November 2015 Newsletter pg. 1 of 6 This month s meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 18 @ 7pm at Menne Nursery & Garden Artistry 3100 Niagara Falls Boulevard Amherst, NY 14228 716.693.4444 http://www.mennenursery.com/ President s Corner Hi Everyone, Well, it s that time of year when you should start putting your trees away for the winter. Make sure you check for bugs wishing to overwinter in and under your pots. Our November meeting will be our last for the year and the last time we meet at Menne s Nursery. Beginning in February, our meetings will be at The Botanical Gardens. No meeting is scheduled for January. Our program this month features Dan Zak who will give a lecture on Dead Wood. This is sure to be an interesting and informative program. Regarding our Christmas Party... If you haven t as yet signed up and wish to, please do so at this month s meeting. Cost is $25 a person. Please pay when you sign up. If you have signed up but haven t paid, please pay at this meeting. If you have any questions, please call me. Date: Wednesday, December 9 th Time: Arrive at 7:00, Dinner at 7:30 Place: Rizotto Ristorante, 350 Maple Road, Amherst 14221 As always, I hope to see you all at the meeting. Sincerely, Richard Smith Cell: 716-880-7441 Upcoming Events & Information: Refreshments This month our President, Richard Smith will be providing the refreshments! Thank you! This Month s Program This month we ll be learning about dead wood with Dan Zak. Dead wood helps to give the impression of the tree being very old. If you are able to take any photographs, please send them along to Kristy so she can include them in the December issue for those that were unable to attend the meeting.
P a g e 2 Photos Wanted: Kristy is looking for someone to take digital photographs at the Holiday Party! If you are planning on attending and would like to capture some candids of the event to appear in the January newsletter, please send them along! Additionally, if you have any Throwback photographs in digital format please send them along to Kristy for a fun future newsletter article! Photos could be of trees that you ve worked on vs what they look like now, or photos of you from a while ago working on a tree, or at a BBS event/show. Please provide a description of the photo including any names if there are club members past or present in the image. No blackmailing friends though- if possible, please get permission from people in the photograph before submitting as we do post the newsletter online. Tree Adventure of the Month: The National Arboretum and Bonsai & Penjing Museum By: Kristy Schmitt Being the tree lovers that we are, Travis and I recently paid a visit to the National Arboretum and Bonsai Museum in Washington DC for our honeymoon. If you ve never been, it is worth a visit- and plan for multiple days of exploring the arboretum! We started the day dealing with Maryland and DC morning rush hour traffic. The Bonsai Museum is located within the Arboretum just inside DC. They are located separately from the other museums like the US Botanic Garden. The Arboretum is hugeyou need a car or bikes to see everything! Our first stop was the Administration Building to pick up maps and check the hours of the Bonsai Museum, which was not open until 10am. To kill time, we began to check out some of the gardens around the grounds. There are many smaller gardens located around the Museum, the closest one being the National Herb Garden containing smaller themed gardens- 2 ½ acres of them! Now, I m sure you are envisioning acres of lavender, rosemary and thyme, but in their herb plantings they consider herbs to be plants that enhance people s lives, so this would include culinary plants, medicinal plants, industrial plants and even a Native American Garden. We spent much more time here than we planned on and saw highlights that included a knot garden, a ponderosa lemon, castor beans, sassafras, sugarcane and an entire garden of different varieties of sage. A landmark that really stands out at the
P a g e 3 Arboretum are the columns placed on a hill that you can see from the Administration Building (picture on previous page). These columns were on the capitol building. After renovation and expansion of the building, they were placed at the Arboretum. A few male and female ginkgo trees line the pathway up the hill. After touring the garden and posing for a few pictures at the sign and doors, we headed into the Bonsai Museum! There was a pathway with beautiful Japanese Cryptomeria japonica. We were then greeted by a Japanese Black Pine on display next to water feature, but Travis immediately ran to see the large tree on our left- The Peace Tree, a famous Japanese White Pine. The Peace Tree is the oldest tree in the Museum, in training since 1625 (!). The pine is also called the Yamaki Pine, from the family that cared for the tree over generations. Masaru Yamaki gave the tree to the US as a tree of peace and friendship between the US and Japan in the 70s. The tree had survived the Hiroshima bombing. Many of the trees that were in the Japanese Pavilion join the Peace Tree in the first courtyard as the Pavilion was currently under construction. Many of the maples leaves were turning- so pretty! Next, we visited the North American Pavilion and wandered through to the Tropical Conservatory, in the midst of misting. We saw a banyan, a serissa and an interestingly-barked tree called a jaboticaba (may be a tree of the month at a later date!). Heading back into the North American Pavilion, highlights here included many junipers featuring dead wood, a bald cypress, a beautiful American beech, a coast redwood and another famous tree that you may recognize: Goshin. In Japanese, Goshin means protector of spirit. Goshin is a forest, beginning training as a bonsai planting in 1948 by John Naka. The forest is made of eleven juniper trees, one for each of his grandchildren. Next, we visited the Chinese Pavilion and Penjing Display and walked through the moon door into the courtyard and garden. Being newer at the hobby of bonsai, I had not heard the term penjing before. In Chinese, it means miniature trees and landscapes. Viewing the specimens in the Chinese pavilion, the difference here was that it is more of a focus on the landscapes
P a g e 4 surrounding the tree or trees. The plants and landscapes are still in containers, but it is much more display oriented, to remind the artist or owner about places in nature. Figurines more often decorated the landscapes and many more rocks and stones were on display. Bonsai focuses more on the shapes and styles of trees. After the Chinese Pavilion we continued to explore the other outdoor areas, examining a display of viewing stones, which our friend decided to touch. Now, there are signs everywhere throughout the museum about touching, and reminding everyone that they are on camera. We checked out an inner courtyard, and came back to the area with the stones only to encounter two staff members who said, We ve been watching you Of course, internal panic set in- we were caught! In trouble! Going to be kicked out before even seeing the indoor part of the museum! But, to our surprise and relief, they continued by asking why we were so excited about trees, so intent on looking at everything, taking so many photographs and why Travis and I seemed particularly lovey-dovey. We explained how we were members of the Buffalo Bonsai Society and were visiting with our friend for our honeymoon! Our shirts both had trees on them and Travis explained how I worked at the Gardens. I excitedly added on that the Gardens had recently received accreditation as an arboretum (Level 2!) from ArbNet. We chatted for a bit more and they invited us to go behind the scenes where a volunteer and an intern, who had just gotten back from working with bonsai in Japan, were working on a few trees. After visiting and talking trees for a bit, we headed into the rest of the Museum. The indoor exhibit space focused on accent stones, a tokonoma and a Chinese scholar s studio with many beautiful examples on display. Again, differences were discussed. A tokonoma is a space in the home where a bonsai would be rotated for display in Japan. In a historical, Chinese scholar s studio, it centered around a window and work area that would highlight plant or rock penjing to remind the person of nature while working. There were quite a few different kinds of viewing stones on display. Chrysanthemum stones, Japanese suiseki, gongshi and rock penjing were displayed in cases. Suiseki is the Japanese art of displaying natural stones to remind the viewer of a landscape, river, waterfall or object. Gongshi is the term used for a Chinese scholar s rock or viewing stone that would be displayed similarly. Chrysanthemum stones were displayed for their patterning- black with a white pattern that
P a g e 5 resembles a chrysanthemum flower. The viewing stone part of the collection at the museum started when the Peace Tree arrived and has been growing and expanding since. After the bonsai, we had some time (but not enough!) to explore the rest of the Arboretum. We checked out the conifer plantings, with many miniature and dwarf varieties, saw a witch s broom (above) on one of the trees, observed a pond cypress with roots making knees, saw many different pines and firs, then adventured to the Asian Collections. We passed dogwoods, many Camellias, saw a persimmon and a Chinese quince and of course had to get a picture under a weeping Katsura tree. Running out of time, we drove past the grove of state trees, the oaks and the azaleas vowing to visit again when they would be flowering, and hopefully visiting the cherry blossoms too! It was a great adventure and we can t wait to visit again! If you are ever in the DC area- make it a point to spend a day here! Since it is a national museum, admission is free. Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Dip Days are getting coolertime for some comfort food and to dig out the crockpot! This dip is super easy. You ll need: 8 oz cream cheese ½ cup ranch or bleu cheese dressing (I prefer the bleu cheese!) ½ cup of Frank s hot sauce ½ cup of Monterey jack cheese 11 oz of shredded, cooked chicken Additional bleu cheese crumbles (optional) Chives (optional) Start with the cream cheese in your crockpot, and break it up/soften it with a spatula. Once it s softer, add the other ingredients and mix well. Cook covered on high for 1.5 hours. Then, stir well and keep your crockpot on the warm setting and serve with tortilla chips or hunks of fresh bread- delicious! If you are feeling extra fancy, add bleu cheese crumbles on top with a bit of chopped chives. 2015 Monthly Agenda December 9: BBS Christmas Dinner at Rizotto Ristorante 2016 Monthly Agenda Meeting at the Botanical Gardens January 20: No Meeting
February 17: Hank Miller- Lecture/Demo on Ficus March 16: Bob Taylor- Lecture Collecting Trees from the Field April 20: Mark Arpag- Lecture/Demo on Forest Style Bonsai May 18: Alan Adair- Lecture/Demo on Windswept Larch June 8: Kristy Schmitt- Tree ID Walk at the Botanical Gardens Arboretum July: Club Picnic- Date and Host TBD August 17: Battle of the Bonsai September 20: Annual Club Auction October 18: Dan Zak- Lecture/Demo on Literati Bonsai November 15: David Clark- Accent Plants December 7: BBS Holiday Party P a g e 6