Sunday 30th May was wet but the weather behaved for our visitors when we entertained a group from the Bay of Plenty Bonsai Society. During the visits to each of the three collections they saw it stopped raining. An enjoyable day for our visitors with plenty to see and talk about. Thanks to Pene and [...]
Melody and Peter S headlined the meeting with Melody giving a talk on the joys, peculiarities, quirks and difficulties around using flowering and fruiting species as bonsai. This was followed by Peter S showing a large number of different flowering plants he uses and talking about their individual needs. The display tables had a [...]
A full meeting with a number of new members and visitors attending. Peter M led the first part of the afternoon with a discussion on what to look for when sourcing material, how to decide on the shape of your future bonsai and where to get your inspiration from. As part of the discussion he [...]
A great weekend of bonsai fun with club member Brendon Covich of Kinben Bonsai. Club members and Brendon worked on over 30 trees during the sunny weekend. As usual with these workshops, a number of trees fitted back into their owners cars much more easily than when they arrived! There were a variety of [...]
Melody started the meeting with a discussion on the joys and fun involved in creating group plantings. During her talk she went through the best species to use, how to train and select trees for use in groups, how to arrange the trees, pot choice, watering and aftercare. The talk was illustrated with groups, [...]
A select group of club members met to discuss what had gone wrong with their trees over the last year. Cotoneasters, Junipers, Maples and Dawn Redwoods featured in the list of lost causes. It appears several of our members have experienced male Junipers producing brown flower buds (cones) on most of their growing tips. [...]
This months club meeting featured a presentation by Sam Brierley from Whakatane, President of the Eastern Bay of Plenty Bonsai School. Sam's passion is all about collecting trees from the wild, and keeping them alive. Sam covered various topics from his toolset, soil mixes, tips and techniques on removing trees and aftercare advice. A wealth [...]
For this years club road trip it was decided that we would visit local(ish) club members houses to view their collections. With the number of new club members we have from the beginner classes, and because the club hasn't visited local members collections in a while it was a great option. Four collections were visited [...]
For the April club meeting we were lucky to have Kathy and Robbie from South Africa attend and give a presentation. A slideshow of photos and a video gave everyone inspiration for their own projects, and gave insight into their Bonsai business. The show and tell table featured a range of Saikei from the Saturday [...]
A great fun day with Kathy Steyn creating Saikei. It started with a demonstration from Kathy on how she constructs the landscape, showing how to arrange the rocks at differing heights, placing of the trees and adding features such as grasses, moss, figurines and gravel all in the right size and place to provide perspective. [...]
