by George Buehler

I had the opportunity to attend the ABS Learning Seminar in Saratoga Springs NY June 15 through June 18, 2006. After a two day drive from Louisville we arrived in Saratoga Springs. The venue of the seminar was a Holiday Inn.

This meeting was not a series of bonsai workshops, but, as the name implies, an actual learning seminar. To be completely accurate, there was a bonsai workshop for novices only that consisted of four sessions (3 hours each session). It was designed to teach the art of bonsai, and then cover the fundamentals of wiring and design. The third session went over discussing numerous specimens with the goal of teaching the students what to look for in a classic specimen, how the master hid the flaws, and why he chose the particular style. The final session was an actual hands on workshop where the students styled trees. Thirteen 'new' students attended the four sessions. Surprisingly enough, all joined the ABS. There also was one workshop for children only, which had five students.

The other classes (each 3 hours) covered such diverse subjects as elements of Japanese gardens, basics of indoor bonsai, training and developing a bonsai eye, bonsai horticulture, bonsai fertilization, advanced wiring techniques, pot selection, grafting basics, collecting trees, and getting the tree ready for a show. There also were sessions on hornbeams, pines, maples, cedars, and two sessions on weeping style. All together there were 33 class offerings.

Instructors for these sessions were David DeGroot, Jim Doyle, David Easterbrook, Cheryl Manning, Jerry Meislik, Frank Mihalic, Christine Hayward, Martin Schmalenberg, Kathy Shaner, Harold Johnson and Pauline Muth – all well know masters. There were a total of 117 attendees. Not bad for the first time this type of event was held.

Of course there were vendors – 19 total – offering trees, pots, bonsai supplies and other bonsai paraphernalia. You know I spent a lot of free time in this area trying to use a lot of restraint in my purchases.

The exhibit area was set up for only American tree species. There were too many trees to get a count but I would estimate about 40 specimen trees were exhibited. Something we in the Ohio valley don't see a lot of is Larch. This species doesn't do well in our summer heat but prospers well in the north. There also was a Kingsville boxwood exhibited that was approximately 30 inches tall with a trunk about 3" in diameter (See picture page 8). I wasn't able to talk to the owner about this tree but I estimate this tree to be at least 75 to 100 years old. Although it didn't receive the best in show award it was magnificent.

I attended a session on Japanese garden design given by Jim Doyle, who operates a landscape business in addition to his bonsai business. He discussed all the elements of a Japanese garden and how they fit together. I took copious notes since I want to try to make a small Japanese garden where I can display more of my trees. As Midge Goeth can attest, putting together all the elements of a Japanese garden can be quite daunting.

Another course I attended was on fertilizing bonsai given by David Easterbrook, the curator of the Montreal bonsai exhibit. I came away from this session with the thought that perhaps I am using the wrong fertilizing routine. I also need to investigate the use of micronutrients. I know several of our members use Vitamin B supplement. David said that there is a number of studies published showing that Vitamin B doesn't do anything for the health of the tree and that the Montreal arboretum ceased using it several years back. What they changed to was the material called "MicroMax" that they work into the soil during transplanting. He also explained several tricks they use for flowering/fruiting trees which I am going to try during my next repotting. Of major importance was the statement that the soil was actually more important than what fertilization regime was used. They also rely heavily on a slow release fertilizer such as Osmocote. David was quite open in explaining the techniques used in Montreal, and I came away with a lot of new techniques that I will try.

Another class I attended was appropriately titled "Potty Training" given by Cheryl Manning. Although the title is a little silly, Cheryl went over how she picks the 'correct' pot for her bonsai. In going over this topic, Cheryl showed a number of photos of Koko-fu trees that she took while she was an apprentice in Japan. She discussed why the pot was the 'correct' pot or not. For several of these trees, she used Photoshop® to change the pot and asked what the class thought. Quite often I thought the 'new' pot was much better than the one originally used. There will be more on this subject in a future article of this newsletter. For now I will say that the choice of the correct pot is definitely more complicated than I originally thought, but it explains why sometimes a tree just didn't look right in the pot I had chosen.

I really enjoyed this learning experience and can't come up with many negatives. The biggest complaint I heard all weekend was for the hotel. This hotel was just not set up for having this type event since they had limited meeting room space. The hotel staff did everything they could to make the weekend more enjoyable and to try to minimize the problems. So I have to give them credit for that.

The next meeting of this type will be in Virginia Beach in June of 2007. The hotel is a convention hotel so the problems encountered in Saratoga Springs will be eliminated there. I would highly recommend that you plan on attending this meeting no matter what your experience level. A number of the 'old time' bonsai people, readily agreed that they also picked up a number of new concepts and ideas that they never used or if they did, finally understood why they used them. I will give more information on the Virginia Beach learning seminar in future issues of this newsletter.

From my side my biggest complaint was that I didn't purchase that 'special' root over rock shohin trident or that great adjustable work table. Oh well there is always Virginia Beach...