by Earl Ekman

Our spring show at Yew Dell Gardens will be held on April 26 and 27. This is a Saturday and Sunday, with set up beginning on Thursday the 24th. This year's show will be much larger than past shows. We will be holding it in the newly restored Gheens Bank Barn. This facility is approximately twice as large as the castle where we held our show the last few years.

Start planning which trees you will be bringing to the show and begin (weather permitting) preparing them for display. Each tree should have a stand and accent plant if possible. If you don't have stands for your trees, call me and I will try to arrange stands for you. To deliver your trees, you can come in the back gate and drive right to the entrance of the barn.

We will be setting up all day Thursday and Friday, and I can use help on both days. We will be setting up tables with skirts and tops, back drops, tree stands, special lighting, video equipment, music, and trees.

This year's show will include a video player with bonsai videos playing at various times during show hours.

Hopefully, we will have time to build approximately 10 new stands. Since building new stands may include working on some weekends and evenings, please consider helping out with this project. We built five or six of these box stands 10 or 12 years ago, and they have held up extremely well. This type of stand holds a lot of weight and is very stable. We will place new material (or paint) on our existing stands and build 10 to 12 new ones. Hopefully, we can build these in one day.

Years ago, the women in the club sewed up back drops for the trees, and these have held up quite well. We will need a few more for this larger show. If anyone can spend a little time working on these cloth backdrops, please call me. I will get the material to you with an example of how to sew them.

At this point in our planning, it appears we will need approximately 65 to 70 trees. We haven't had a show requiring this many trees in a long time, but we use to exhibit that many at the Oxmoor show. This is quite a few more than the last few years, so plan on bringing twice as many this year over last. Yew Dell will allow us to bring our trees and supplies on both Thursday and Friday. If you have a nice oriental statue, crock or lantern, please consider bringing these. They will add to the show and make it truly special.

Display tags with tree information will be displayed with as many trees as possible. This information should include common name and species, style, age, and owner's name. Please call George Buehler (228-8545) or email (gaje@insightbb.com) this information.

This year's show should be one of our best in years. I hope you are as excited about it as I am. I'm really looking forward to showing our visitors a great exhibit.

In 2011, our club will be hosting the annual show for both the ABS and BCI. A lot of the preparations we make now will prepare us for this truly international event.

Best Regards, Earl