ohio weather made travel difficult, and so we lacked our usual membership at the January meeting. Nevertheless, Gib still plugged away on this awesome little white pine, and some good ideas for workshops, demos, perhaps a project tree species for the year, and other club activities were tossed around.

Don't forget you 2011 dues--still on 20 bucks, and also please turn in the member profile sheet to Dan.

Bring a Tree & Help Us Plan at the January Meeting

Happy New Year from the Akron Canton Bonsai Society!

The next ACBS meeting will be Thursday, January 6th at 7:00 at the Cuyahoga Valley Arts Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The meeting focus will be two fold:

• Bring a tree to work on
• Planning for the coming year

It's always fun to collaborate on projects, so bring a tree to work on at this meeting. It is always good to see what projects other members have on their plate, and how these trees develop over time.

Also, think about what programs that might be of interest and what artistic or horticultural skills you might like to acquire or develop. See you there.

The Bending Fun Continues

At the November meeting, more ACBS members brought their pet-flex wrapped and wired black pines in for a workout. But this month there was a big addition from one of our members who came prepared.

Jim had some of his friends at a fabricating shop make him a serious bending tool. It consisted of a steel bar with 4 nuts welded at the business end. This allowed some choice in the spacing for the three bolts that did the work. The tool was considerably longer than the one used by Jeff Carr at the September "Extreme Bending" workshop.. So much so the that the comment was made that it may not be legal in some states. :) They were just kidding though. The thing worked great, and you just couldn't help but to love it. The tool was big and it was mean, but it was just a blast to work with, and we were all tripping over ourselves to try it out. A terrific "cheater bar" of sorts. Archimedes himself would have been proud to see it. What was it he said when he outlined the principals leverage-- "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world." Well at least a tough branch.

It will be fun to see how these black pine respond and develop in a season or two. More photos of these member projects will be posed in the extreme bending album on our gallery site-- http://picasaweb.google.com/akroncantonbonsai Also, don't forget to check the Virtual Fall show album posted there. We have photos of some of our maples and other deciduous trees there from the past couple of seasons. If you're interested in bonsai and live in the Akron / Canton area join us at on of our monthly meetings. Email us for info at
akroncantonbonsai@gmail.com

October Meeting: Bring Your Own Tree

Who says you have to plan for a good meeting?

Sometimes a bring your own tree night can create some spontaneous fun and variety for the club. This impromptu workshop, saw a continuation of last month's extreme bending as a few members began black pine bending projects of their own--like Anne's cool creation from a pencil "straight is boring" seedling to something that wants to tell a story. More photos of member tree-bending projects at the meeting were just posted in the Jeff Car Bending album at our gallery http://picasaweb.google.com/akroncantonbonsai.

Other ad libs at the October meeting included Dave's ficus re-pot and trim, Cheryl's bougainvillea maintenance , Carlton's white pine adjustments, and check out Larry's carving job that he recently completed to create an awesome walnut stand for this tear drop shaped black stone from the Lake Erie shore. Very cool.
Interested in bonsai? Join us on the first Thursday of each month at the Cuyahoga Valley Art Center in Cuyohoga Falls, Ohio.

Extreme Bending by Jeff Carr

In an amazingly cool demo, Jeff Carr of the Staselwood Bonsai Studio in Newark, Ohio showed our club some techniques of extreme bending. Working on this Japanese black pine, he wrapped layers of a sticky bandage-like material called Petflex along the trunk of the tree along with copper wire.

Then using with a bending tool, he began to work the straight tree over. This was done gradually by repeating the bending several times. Each time, letting the tree flex back. He also worked the tool along the trunk and continued to bend it an let it flex back. Over time, and repeated actions, the tree remained bent over enough to pull it down and secure the bend by tying stay of copper wire.

This gradual process of persuading the tree over changed it's entire look from an upright tree to a cascade--see photo.

Jeff then completed wiring both the main and secondary branches. He worked the two main branches--one to create an apex and the other downward to continue the cascade. He commented on how these branches contributed to the over all design. He noted that keeping what he called "the energy flow" or the motion of the tree's movement consistent--including in the directions that the foliage pads faced--unified the whole look of the tree. At that point he "foreshortened" the smaller branches to bring them into foliage areas.

Overall, this was a fascinating demonstration, and showed how when working with our trees, it is often possible to open your thinking into more radical design possibilities.

See our gallery site for a step by step series of photos from Jeff Carr's extreme bending demonstration at the link below: http://picasaweb.google.com/akroncantonbonsai