For the first meeting of the year Sandra gave a talk illustrating the different types of pines we use in bonsai as well as informing us of how to care for them over the year. This was very timely as there is a lot of work to be done on pines over the next couple [...]
Nobuyuki Kajiwara came and did his usual two day workshop for club members. This is always a great weekend and our trees are showing definite signs of improvement now we are following his advice on training and styling. In a change to our usual 'Create a Camel' this year Peter and Ann brought in 5 [...]
Following on from the AGM Peter Scammell gave an illustrated talk on Peter Chan and his collections in the UK at his nursery, the RHS gardens at Wisley and his Chelsea Flower Show exhibits.
The monthly meeting saw a general workshop as well as a brief reminder on how to prepare your trees for our annual show. The annual show at Hamilton Gardens saw 120 trees on display over the weekend with demonstrations by Les and Sandra.
Sandra gave a demonstration on the technique of air layering to show how you can choose a part of a large tree to give you an established smaller bonsai (or get several bonsai from one tree). There has been a profusion of trees with plastic bags on them in the months since.
During the August meeting the members brought in trees to work on. This was a very busy afternoon with plenty of activity to watch and talk about if you didn't have a tree to work on. August also saw 3 days of workshops with Peter Adams. These were a fabulous opportunity to work with one [...]
For the July meeting Peter gave a demonstration on how to repot a bonsai tree using techniques taught by Nobu during his summer visits. The rest of the afternoon was a repotting workshop where members worked on repotting their own trees.
Les was the main speaker for June giving a very good talk on Trident Maples. Les also demonstrated how to create a Root over rock planting with a trident.
The 1st of May saw several members travel to Tauranga for the annual joint demonstration / workshop hosted by the Bay of Plenty Club. The demonstrator this year was Peter Mudie from the Hamilton Club and he followed his talk with a critique on the workshop trees, giving advice on their future styling and repotting. [...]
The focus for the meeting was 'Different Bonsai Styles'. Three members gave talks on a different style. Les kicked off with a talk on cascades, this was followed by Sandra talking about informal upright and the evening was rounded off by Gordon giving his thoughts on windswepts. The weekend of the V8's saw us heading [...]
