For the final club meeting of the year Helen & Aaron organised a range of activities and competitions for the attendees. The evening started with the voting for the 'Decorate a Bonsai tree', where people were asked to bring a tree that they had decorated in a Christmas theme. Our special raffle prize was [...]
For the 11th time we had a well attended Nobuyuki Kajiwara (Nobu) workshop in Pirongia. Warm weather and a wide variety of trees saw some interesting work over the weekend with members and guests coming from as far afield as Auckland, Thames and New Plymouth to listen to the horticultural and styling advice from Nobu. [...]
The main event of the evening was a discussion on displaying Bonsai both indoors and outdoors. ie outdoors at home and in a show setting. Les lead the discussion with a powerpoint presentation explaining all the important aspects. Sandra then held a workshop for everyone that had pots created in September to add glazes and [...]
The annual show started with the usual hectic setup on Friday with all the tables and backing boards to be set up before trees could be positioned. There were plenty of trees on show—we had to put up extra tables at the last minute to cope with the numbers. Over 130 trees on display ranging [...]
After a report on the 2017 Convention and discussion on the upcoming Hamilton Club show Peter S gave a brief talk on potting mixes before the Formal Upright trees we started earlier in the year were repotted.
Once again we got down and dirty with clay. This year Sandra brought in a white clay for us to try out different techniques from previous years. Although some members made freeform pots as we had done before, the object this time was to create a pot using the inside or outside of a [...]
Peter was in charge of the August club meeting, and topic was Bonsai design basics. There was a brief talk about the different Bonsai styles, and what influences your choice of design. i.e. the species of tree and how certain techniques effects them, which in turn determines how the style. A practical session then [...]
The July meeting started with the club AGM. Many topics were discussed, and the major club positions were voted on with Les remaining as club president. The meeting then moved onto a discussion about Shohin from Lindsay. Lindsay explained the 'guidelines' around the Shohin category: Bonsai that are less than 25cm in height, and [...]
The Hamilton Bonsai Club Vice President Pete S kindly invited all HBC members to his house for a demonstration of how to use worm farms, and how they can be used with Bonsai. Pete explained that worm farms produced a powerful 'tea' that can used to fertilise your Bonsai at half strength. A number of [...]
Melody lead a discussion on Rock and how they're used with Bonsai. After discussing the finer points of rocks and why we use them, Melody then arranged a rock display and explained what the fundamentals were, so we could all try when we got home.Everyone was also asked to bring their own rocks and give [...]
