JT will present an overview of oak bonsai care for both deciduous and evergreen species. After the break he will answer questions about members’ oak trees that are brought in. Show and Tell will feature members’ trees.

John Thompson (JT) is a Bay Area bonsai enthusiast, lecturer, demonstrator, and artist who has studied with John Naka, Kathy Shaner, Harunobu Tokita in Japan, Peter Tea, and Boon Manakitivipart. These mentors and nature itself have influenced his eye and passion for bonsai. He has shown trees in such shows as the Artisan Cup, the US National Exhibition and the last two Pacific Bonsai Expos and has served on the board of directors for both ABS and GSBF. He is, perhaps, best known for his driving passion for oaks, junipers, boxwoods, cypress, pines, and collected trees.

For newer members in the club and certainly those new to the art of bonsai, please note that the topic of Repotting will be covered at Kusamura’s upcoming potting party on Saturday, January 11. The Repotting tutorial will start at 10:30AM that morning. Please refer to the "Potting Party Article" in this newsletter for additional info about the potting party itself. For those with an ABS “Intro to Bonsai” Syllabus, please review chapter 9 “Potting” prior to the potting party if you have time to do so.

Dates for Upcoming Workshops

• Saturday, January 25: Containers/Pots
  Attendees will participate in hands-on exercises to learn how to select the best pot for a given tree. Special educational kits along with a color wheel have been created for the hands-on exercises which we think will be a lot of fun. The introductory portion of the workshop will be presented by Rita Curbow. Rita will be assisted by two or more advanced members, as needed, during the exercises themselves.

  If you have a tree that you need to buy a bonsai pot for, feel free to bring it to this workshop to find out what you need to look for. There are several upcoming bonsai events over the next three months that will enable people to shop for bonsai pots and other supplies. They include the BABA show January 18-19 and the GSBF Mammoth Auction & Sale March 1-2, both at the Lakeside Park Garden Center in Oakland. Refer to the GSBF Calendar of Events for additional info about these events as well as others.

  For those with an ABS Syllabus, please review chapter 7 “Selecting a Container" prior to this workshop.

• Saturday, February 22: Styling
  (the Saturday after our Friday night meeting - it’s a short month)
  Please note that Styling is a different topic than Styles. The introductory portion of this workshop will be presented by Michael Greenstein.

Schedule of Workshop

12:30PM - 1:30PM “Intro to Bonsai” Portion of Workshop

For those new to bonsai or who want to brush up on basis bonsai techniques, special instruction will be offered starting at the beginning of the workshop and running for about an hour. After the special instruction/exercise, attendees will have the option to work on their trees with assistance from more advanced members until 4:30PM that day.

1:30PM - 4:30PM Open to all members of the club

Members at the intermediate or advanced levels who aren’t assisting other members in the beginner’s level are asked to arrive starting at 1:30pm. They will setup on the side closest to the main entrance (near the closet with tables).

Refreshments at the Workshop

Feel free to bring refreshments to the workshop to share with fellow members. And don’t forget to bring bottled water for your personal use.

Details of the “Intro to Bonsai” Workshop Portion

Members should bring trees that can be worked on in that time of year. Club wire will be provided for beginners as needed. Some club tools will also be available, but members will be encouraged to purchase their own set of tools eventually in order to work on their trees at home, etc.

Setup and Cleanup at the Workshop

The club kindly thanks everyone who helped with setup and/or cleanup at the end. Your assistance makes a world of difference for the organizers of these events.

ABS “Intro to Bonsai” Syllabus

If you did not attend an “Intro to Bonsai” workshop in the past and have not received a free copy of the ABS Syllabus being used, please contact Michael Greenstein via email at michael.greenstein@comcast.com. Note that you must be a Kusamura member to participate in these workshop

Members and immediate family welcome

Mammoth Auction & Sale fundraiser is scheduled to take place on March 1 and 2, 2025, at the Lakeside Park Garden Center, 666 Bellevue Ave., Lake Merritt, in Oakland, California.

This is a call for event volunteers. Volunteers make the annual fundraiser a big success.

For Mammoth 2025, Sign-Up Genius will be used again to invite, register and assign event tasks. In 2024, more than 60 percent of all volunteers signed up using the online app. Use the link below to connect with the online app.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094FAFA62BA5FCC25-bglm#/

Thank you for supporting the BGLM Mammoth fundraiser.

Hello all…

The GSBF ‘Bonsai Rendezvous 2025’ committee held its first meeting last week and there’s a lot to be excited about. First, if you haven’t heard we have two great headliners this year, Suthin Sukosolvisit and Mauro Stemberger. Both will be hosting three-hour Bring-Your-Own-Tree workshops on Friday morning and afternoon October 24th, 2025. On Saturday the 25th and the morning of Sunday the 26th, they will simultaneously style trees and educate us on their process. Both are very well respected, here in the U.S. and internationally, so it should be an amazing experience.

In 2025 the focus will be our member clubs throughout the Bonsai Rendezvous. Check out the programs below:

ALL CLUB BONSAI EXHIBITION

This year’s judged bonsai exhibit will feature our GSBF Member Clubs. We are asking each club to submit, transport, and set-up one formal tree display of their choice. Suthin and Mauro will be judging the conifers; broadleaf evergreens; deciduous; and shohin categories: Each category winner will receive $500 from the GSBF ‘Give Back Program’. Winning clubs will be announced at the Saturday Awards Banquet. Each club will determine the process for their tree selection and how to use and/or how to disperse the prize money.

JOSHUA ROTH ‘RISING STARS’ COMPETITION

We have assigned team leaders for each of the club regions. These individuals will work with clubs from their region to find the perfect representative for the competition. Your representatives are:

• Northern Region – Mike Pistello

• Bay Area – Sam Tan

• Central California, Arizona and Nevada – Mike Roberts

• L.A. Basin – Marcus Juniel

• Southern California – Robert Hoogeveen

Club representatives will receive emails or phone calls from the team leaders to help regions determine their selection process. Our large geographic areas could complicate the selection process. It could be as simple as having each club submit photos of their representative’s bonsai work to be judged by the group along with a brief bonsai history bio. Another option could be an actual timed tree styling competition which would then be judged by the group.

Contestant qualifications are: 1) no more than ten years of bonsai experience; 2) be an active member and; 3) able to attend the Bonsai Rendezvous 2025, all day on Saturday October 26th. The demo trees will be medium sized (under 18”) junipers, that will be live auctioned after the winner is announced at the Saturday night awards banquet. All participants will receive a Joshua Roth gift certificate and the winner will receive a $1,000 check!

Good luck to all our clubs. We look forward to seeing you at the Rendezvous 2025 one year from now, October 24-26, 2025.

We had a festive gathering of over 30 members at our Holiday Party complete with unique decorated bonsai on each of the dinner tables. A generous array of member-prepared appetizers, desserts and libations was satisfying and impressively presented.

Special thanks to Jenn and Christine (dressed as a Christmas Tree) for guiding our repeat “Select and Steal” game which elicited smiles and groans (when their gift was stolen) and Hal who collected money from the many members who picked up coveted items at the silent auction tables. Thank you Christine for planning this year’s celebration with me.

Below is a photo of my bonsai Christmas tree.  The terrarium was made many years ago by my mom, who started stained glass when she was in her seventies. The bonsai is a Sieju elm. The fungus is Amanita mascaria.

The following article was written by me years ago and includes EVERYTHING you might ever wish to know about the fungus.

This month’s featured specimen is a fungus, not a plant. It is classified as poisonous although reports of human deaths are extremely rare. An authoritative source says that there have been “...no reliably documented cases of death in the past 100 years.” An active dose in adults is about the amount found in one cap of Amanita mascara. A fatal dose has been calculated as 15 caps of the mushroom, although the amount of toxic chemicals can vary widely from region to region and from year to year. The vast majority of actual mushroom deaths are instead from eating the Death Cap, Amanita phalloides, or even one of the several white Amanita species which are known as Destroying Angels.

The fungus is noted for its hallucinogenic properties. The fungus is also noted for the unpredictability of its symptoms. Effects can range from nausea, drowsiness, hearing and visual distortions, euphoria, and loss of equilibrium. Serious poisoning can cause delirium, marked agitation, seizures, coma, hallucination, all of which can be followed by depression.