AACC Bonsai Club

03/01/2024

01/03/2024

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/21/the-beautiful-brutal-world-of-bonsai?fbclid=IwAR0eO7RYQxfHfAW_vclQGzmyxSzFX4UzxveDB116Yn9avpA3qOAsoOBYB6w

An American undergoes a gruelling apprenticeship to a Japanese master.

06/11/2023

This bonsai tree, currently housed in the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C, was planted in 1625, it's 398 years old and survived the bombing of Hiroshima, still growing today.

More details/photos: https://bit.ly/3SiHWRC

05/05/2023

Baltimore Bonsai Club and veteran member Jim Sullivan, both which supported AACC Bonsai Club multiple times, were featured on WMAR CH 2 Baltimore News this evening. You can also see me at 4:15 in.

Bonsai trees have gained popularity in the U.S. in the aftermath of the pandemic, with many people identifying with the tree's resilience.

09/13/2022

Brookside Bonsai Society Fall (Live) Auction
Saturday September 17th, 2022, 12 PM to 4 PM
Capital View Homewood Park Activity Building at 2929 Edgewood Road, Kensington, MD

bonsai, pre-bonsai, pots, tools, books and all things bonsai will be available at excellent value

Doors will open at noon. That’s when sellers should bring in their wares for registration. Buyers can preview material as we set it out. The auction will begin at 1:00.
Brookside is not placing a limit on the number of items folks can bring to sell. Non-members are welcome to sell (as well as buy, of course). While BBS is not limiting the number of items, please consider combining items into lots, for example, several small pots, books and magazines, and even minor plant material can be combined. We want the auction to move along briskly as our reservation for the building is 12 to 4 PM. Also remember that the auction is a fundraiser for the club; BBS retains 20 percent of the sale price.

10/31/2021

If you live in AACC area, it's time to bring in any tropical/subtropical/indoor material. Tonight the low is 50, and the rest of the week nights will be in the 40s!

06/10/2021

A FB memory prompted this post. I'm in Oakland, CA at Lake Merrit Bonsai Garden, a sister garden to the more famous Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. While I knew the tree's significance at the time of the visit, today I dug a little deeper (pun intended).
I'm posing with A dwarfed potted Daimyo Oak (Quercus dentata), also known as the "Abraham Lincoln" tree, is believed to be the first bonsai to have been brought into the United States and the "oldest DOCUMENTED bonsai" in this country.
According to legend, Lincoln sent an envoy named Burlingame to China to develop trade relations in 1863. On the journey, he stopped in Japan and was gifted with this Daimyo Oak, which he gave to a Peninsula family named Gotcher. (The envoy also purchased some land that still bears his name.)
Interestingly, according to once source, The National Arboretum declined the tree when it was offered to it in 1991 because the tree had overgrown (was too large) and had "grown out" of it's training pattern. Kathy Shaner of Lake Merritt Bonsai Garden in Oakland (sister to Huntington Gardens in Pasadena) accepted it in 1999 and began to nurture it.
It was over eight foot tall and quite "scraggly"....but Kathy began a program of training and nurturing. The trunk, meanwhile, had its dead hardwood reamed out. A contemporary description states that "Now a furrowed and hollow trunk that has grown without any restraining binding for many years, its few browned oak leaves gracing its topmost branch like a rooster's comb, the gnarly tree rests humbly in a black metal tub at the newly opened Bonsai Garden at Lakeside Park in Oakland." (BTW, the Collection has more recently accepted two other, younger Daimyo Oaks and most people do find them attractive, even with their large leaves...)

03/22/2021

Look around. You probably have some nice material you can collect near where you live.

It’s the !! Are you seeing any buds on the trees?

Try this activity with your little ones to study the bursting spring buds near you: https://www.plt.org/family-activity/bursting-buds/

03/07/2021

https://www.bonsai-nbf.org/blog-archive/2021/3/3/my-husband-the-bonsai-man-by-alice-naka?fbclid=IwAR0Rdjc2jFEdUP058jC4qUl7Ht2ow1T08LDdutPnXvFdYD3FSUkfM43_KXw

Kendra Rubinfeld March 3, 2021 Influential Bonsai Master, Bonsai People My Husband, The Bonsai Man – By Alice Naka Kendra Rubinfeld March 3, 2021 Influential Bonsai Master, Bonsai People These original words from Alice Naka, the wife of world-renowned bonsai master John Naka,  were sent to former...