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As summer fades and autumn arrives, the light begins to soften. The sun sits lower in the sky, casting longer shadows and bathing the bonsai garden in a golden hue. This shift in light is not just a visual delight—it plays a crucial role in the seasonal transformation of deciduous bonsai.

This past weekend was the East Bay Bonsai Society’s annual show in Oakland, CA, where I gave a talk about conceptual bonsai and ran a couple workshops. And I critiqued the show. 

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Thousands of people have visited some of our past nine US National Bonsai Exhibitions since 2008. Every two years visitors from around the world gather in Rochester, New York, to see the state of the art as practiced in America.  The American Bonsai Society held their Learning Seminars at our official hotel about a 15 minute driver on the same weekend.

While a branch’s origin on the trunk doesn’t change—one thing I remember answering correctly on my biology SAT test 400 years back—the branch itself may bend and reorient.

Birds are often used in traditional bonsai display to give a suggestion of where the tree is.

About a year and a half ago, I mentioned that I’d like to visit Walter Pall’s garden. The message got through to Walter (thanks, Jennifer!), and last week I was able to make the trip a reality.

As the first hints of autumn settle, the bonsai garden begins its quiet transformation. The light softens, the air soon cools – although right now we have warm, pleasant summer temperatures, and the trees respond with subtle shifts in colour and energy. This is a season of preparation—not only for the trees but for the bonsai enthusiast as well.

Delivering bonsai to the Portland Japanese Garden has one hairy bit. After grinding up a steep hill you come to the roof panels on the spectacular Kengo Kuma buildings, which are conveniently lower than the top of a 26’ U-Haul. But by taking this arrival slalom at 0.5 mph, in the past eight years both bonsai and buildings have survived materially unchanged.

The Redwood Empire Bonsai Society held their annual exhibit last month at the Rohnert Park Community Center in Rohnert Park, California.

We are in the final days of preparation for the US National Bonsai Exhibition. A big thank you to all who have registered to attend, exhibitors, vendors and the valued volunteers who set up, host and take down the Exhibition.