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Our meeting this month will focus on Junipers, a ubiquitous and quintessential bonsai subject. Unfortunately, Steve Z will not be able to lead the lesson due to a family emergency. Fortunately, Kelley Adkins was gracious enough to agree to fill in and lead a class session and workshop on the stages of building Juniper bonsai from young material to show worthy bonsai. He will be bringing examples of juniper training at various stages to demonstrate the techniques and their effect. We’ll take some time to discuss the basics of juniper growth and care then have the opportunity to ask some questions. After that we’ll have a group workshop session. If you have a juniper you’d like to make some progress on, you are encouraged to bring it. There should also be some juniper plants available to purchase from some of our members. Be sure to bring your tools and wire. Hopefully the weather is clear and we can expand out onto the patio. 

Looking forward to seeing you there,

-Adam Shank

We have a meeting coming up this Saturday. We will be focused on prep and planning for our annual show which will be the following weekend. If you are volunteering during the show please attend this Saturday so we can go over all the details and hit the ground running on show setup.

At our June 28th Meeting, Steve Ziebarth will be teaching a class on Juniper Bonsai Creation. Examples will be show the steps and progress of taking cuttings or nursery stock and turning them in to exhibition worthy bonsai. The plan is to start with a class that is accessible to beginners and follow up with more advanced techniques at a later date. While there is no formal workshop, you are welcome to bring a juniper you already have to work on and there will be some raw juniper material of various size/ages available for purchase.

That’s it for now but we’ve got more in the works! It’s gonna be a great year of bonsai!

I hope you’ll join us,

-Adam Shank

Club V.P.

Lots of action these last few weeks! The trees have returned to their benches for a fresh growing season and I officially closed out my repotting season tonight with an Engelmann Spruce. I hope you all had a productive and successful repotting season as well!

We have a meeting coming up this Saturday. As a theme for this month’s meeting, I was thinking “Progress”. If you have a project you’ve been working on, bring it in along with some photos of how it started and share your progress. 

Additionally, we’ll have an exciting exhibition opportunity to tell you about and start planning for. Plus, we have our Annual Bonsai Show coming up on May 31st-June 1st.

Lots to talk about so come join us as we kick off a big year for Cleveland Bonsai!

We’re knocking on spring’s doorstep now and the 2025 bonsai season is kicking into gear. 

We put together a really nice silhouette show earlier this month, much thanks to those that came and helped out! 

The topic for our meeting this month will be repotting. I’ll be working on a short presentation and then I would like the meeting to become a community repotting session. If you’re new and have never repotted a bonsai tree, or maybe you just need an extra set of hands, bring in your tree and supplies and get assistance from some of our experienced members! Repotting a tree is always an adventure and we can all benefit by seeing and experiencing more. Keep in mind that any tree you repot will need to be protected from cold weather for the remainder of winter/spring.

Saturday March 22nd, 9:30am at the Rockefeller Park Greenhouse.

Coming up this Saturday we have a special event. Bonsai artist Sergio Cuan returns to Cleveland! The meeting will start with a presentation followed by a bring your own tree workshop. Non-participants are welcome to stay as silent observers during the workshop portion. There is one spot still remaining in the workshop, write me back if you’d like to claim it. The plan is to hold the meeting in the back greenhouse as the classroom will be too cramped for this event. However, with the heat continuing into the weekend, I don’t know if the greenhouse will be too uncomfortable. Stay tuned for location updates. We will start promptly at 9:30am and the workshop will continue until 4pm.