Houston Bonsai Society

05/28/2026

Mark your calendars to attend the inaugural HBS Monthly meeting in our new home at Advent Lutheran Church 5820 Pinemont St 77092.

Our good HBS friend and award winning bonsai artist, Dawn Koetting, will lead a discussion and demo on grafting in the morning. After a short lunch break, Dawn will lead a BYOTT session from 1-4pm at the church. (see attached flier)

Hoping to see you there.

05/18/2026

Bonsai Tip of the Month (?) … Rotate your trees!

Every month I rotate my trees (as needed) to ensure they are getting full benefits of the environment (sun and wind). This is especially important as all my trees are placed along a wall or wood fence.

Since the sun travels east to west across my patio, I relocated my pines and junipers to opposite benches as one bench gets about 2 hours more sun than the other.

This is also the perfect opportunity to clear out pecan catkins, leaves, branches, etc. that have collected in the foliage, check for critters (spider mites), inspect and pluck any damaged/infected needles. Since the pines are so foliage dense, I do a deeper inner inspection of the pines, including upper trunk and inner branches.

05/18/2026

05/09/2026

A great article on juniper care by Michael Hegedon, shared by one of my teachers, Jennifer Price.

https://crataegus.com/2026/05/08/how-to-clean-up-juniper-foliage/?fbclid=IwdGRjcARsArxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeMXZBFsU2UhvLYIYn9cv3x0cv1L7OOOA4D-puUDdhYWlzylpaWgtJ4ISc3lg_aem_eEEKaQNqF7zblCOMBQgwsg

You may find the soft “clouds” of mature juniper foliage pleasant. Eventually this gets out of hand and we have a big thundercloud of foliage obliterating the structure of the tree. Which you may h…

05/07/2026

Spring is the perfect time to start developing some Shari, Jin and do a bit of fine wiring on junipers.

I started exposing the red bark by peeling off the old gray bark a couple of weeks ago. That gave me a better view of the live veins and potential Shari on the trunk and primary branches.

I opened Shari on the front and back on the main trunk as well as a couple areas on the first branch where branches had been removed or died off. Needs a bit more attention/carving but enough for now.

I did raise a branch on the first branch (right side) using a guy wire, bringing it more into the that pad’s silhouette. Also need to do a bit of fine wiring but nothing major.

I’ll rotate the front of the tree a bit when I repot next year to better highlight a wider nebari, trunk movement and Shari work. This will also tighten up the overall silhouette and improve depth.

05/03/2026

HBS hosted its annual auction this morning to a full house. Members donated trees, pots and other bonsai related items for both the live and silent auctions.

Check out our Upcoming Events page on our https://houstonbonsaisociety.org website for information visiting artists and other local activities.

05/02/2026

There’s a line at the sign up table! Auction starts soon!! See you there.

05/01/2026

Annual Club auction tomorrow! If you haven’t paid your dues, you can do so before the start of the event! See the flyer for details.

Just a few more days until our HBS Annual Auction. A great time to donate and pick up some great bonsai material, pots, tools and other items.

04/29/2026

This little boxwood started its bonsai journey 3 winters ago.

This morning, I removed the old wire and cleaned up the pad silhouettes. The back center branch still needs to be wired down and twisted into place just a bit before I repot it.

Beyond that, it’s turned into a nice lil bonsai.