Tuesday night I attended my first meeting of REBS – the Redwood Empire Bonsai Society. As I was pretty involved with my club in Chicago, and it’s a pretty active club, my expectations were high. Plus, Brent had spoken highly of REBS. Well, I was not disappointed. It was a great meeting!
I arrived a little early, as I was not sure how long it would take me to get to the place (one hour 20 min. from work – which is not much longer than it took me to get to the meeting in Chicago with rush hour traffic.) There was a workshop going on – a pretty informal advice session, really. So I just hung around and looked at the member’s trees. The new president of the club was there, so I introduced myself and started chatting. Everyone was very friendly. Jeff, who was leading out in the workshop, is a friend of Brent’s that I had met when I was out here in June. He introduced me to several other members.
Some of the members had brought in some of their trees for display. Here are a few pics.

In the center is a very nice shohin display on a stand the member made himself.

I didn’t catch the species name of this shohin bunjin cascade pine.

Not too long ago these were two branches on a big chinese elm.

“Monterey Pigmy Cypress” – The picture doesn’t do it justice – amazing bark and ramification.
The member who brought the shohin stand also described a technique to turn a thick un-attractive slab/stand into a more attractive stand. If I can find some pics to illustrate this, I will put it in a separate post.
The main feature of the meeting was a demo by a visiting bonsai master from the east coast, Suthin Sukosolvisit. Originally from Thailand, he has a fantastic nursery south of Boston called Royal Bonsai Garden. He spent about an hour or so working on a very nice ezo spruce that a member brought in. It was an imported tree that had been grown out in the ground for 5 or more years after it was brought over. He potted it up into a 15 gal nursery can 2 years ago. It was healthy, and just screaming out “bonsai me.” There was some good movement in the trunk (it had had some preliminary training many years ago) and many good low branches to choose from.
I don’t have a good “before” pic, because it was pretty much just a big bush, unless you could get a close up of the base. Here it is after he had removed most of the upper part of the tree.

He spent a fair amount of time showing us all the possible new leaders that could be chosen, and the plusses and minuses of each one. He said, “You don’t get lucky every day,” but seemed quite pleased with this material. He talked about choosing the weaker branches to keep. These generally have a finer structure, and will look older than the stronger branches. Plus, strong branches will only get stronger, stealing energy from other parts of the tree. Leaving only weaker branches will give more balanced growth.
He changed his mind a few times, but eventually decided on a leader, main branch and back branch for what would be a very nice semi-cascade shohin tree. He stated that with a shohin tree, and even with a larger tree, you really only need 3 branches – main, back and leader. He did, however, keep an additional branch. He recommended that a tree would look better if the longer branch is pointing in the same direction that the tree is leaning. This keeps all the motion going in the same direction and gives a more stable and pleasing appearance.
He then started wiring. During this time the club gave away a door prize of about $100 worth of tools and soil. I didn’t win 
Here’s a shot of the wiring process. He’s not really that short – I think he was crouching down at this point.

If you don’t like it as a semi-cascade, he said the long branch could be shortened, and the tree be potted in a more upright angle for an informal upright. Or, the leader could be shortened, the extra branch removed, the potting angle made more severe and it could be a full cascade.
And here is a shot of the final tree as a semi cascade.

A very nice shohin. He states he left the branches longer than they would be in the final design, as shortening them now would further weaken the tree. He recommended pinching back the new growth by about half in the spring, then next year cutting back the branches to a shorter length. After that, it’s working on ramification and appropriate tapering of the branches, and you will have a showable tree in 3-5 years.
The tree was then raffled off, and won by the daughter of the former president of the club – she’s about 7 years old or so. Imagine the trees she will have when she’s older!
So, I joined the club, and got my name on a waiting list for workshops with the club sensei, Kathy Shaner. She was highly recommended by my former teacher, Ivan Waters, so I am looking forward to working with her.
I also spoke to a few members who are active collectors. There are some good species in the area, and they also organize trips to the high desert to collect trees.
While I certainly miss my old club, I think this one will be a suitable replacement.