Part one of a two part drawing workshop. Sketches were produced by members for seven trees. One design was chosen for each tree and the tree will be worked on over the next few month to produce the design chosen.
Melody gave a demonstration on creating a large group with rocks and a group of redwoods collected from the forest in Rotorua a few years ago.
Our guest speaker was Terry Hatch from Joy Plants in Pukekohe. He talked about a variety of natives that he thought would make suitable specimens for bonsai. As well as talking about the plants he also had samples for us to look at (and spend our cash on). April also saw the club have a [...]
Peter gave a talk on soil mixes and what soil does for our trees. Several of the club committee brought along samples of their mixes for comparison. Peter also talked on how we should feed our tress and what nutrients they need.
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 [...]
