Our Meetings Resume!
July Meetings Return
Hello everyone! What great news we have for the club. Meetings are scheduled to return starting in July. The first meeting will feature Gerry Fields and his Tree Improvement Program. This is a staple program for the club as we typically start a new year with this. Bring in a tree — or a few. We will take turns doing critique and offer advice for the tree’s future.
To help with funding for the club, the club is asking that all members pay a half years of club dues of $20 to cover their 2021 membership.
This month’s newsletter features a plant festival and a bonsai convention both worth going to, another Tree in the Wild feature, and more.
Gardeneur Summer Plant Festival
A Feature by Tung X. Dao
This month’s featured event is the Gardeneur Summer Plant Festival. Gardeneur is a marketplace for plant enthusiasts to connect, share their plant knowledge, and buy and sell plants. Liony Azali, the co-founder of Gardeneur, reached out to us to invite all of us to attend and possibly to participate at their summer festival event on July 24th.
In addition to great plants, food, drinks, and live music, there will be a local potter who will be offering bonsai pots for sale at this event. Local gardeners and artists will be selling a wide selection of houseplants, aroids, Hoyas, cacti, succulents, air-plants, studio pottery, and more. There will be a raffle on several plants from participating vendors and plant societies to be announced. This is an event worth going to for all plant enthusiasts!
This event will be in Downtown San Jose at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church on 88 Race St, San Jose, CA from 10am-7pm on Saturday, July 24. Note that the first hour of the event from 10-11am is reserved for Gardeneur members. However, signing up is free and can be done at the door. In addition to this event, Gardeneur hosts many other events throughout the year around the Bay Area in case you can’t get enough plants.
Gardeneur Summer Plant Festival
St. Leo the Great Catholic Church
88 Race St, San Jose, CA
Saturday, July 24, 2021 from 10am-7pm
In addition to plants, food, drinks, and live music, there will be a local potter who will be selling bonsai pots at the plant festival.
2021 GSBF Bonsai Rendezvous
Announcement by the Golden State Bonsai Federation
Get ready and plan for attending the 2021 GSBF Bonsai Rendezvous. The event theme is Bonsai Rendezvous. A two-day event for renewal and celebration for the love of bonsai. No registration fee. Open to the public. Free bonsai demonstrations both days. Free professional bonsai critiques, Bring Your Own Bonsai and Do It Yourself Bonsai settings. Vendors from Northern and Southern California in one huge location. There will be silent auctions for quality bonsai and related items. There will be no banquet dinners. Additional information and schedule of activities forthcoming shortly. Stay tuned to GSBF website "Convention" section of the GSBF website.
The event will be held at the Hotel Mission de Oro, 13070 State Highway 33, Santa Nella. The hotel has gone through a very complete renovation recently and served successfully as the location for the 17th Biennial Shohin Seminar in February 2020.
UPDATE: Room Rate The room rate is $121.00 plus applicable taxes. GSBF does not have a block of rooms set aside with the hotel and getting an accommodation on the dates desired will be a first-come-first-served basis. Reserve your accommodations early.
UPDATE: Volunteers needed for this event! If you want to take an active role as a volunteer for the event, contact Rich Guillen by email or call 831-233-1612.
GSBF Bonsai Rendezvous
Hotel Mission de Oro
13070 State Highway 33
Santa Nella, CA
Saturday, October 2 - Sunday, October 3, 2021
Trees in the Wild
Images and Text by Jack Christiansen
These are the famed Bristlecone Pine I photographed this past year on the Eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevadas. A 4.5 mile hike my wife and I took at 11,000 ft. — a journey in the White Mountains of California. These trees have weathered the test of time with some being over 4,000 years old. The exposed roots had been eroded away by the shear slopes that the trees live on along with the loose dry dolomite soil they cling to. This was a spiritual moving walk among these ancient trees that have seen centuries of human existence going back to the pyramids of ancient Egyptians when they took root.
Upcoming Midori Events
Our June meetings will continue to be on Zoom as we prepare for our first in-person meeting in over a year. The Zoom link is the same as usual as is the time: first and third Thursdays at 7pm-9pm.
The first Thursday will be a Black Pine Maintenance demo by Juan Cruz. He will be covering candle pruning and balancing a tree’s energy to maintain a tree’s health. There may be a Board of Directors meeting on the first half of the 3rd Thursday meeting. Stay tuned for updates.
Our July meeting will feature Gerry Field’s Tree Improvement Program. Please bring in a few trees that you would like some feedback on.
Upcoming Bonsai Events
Gardeneur Summer Plant Festival
July 24, 2021 — Downtown San Jose
Gardeneur
We are excited to announce Gardeneur’s first summer festival to take place at St. Leo the Great Church in San Jose. Sip your wine, drink cold beer, and enjoy live music/entertainment while browsing through the Bay Area's most complete selection of houseplants, aroids, Hoyas, cacti, succulents, air plants, studio pottery, and more! WIN a rare plant raffle. More details to come. Follow us @gardeneur and stay tuned!
7th US National Bonsai Exhibition
September 11-12, 2021 — East Rochester, New York
US National Bonsai Exhibition
The world bonsai community will once again be enriched by the display of bonsai gathered from across the United States at the 7th U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition, September 12-13, 2020, in Rochester, NY.
Like Japan’s Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition, people from around the world attend the U.S. National Bonsai Exhibitions to appreciate and study the diversity of the unique and distinctive species displayed by accomplished bonsai artists from across the United States.
GSBF Bonsai Rendezvous
October 2 - 3, 2021 — Hotel Mission de Oro
Golden State Bonsai Federation
Get ready and plan for attending the 2021 GSBF Bonsai Rendezvous. The event theme is Bonsai Rendezvous. A two-day event for renewal and celebration for the love of bonsai. No registration fee. Open to the public. Free bonsai demonstrations both days. Free professional bonsai critiques, Bring Your Own Bonsai and Do It Yourself Bonsai settings. Vendors from Northern and Southern California in one huge location. There will be silent auctions for quality bonsai and related items. There will be no banquet dinners. Additional information and schedule of activities forthcoming shortly. Stay tuned to GSBF website "Convention" section of the GSBF website.
