by John Callaway 

In celebration of Earth Day this year, April 22nd, the Greater Louisville Bonsai Society was invited organize a small display in the lobby of the National City Tower building.  There was a lot of traffic through the lobby, and, as a result, the club received a great deal of exposure.  This exposure goes a long way in helping grow our club and educate the general public about bonsai and their care.  Thank you to Earl Ekman, Brian Schanding, and Michael Tigue for taking time out of their busy days to help organize this display and help answer questions. More...

by George Buehler

The Yew Dell show was a great success with about 60 trees shown by our members. We now have the 40th Art In The Arbor show coming up. The show runs from 10 am to 6pm on Saturday, May 10, and from 10 AM to 4 PM on Sunday, May 11. This is an art fair with about 100 artists and is held on the back property of Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church at 4936 Brownsboro Road (Hwy 22). The fair is set among the trees and even has the Kentucky state record Black Locust tree located in the middle of the artists. Five to six thousand people visit the fair on a nice weekend. This should be great exposure for the bonsai society. More...

by John Callaway

On Wednesday, April 9th, there was a planning meeting for the upcoming ABS/BCI conference in Louisville.  We had several members on hand to help with the planning of the event.  A big thanks to Earl Cormney for hosting the evening.More...

by Randy Davis 

Due to its length, this will be a two-part article. The second part will appear in the June newsletter - ED

Well, it is spring and the trees are beginning to leaf out, bringing with them the excitement of another bonsai season.  In our part of the country, one of the very first trees to leaf out is the Red Maple (Acer rubrum) which made me think it's time to finally do an article on Maples that are used for bonsai.  I say "finally" because the Maple family is so huge with approximately 150 species it has been plaguing me on how to formulate an article without making it confusing.  Of course, when one looks at the number of Maple species that are used for bonsai by American artists, they can be counted on 1 hand, and even then you wouldn't have to use all of your fingers.  American bonsai is almost exclusively limited to the Trident (Acer burgerianum), Japanese (Acer palmatum) and Amur (Acer ginnala) maples.  While these three species are all excellent for use as bonsai, they are not the only species that should be considered when selecting plant material.  Maples present some problems to the average enthusiast due to the huge number of species and even the variability within the cultivars of a single species to select the right one for the correct application.  Let me explain a little, I knew this was going to be difficult, but here we go anyway.    We're all familiar with the horticultural terms of "Genus", "species", and "cultivar".  If you're not familiar here's an example - Acer palmatum "Arakawa" – "Acer" is the Genus, "palmatum" is the species and "Arakawa" is the cultivar.  From a taxonomic level, what makes the maple family difficult is that it also includes terms such as "Series", which is used to group similar species together such as the "Palmata" series which includes Acer palmatum and Acer japonicum and others which are closely related , and "sub-species" such as Acer palmatum ssp: (subspecies) amoenum and ssp:matsumurae which are very closely related but not sufficiently different to warrant their own species classification.  Suffice it to say, the maples are confusing; and, for our purposes, we can leave it at that! More...

by Ross Clark 

Hornbeams (in the genus Carpinus) and hop-hornbeams (in the genus Ostrya) are close relatives of the birches.  They are medium-sized trees with alternate and doubly toothed (technically, doubly serrate) leaves, similar to the leaves of birches.  Carpinus and Ostrya have elongated cone-like fruit clusters that become obvious in summer.  The fruit clusters of hop-hornbeams strongly resemble the fruits of hop plants (which put the bite into beer).  Most of the common names of Carpinus and Ostrya are confusing because they vary in different regions of North America.  However, "hornbeams" for Carpinus and "hop-hornbeams" for Ostrya are universal common names that are not easily confused by people.

Hornbeams have been popular as bonsai subjects for some time, but hop-hornbeams seem still to be in the process of being discovered as bonsai subjects.  Various species of hornbeams and hop-hornbeams are native in the Northern Hemisphere.  More...

Watch your trees carefully this month. Temperatures will continue to go up and down and tropicals may need to be moved indoors if temperatures lower. Remember May 10 is the so called last frost date but based on what we have seen so far this year, we may have a frost later than that.

If you haven't started, begin your fertilizer program. Application of a slow release fertilizer like Osmocote is a good idea. If you are trying to develop foliage, use a higher nitrogen content like a 10-5-5. For blooming plants, use a 5-5-15 fertilizer until the blooms have finished. Water your trees thoroughly before the fertilizer is added. This will prevent root burn, and save on the amount of fertilizer solution needed.

Once the azaleas have finished blooming, make sure to remove the spent blossoms and seed pods.  Once blooming is done, start trimming and wiring. More...