General Meeting are held at East Kew Uniting Church 142 Normanby Road East Kew Vic 3102, on the 4 th Monday of each month at 8 pm.

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1 BSV Bonsai News Official Newsletter of the Bonsai Society of Victoria Inc. Registered No A H Secretary PO Box 4023 Gilberton Vic 3072 E-secbonsaivic@gmail.com General Meeting are held at East Kew Uniting Church 142 Normanby Road East Kew Vic 3102, on the 4 th Monday of each month at 8 pm October 2015 Next Meeting 26 th Oct 8.00pm Last Monday Workshop for the year a time to bring your bonsai along to be looked at before the break look forward to seeing you there Bonsai Society of Victoria Annual Bonsai Exhibition Annual Exhibition Thankyou! The magic happens every year, a huge workload and club members descend from everywhere to help out. You gave up your valuable time to prepare trees for display, to set up on Friday and dismantle on Sunday. Many also contributed many hours to welcome visitors, assist with sales and keep things running smoothly. The public has grown to expect a high quality exhibition, this cannot happen without high quality people! Sincere thanks for your efforts and your smiles. From the President. Best Tree at the Show Best Tree in the Show was judged to be tree number 37 exhibited by John. This tree has been trained for over 35 years in a classic broom style. Congratulations to John for an excellent display Best Tree Voted by the public The competition is intense and in 2015, the People's Choice was awarded to Pat for her group of Coastal Tea Trees. For those of you familiar with Tea Trees in nature, tree number 49 is a very realistic representation of a tea tree group.

2 Bonsai Society of Victoria Annual Bonsai Exhibition Over the weekend of the 10 and 11 October, the Bonsai Society of Victoria conducted its Annual Exhibition at the Box Hill Town Hall and invited the public to view an excellent range of bonsai grown and styled by its members. Trees, pots and other bonsai accessories were also on sale. The presentation of the trees in the Hall looked great as can be seen in the photos below. #2 - Himalayan Cedar 3 Point Display #3 - Japanese White Pine 3 Point Display #20 Wisteria #33 - Trident Maple Group #28 - Tea Tree #38 - Hedge Privet Group #44 - Dawn Redwood #62 - Wimmera Mallee #5 - European Olive

3 Monday Monthly Meeting 18 Sept 15 Air layering and grafting Peter Fewster Demonstration At the September meeting, Peter Fewster shared many ideas on grafting and air layering. Many of these originated from experiments by Peter to try and find whether different techniques produce good outcomes. If you missed this interesting presentation, below are some of his thoughts for consideration. * Air layers are best when the tree is in full leaf. Use a sharp knife for clean cuts and think about the angle of the cut in the context of desirable styling outcomes. * The width of the air layer cut should be about the diameter of the branch plus 50%. Make sure none of the cambium layer is left in the cut area. * If using sphagnum moss, cutting it into smaller pieces can assist when trying to remove it later. A mixture of sphagnum moss and sand or vermiculite may also be used. * Air layering Black Pines is not difficult if you can keep the tree growing vigorously. He sees this as an excellent way to make good use of sacrificial branches when their job is done. Diameter of the air layer is not considered an issue if the tree is growing vigorously. * For Pines, Peter maintains you can get better results with air layers if you wait until the roots are a brown colour. White roots can be very brittle. * If removing the sphagnum moss is difficult when separating the layer, leave for twelve months and remove it then. * Peter has seen thread grafting work on Black Pines. Use glad wrap to confine the needles when threading the graft. * Peter has achieved radical taper quickly on black pines by applying aluminium wire tightly to the section needing taper, placing the tree in a large pot and feeding strongly. Think about an irregular pattern of the wire as eventually the trunk will grow around the wire and cover it. It is important to manage the fertilising regime to match the tree growth so the roots are not burnt. Below are photos of Peter demonstrating his techniques. General discussion Cutting the air layer Radical taper example Air layer all wrapped up. on air layering - see growth around the wire

4 Members Monthly Bonsai on Show Crab Apple White Pine Blue Cedar Lilac Azalea Wisteria Recent air layer - Crab Apple Wisteria Leptospernum Quercus dentata Chinese Elm Pinus radiata Wisteria - Daimyo Oak

5 Article of the Month AIR LAYERING AS A BONSAI CULTIVATION TECHNIQUE In Japanese: Toriki A slightly more advanced technique to propagate Bonsai is air-layering. The principal of layering is to force a tree or branch to form new roots at a certain point by interrupting the stream of nutrients from the existing root system. This means you can use air-layering for several purposes; reducing the length of a trunk, growing a better Nebari (root flare or surface roots) or selecting a branch to be grown as a separate tree. How to air layer a Bonsai When? Air-layering should always be done during the spring, when the tree already started growing after its winter rest. How? There are two main techniques to air-layer a tree; the tourniquet method and the ring method. The tourniquet method involves tightly wrapping the trunk/branch with copper wire to block the stream of nutrients partially. When the trunk/branch grows thicker the stream of nutrients will decrease more and more, forcing it to grow new roots just above the wire. This method is used for rather slow growing trees that need more time to grow new roots; these will not survive the more aggressive ring method. The ring method involves cutting away a ring of bark at the point on the trunk/branch where you would like new roots to grow. The portion above the ring will have to grow roots immediately in order to survive. The ring should be wide enough to prevent the tree from bridging the gap. The tourniquet method Wrap a piece of copper wire all the way around the trunk/branch right at the point where you like new roots to grow. The wire should cut about halfway into the bark; the thicker the trunk/branch the thicker the wire should be (see photo 1, below). Dust some rooting hormone (available at Bonsai shops) around the wound and now wrap a good quantity of sphagnum moss around the wound, covering it with some plastic (see photo 2 and 3, below).

6 AIR LAYERING AS A BONSAI CULTIVATION TECHNIQUE continued The ring method 1 Use a sharp knife to cut two parallel slits around the circumference of the branch (keep enough space between both slits, at least once the diameter of the branch). 2 Now remove the ring of bark between these two cuts right till the shiny hardwood (see photo 1 and 2, below). 3 Make sure the ring is wide enough so the tree will not be able to gap the wound; also make sure you have removed the bark all the way to the hard wood; the tree will not start growing roots unless it has no other choice. 4 Dust some rooting hormone (available at Bonsai shops) around the wound and now wrap a good quantity of sphagnum moss around the wound, covering it entirely with plastic (see photo 3, below). And then? Aftercare The moss should be kept moist at all times. After about one to three months roots should be growing in the moss. When the bag is filled with new roots carefully cut the layer just underneath the new roots. Do not try to remove the moss or sort the roots; simply plant the entire bundle without disturbing it in akadama, fine gravel and potting compost mixed together in a ratio of ½ to ¼ to ¼. Keep the tree protected from low temperatures and wind; a greenhouse or cold frame can be very useful. Leave the tree untouched until the next spring, when it can be trained for the first time. Small quantities of fertilizer can be used during the first summer. Bonsai Supplies Victor stocks all the tools, wires and pots you would need to create your bonsai. If he doesn t have what you want he will look in to it and advise you at the next meeting To assist in your purchases the club now has an Eftpos and credit card facility at each meeting

7 UPDATE FROM THE NATIONAL BONSAI AND PENJING COLLECTION OF AUSTRALIA Forest Drive, Off Tuggeranong Parkway, Weston Creek. Canberra Since opening on 2 February 2013, the NBPCA has had 389,168 visitors. 145,938 in the last 12 months, at an average of 12,162 per month. The Village Centre has had over 1.3 million visitors since opening. At present the Arboretum has 129 Bonsai. 51% on loan (66 trees) 49% donated (63 trees) 16% native species (21 trees). We have 80 volunteers on our books, 40 of which regularly occupy shifts on a monthly basis. These volunteers provide, on average, 110 hours per week. We have 13 Ambassadors on our Selection & Ambassadorial Committee who provide many hours of volunteer work in their local bonsai community. They source potential loans and donations, as well as represent the NBPCA at a grass roots level. What s new!!!! The Bonsai Welcome Garden Yokoso Niwa The Bonsai Welcome Garden, or "Yokoso Niwa" is inspired by Japanese bonsai and moss gardens. The garden represents a landscape of mountains, symbolised by the large rocks, with a dry river bed flowing between them. The plants are all indigenous to Australia, apart from the Japanese Maple. Plants include Scleranthus biflorus and uniflorus, local mosses, Lomandra longifolia 'Tanika' and Cycad revoluta. The Japanese maple is Acer palmatum dissectum inabe shidare. The Niwaki pines Just outside the National Bonsai and Penjing Collection are two Japanese black pines (Pinus thunbergia) styled as niwaki, similar to bonsai but on a larger scale. These trees are the oldest Japanese black pines in Australia, grown in 1951 from the first Japanese black pine seeds imported into Australia by pioneers of bonsai in Australia, Dorothy and Vita Koreshoff. Japanese black pines are native to Japan and South Korea.

8 Bonsai Meeting Dates Club Meetings BSV monthly meeting is held on the 4th Monday of each month at 8 pm. Next meeting October 26. Meetings alternate each month between demonstrations and workshops. Club members are invited to attend the monthly Saturday meeting held on the second Saturday of every month. Meetings start at 12 pm, this allows club members to discuss the progress of their bonsai and receive expert advice from experienced members. Next Saturday meeting the 14 November Monthly Meetings 2015 East Kew Uniting Church 142 Normanby Road East Kew Vic 3102, on the 4 th Monday of each month at 8 pm 26 October - Workshop 23 November - AGM Saturday Styling Review Meetings 2015 East Kew Uniting Church 142 Normanby Road East Kew Vic 3102, on the 2 nd Saturday of each month at 12 pm 14 November 12 December Annual General Meeting 23 rd November The AGM is only a month away and the club is always looking for members to join the committee, with new people comes new ideas to drive the club for the future If you are interested please talk to a committee member at the next meeting, nomination forms will be out shortly

9 Coming Event Month October / November Ballarat Bonsai Exhibition Saturday, 31st of October 10 am - 5 pm Sunday 1st of November 10 am 4 pm At the Robert Clark Centre in the Botanical Gardens at Lake Wendouree in Gillies Street North, opposite the Glass House. Goldfields Bonsai Society Exhibition in Castlemaine Ray Bradfield Rooms, behind the information centre, Market building adjacent to Victory Park IGA Car Park. Sat 31st Oct and Sun 1st Nov 10 am to 4.30 pm. Month of November Bonsai Northwest Exhibition Footscray Community Arts Centre 45 Moreland St Footscray 7 & 8 November, 10 am to 4pm. Geelong Bonsai Club Exhibition Saturday 14 November, 9am - 6pm Sunday 15 November, 9am - 4pm Geelong Masonic Centre Regent Street Belmont Mel 45I