What’s Happening at Kusamura’s 2025 Annual Bonsai Show

by Idris Anderson, Show Chair

Because April 26-27 is our annual show, the club will not be hosting a monthly meeting on the 3rd Friday of this month. Pre-show setup is Friday April 25 starting at 5PM at Addison School in Palo Alto at 1045 Webster Street

There is limited parking near the building. When you arrive to drop off materials, please use the small school parking lot in front of the building but afterwards move your car to street parking. We want visitors to be able to park in the parking lot during our show.

Kusamura Bonsai Day at Filoli: Sunday, May 18 10AM - 4PM

by Lynne O’Dell

Doors open to the public Saturday Noon-4PM & Sunday 11AM-4PM

Everything is here for you to participate in this year’s Show. Read through carefully. There is new information. And some surprises! Please read through carefully!

Urgent!: We still need more sign ups for the many tasks that make our show successful. For a description of tasks that need to be performed see the Annual Show section of the club website and sign-up. Clicking here sends you directly to the Show Tasks. It’s easy to sign up. All members should plan to help with set-up on Friday evening and take-down Sunday afternoon. We still need show monitors, reception desk help, tech assistant for demos, photography assistants Sunday morning, tree sales help, children’s corner help, and homemade desserts! We need you to sign up for as many tasks as you can. If you have any trouble signing up, please email Idris Anderson and she will get you down: idrisan@gmail.com

Food: If you plan to be present throughout the show, you will be fed well: pizza for all on Friday night, sandwiches, desserts, and other fare for lunch on Saturday and Sunday in our Members Only Room (up the lobby stairs or elevator). Also this year, we will have a hospitality area (on the stage) for our visitors but also for Kusamura members to shmooze with our guests.

Prior to the Show

Members - decide the tree or trees you want to show and if you will use a stand or accent plant.

See Show Tree Prep Checklist for help preparing your trees. Please no dirty pots and no flowerpots.
If you need to borrow a display stand view available Club Stands. You can reserve online. It’s easy.
Submit your tree information online NO LATER THAN April 11 so a Tree Display Card can be printed for your tree. Or email our curator Charlene Fischer directly with all the information: charlenerae@mac.com. Do try to make the deadline but if circumstances make impossible, DEADLINE IS EXTENDED TO APRIL 18. Contact Charlene to let her know you will be submitting a tree(s) if you do not meet the April 11 deadline. We will try to accommodate late trees but let Charlene know if you are not going to meet the extended deadline of April 18, so she can save a place for your trees. Note: Some new information is requested this year about the history of your tree so we can make that information accessible with a QR code on the display card.
If you will be selling anything, you’ll need to fill out a Consignment Sales form and bring it to the Friday night setup.

Friday night April 25 All hands on deck please.

Venue open 5PM-9PM. Pricing of trees/pots to be sold at the show and set-up of backdrops/tables. Pizza/beverages provided at 6:30PM. WE NEED ALL MEMBERS AT THIS EVENT!
Bring babysitting trees, tree/pot donations and consignment trees/pots.
NEW! You may bring your show trees on Friday evening or Saturday morning. Be sure to separate your show trees from the sales/consignment trees! You MAY be able to place your tree and accent in its assigned place once set up is complete. Charlene hopes to make assignments before Friday evening, based on your Tree Card description and notes submitted earlier.
Reminder: Members may not choose a place for a tree. Curators Charlene and Sean may need to rearrange as they assess the best flow and aesthetics for the entire show. They will make final adjustments on Saturday morning.
Bring any stands that you own that you can offer to others to use in the show. Please label your stands with your name under the bottom so they can be returned to you.
Pricing of sales and consignment trees begins at 5PM. Members can purchase items after all pricing is finished.
Help set up backdrops and place tablecloths in the display area. We have more new backdrops and tablecloths!

Saturday April 26

8AM-NOON: Set up the Show Display and other components of the Show.
Bring your Show Trees, stands and accent plants from 8AM-10AM. If you need to bring something later, please contact Charlene Fischer charlenerae@mac.com.
Some extra accents will be available if you don’t have one.
Scrolls will be available for you to use.
Show open to the public from Noon-4PM.
Demo at 1PM: bonsai expert Sam Tan styles a juniper, demo tree will be AUCTIONED off.

Show Critique by Sam Tan Saturday, immediately after Sam’s demo. Primarily for members but if there are lingering visitors, they may join for Sam’s commentary on our trees. NOT TO BE MISSED!

Sunday April 27

9AM-11AM: Photograph trees.
Show open to the public from 11AM-4PM.
Morning coffee/tea/donuts available for members only in the lobby at 9:15AM.
Lunch will be provided both days. Available between 11:30AM and 2PM.
Demo at 1PM: Three club members, Charlene Fischer, Lynne O’Dell, and Gianne Souza, will work on trees donated this year to club sales. See the transformation of this material into the beginnings of great bonsai. Trees will be AUCTIONED off.

During both days, please meet with visitors to answer questions about the trees and our club. Some visitors may welcome an impromptu tour. If you’re not working, enjoy the show, including:

Bonsai Displays
Children’s Corner
Sales area for trees and pots
Docent tours mornings and afternoons
Demonstrations at 1PM both days
Benefit drawings both days during the demos. Auctions of Saturday’s show demo tree, styled by Sam Tan, and Sunday’s club demo trees styled by club members
Access Story of the Tree through the QR code on the display card using a phone or equipped mobile device

Strike & Cleanup 4PM-6PM All hands on deck, please!

Remove your trees. Carefully fold tablecloths, runners, and backdrops. Help clean up.

Don’t miss the Strike Party at 5:30PM!

Meet outside for a brief wrap-up and raffle of items as a thank you for your participation. You made it happen. Thank you!

In lieu of our normal Friday night meeting in May, Kusamura will be hosting “Bonsai Day at Filoli” on Sunday, May 18 from 10AM-4PM. In addition to Kusamura’s event, Dennis Makishima will be on-site for a talk and book signing at 2PM that day.

Both events are included in your admission to Filoli. Admission to Filoli on May 18 is free for Kusamura members whose membership is current, meaning you’ve paid your 2025 dues. For those who haven’t paid please do so soon so you can reserve your free tickets. Dues can be paid on the Kusamura website or by contacting club Treasurer Hal Jerman. Rita Curbow will contact you via email regarding how to get your free tickets but reach out to her at rdcurbow@comcast.net if you have questions.

Bonsai Demo 10:30AM-NOON

One or more trees selected from the Filoli bonsai collection will be worked on under the guidance of Michael Greenstein. Visitors will get to observe and ask questions about a number of bonsai techniques such as wiring, styling, promoting branch ramification, creating a jin or shari, repotting, etc.

Afternoon Critique/Tour of Filoli Bonsai 1PM-2PM

This will be a critique of the bonsai in the Filoli collection along with a short history of some of the most important trees. A team of bonsai volunteers from Kusamura will be your hosts. Members and visitors will be able to ask questions throughout the critique/tour.

Kusamura Tree Display from 10AM-4PM

Kusamura will have a special display of up to 10 bonsai with a focus on flowering bonsai for that day and possibly trees previously owned by Dennis Makishima.

(We will set this up earlier that morning before Filoli opens to the public.)

Bonsai & Beyond: The Life and Art of Dennis Makishima, May 18 from 2PM - 3PM

Be inspired by Dennis Makishima, a third-generation Japanese-American, Vietnam war veteran, and acclaimed bonsai master, as he reflects on his life and the ancient art of bonsai. Dennis’ journey spans from his apprenticeship in Toyohashi, Japan, under Bonsai Master Yasuo Mitsuya to creating the Merritt College Aesthetic Tree Pruning Program and leading the Golden State Bonsai Federation as President.

During this captivating talk, Dennis will share valuable insights into the artistry and philosophy behind bonsai, followed by a book signing of his new book Mr. Omoshiroi.

For additional info about Dennis, refer to https://www.nichibei.org/2018/08/living-art-form-dennis-makishimas-aesthetic-pruning/

More details about this event will be provided in Kusamura’s May newsletter.

Recap of our March Meeting with Steve Iwaki on Tanuki Creation

by Idris Anderson

A tanuki bonsai is named after the Japanese racoon dog who is fabled for his shapeshifting. He’s a trickster. Also known as a Phoenix graft (something live arising from something dead), a tanuki is a crafty marriage of a piece of deadwood to a live whip that can be fixed into a groove carved in the deadwood and wound up and attached to the dead trunk. If a natural groove can be made to follow and fix into the grain of the wood, the resulting tanuki will look like a natural live vein of a tree with deadwood.

A tanuki requires quite a bit of technique and craft—and an aesthetic eye for what a natural tree with deadwood looks like. The great advantage of a tanuki is, of course, that one doesn’t need to collect an old juniper from the wild, or live long enough for a juniper to develop a thick trunk. A good, well-made tanuki will look like the thing itself, an old, mature tree that you and others before you have developed for years (decades). Many of us have no access to such a tree, either through collecting or through purchase (big bucks). So we do a cheat, a good cheat, a trick of art and craft.

Steve brought with him three tanukis from his collection. The first was created by his father, with a Hollywood Juniper. The deadwood has been preserved and carved and what was once a Hollywood juniper whip has thickened and matured.

The second tree was created by Steve and his father. Steve, in fact, had killed his father’s tree when he was potting it up, and so its valuable dead trunk became the basis of a tanuki.

A third juniper Steve had harvested on a collecting trip. He lifted two at the same time. This one died, the other one thrived (it’s happened to the best of us). Now the dead one is a beautiful tanuki. Can’t let all that great deadwood be thrown on the trash heap.

Lesson one: Save your dead trees, especially if they have great trunks!

When you create the tanuki, try to get the live vein at the front of the tree. Best if you can show it as the root goes into the soil.

Steve fielded various questions about kinds of wood and whips, usually juniper whips on juniper deadwood, but others are possible. You want the wood to be as hard as possible, and you want the whip to be long and flexible so it can be twisted and wound up the deadwood.

Yes, there are problems with the deadwood rotting at the soil line, so you try to place it so that it is just below or right at the soil line. You’ll need to secure it in place until the root mass of the tree grows enough to hold the deadwood in place.

No, it’s not legitimate to show a tanuki, unless you identify it as a tanuki. They are largely frowned upon or disparaged by bonsai experts, especially in Japan, though some have been spotted even in the most prestigious shows like the Kokufu-ten in Japan and our own recent Pacific Bonsai Expo. (I was sure I found one; Gordon Deeg says he saw as many as three!) Many of us think of them as a special kind of bonsai art, that takes planning and technique. We can honor that kind of expertise too, though WE would always identify them as tanuki.

Steve had brought a piece of mountain mahogany deadwood that Christine Weigen had given him. He had already carved a grove following the grain of the wood, and he’d trimmed it flat on the bottom. Beginning his demonstration, Steve screwed the bottom of the deadwood to a short board, purposely cut to fit from edge to edge across the top of the wood box he had built. He screwed the board to the top of the box. He had also already made a semi-circular cut in the board, so that a whip of juniper could be planted in the soil below and brought up through the board next to the trunk of deadwood. Hope you are following this. Steve made it look easy. He’d done so much already to prepare for this demo.

Instead of zip-ties which many use to attach the live tree to the deadwood, Steve prefers to use a pneumatic brad gun. Like a good gunslinger at high noon, he had his ready. Pop! Pop!

by Rita Curbow

Steve began by selecting branches he would keep and cutting off others. He then removed all the unusable fluff from the trunkline and remaining branches. He put some soil in the box and placed the tree and its roots, tucking them into more soil. He found a bottom slot in the deadwood and inserted the whip in the groove. Pop! Pop! with the brad gun and he made the first attachment through the live vein into the deadwood. Gradually then he fitted the tree in the grove, twisting up the trunk, removing more branches that were not working with the design as he attached the trunk with brads. All the while he was positioning branches to peep out of both sides of the tree. Once the tree was attached all the way up, Steve pruned and wired to make the tree look as natural in its twisting groove as possible.

Beautiful result, with lots of promise for an effective tanuki. The tree was raffled off and Brian Morgan was the lucky winner!

After the presentation, there was a good buzz of amazement and lots of enthusiasm for looking for deadwood and whips. Many of us are now eager to try our own hands at crafting a tanuki. We are grateful to Steve for his expertise, for his thorough preparation, his careful step-by-step instruction, and for generating so much enthusiasm among our members.

In lieu of our 65th Annual Show later this month, there will not be a monthly workshop in April. We had a fun workshop on March 29 where we prepared trees for show and helped one member formalize his first shohin display for show.

Dates for Upcoming Workshops

Saturday, May 24: Special Event from 1PM-3PM for newer members in the club.

Details to be announced in the May newsletter.

Saturday, June 28: The “Intro to Bonsai” focus will be Pruning various types of trees.

Saturday, July 26: The “Intro to Bonsai” focus will be Summer Care.

Again, the monthly workshops for club members normally run from 12:30PM-4:30PM.

Monthly Club Workshop Update

Welcome New Members

The club kindly welcomes Sam Dorrance who joined in April

Monthly Tasks

Each month there are a number of tasks you need to do to your bonsai – from repotting, to fertilizing to spraying for pests. We have put together a checklist, customized for the San Francisco Bay Area to help you. This checklist is adapted from earlier work by Mitsuo Umehara.

This month: April Tasks