Kusamura Bonsai Club
Palo Alto, California


An Invitation to Become a Kusamura Bonsai Club Member

Kusamura Bonsai Club specializes in teaching how to create and improve your bonsai. If you're interested in bonsai please be our guest at three monthly club meetings to observe our activities. If you decide you'd like to become a member, you may do so at any meeting.

Annual dues are $35 for individuals and $45 for couples. Meetings are held on the third Friday of each month at St Mark’s Episcopal Church, 600 Colorado Ave., Palo Alto, in the Parish Hall,  Palo Alto.

Directions to our meetings can be found at this link.

 The Advantages of Membership

Monthly meetings consisting of:

7-8 p.m. Techniques Workshop
Basic skills in the art of Bonsai, including styling, pruning, wiring, and caring for our trees, are explained and demonstrated. Hands-on experience under the guidance of experienced members is available.

8-10 p.m. Demonstrations or Practical Workshops
A guest Bonsai expert explains an intermediate or more advanced Bonsai technique. The demonstration piece is usually donated to the club for the benefit drawing.

A "Show and Tell" Table on which members display plants they feel are of interest in relationship to the meeting subject or for color, flowering, fruiting, or other features.

Benefit drawings of Bonsai-related items and the demonstration tree conclude each meeting.

Other Benefits

A library of books, magazines, and tapes that members are encouraged to borrow.

Group tours are arranged to nearby specialized nurseries and to suppliers of pots, tools, wire, and Bonsai stock trees.

Semi-private workshops that members are able to participate in with well-known visiting experts .

Information is available on the annual state-wide Bonsai convention and the related workshops available. The featured guest artists for the last few years have been various highly regarded Bonsai experts from Japan.

Annual Bonsai show with displays and demonstrations at which you have the opportunity to show your trees.

History of the Kusamura Bonsai Club

Kusamura Bonsai Club arose out of an initial organization named “Hokubei Kusamura Mujin-ko” with its earliest recorded formal meeting in 1956. It became known as the Northern California Kusamura Mutual Association a few years later.  It began meeting in member’s homes and was led by Keiseki Hirotsu who only spoke Japanese.   

The first constitution and by-laws of Kusamura Bonsai Club were approved by the membership on June 12, 1960 with Toshio Saburomaru serving as President for the fractional year of 1960. Prior to 1960, activities associated with bonsai were carried out by several  past members; as it was an informal organization until greater interest in the art of bonsai was brought to the United States by Yuji Yoshimura. It is noted that Toshio Saburomaru was a member of the original group of about 12 people working on bonsai around 1954 being taught by Yuji Yoshimura. Some of those early members helped to found Kusamura Bonsai Club.  

In the first 10 years, the club had many extraordinary people who took the leadership: Toshio Saburomaru, Peter Sugawara, Robert DiVita, Seiji Yanari, Ken Nakashima, Thomas Refvem, Robert Hillbun, John Planting, and Mrs. Francis (Clara) Howard. In 1960, the first class taught by Yoshimura, assisted by Tosh Saburomaru, contained 35 people. The original club logo, a three-trunk Japanese White Pine raft, was taken from a pamphlet showing photos of the trees in a Crown Prince’s (Akihito) Exhibit in Japan sometime in the 1950s. The club’s first bonsai show was held at the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple on October, 7, 1961. 

In 1961, a few San Jose members left to form Midori Bonsai while the Japanese-speaking members formed Akebono Bonsai Club at the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple during the 1962-63 season. In 1964, Yuji Yoshimura presented his last lecture to Kusamura members at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto with the sponsorship of The American Bonsai Association, created in 1958, and the Sacramento Bonsai Club.  

In 1965, the Kusamura Bonsai Club show at Stanford University featured over “over 100 examples of Japanese dwarfed trees (bonsai).” Names such as Planting, Refvem, Ransohoff, and Poggensee, are now 50 years later considered household names to club members.  The club had begun conducting tree gathering trips to the Pygmy Forest near Ft. Bragg, Toiyabe National Forest, Mohave, and the Red Lake Lodge near the Grand Canyon.  Shows and special exhibitions were frequently being held at events like the Japanese Doll Exhibit, San Francisco Hall of Flowers, Art & Bonsai Exhibit at Foothill College, and the Marin Art & Garden show.  

In 1962, Jim Ransohoff and Connie and Horace Hinds helped create the Bonsai Club Association (now known as Bonsai Clubs International or BCI) and began creating conventions and shows in the Bay Area.  By 1963, Marin, East Bay, San Francisco, Kusamura, Midori, Tri County, and American Bonsai Club had been formed. Interest in Bonsai increased in the United States. Tosh Saburomaru, Yuji Yoshimura and others began touring. In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, John Naka, Fay Kramer (student of Yuji Yoshimura/Zeko Nakamura), Kyuzo Murata, Morihiko Tomita, Masao Komatsu, and Kawasumi Masakuni began doing workshops for Kusamura. In the mid ‘70s, a popular demonstration was by Carl Young, of Seiju-en Nursery located in Lodi, on the use of Chrysanthemums as bonsai. The 1980s saw presenters such as William Valavanis (International Bonsai), Naka, Hiroshi Suzuki, Dan Robinson, Mike Page, Katsumi Kinoshita, and Melba Tucker (First Lady of Bonsai).  

In the 1990s, visitors and shows continued with speakers like Bill Sullivan, Denis Makishima, Yasuo Mitsuya, Kathy Shaner, and Tatemori Gondo. Shows and events were held at Filoli Gardens and Estate, Horticultural Show in Palo Alto, Mountain View Buddhist Temple and others. 

 In 1992, Kusamura Bonsai Club officially filled for 501 (c )(3) status with the IRS under President Bill Scott. In the early ’90s, many members of Kusamura participated in the creation of the GSBF-Collection North, now named, GSBF Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt, in Oakland, CA. Among these was landscape architect Jim Ransohoff, who drew up the design of the garden.

 Since 2000, the club has continued its tradition of teaching and hosting speakers and demonstrators. Workshops have been held by Marco Invernizzi, Peter Warren, Jim Gremel, John Thompson, Yasuo Mitsuya, and others.

 The Kusamura Bonsai Club is one of the oldest English-speaking bonsai clubs in northern California. It sponsors lectures and instruction in the technique of growing bonsai for beginners and advanced students. It meets the 3rd Friday of each month, at 7 PM at the Parish Hall of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 600 Colorado Avenue, Palo Alto. Prospective members and visitors are welcome.

Perspective members and interested parties may find out more information concerning Kusamura Bonsai club on the web at: http://www.gsbf-bonsai.org/kusamura/ and contact the club via email at: Kusamura-info@gsbf-bonsai.org

 Credits: Joe H Clepp, Past President, VP, and Historian (1970+), and records of the Kusamura archives.

 Interested??

Sign up for the next newsletter today by sending email to jcsf1090@earthlink.net or to  kusamura@gsbf-bonsai.org  

 


Last Updated March 2010
Copyright © 2010, 2009, by Kusamura Bonsai Club. All Rights Reserved.