Expo Bonsai Show 2023

This year was another great EXPO bonsai show held at K2 in Crawley for the EXPO team supported by UKBA and the bonsai community, what an event. With so many exceptional and high quality bonsai trees on display in addition to half the hall dedicated to the bonsai traders, it was a superb event. There will be a few posts about the event as there was so much to enjoy and share with everyone so keep scrolling. Congratulations to everyone who was involved from the start to the finish, a well-deserved thank you for all your work and time making this show happen. A big shout out especially to Steve Hale, Mark and MingChen Moreland as well as all the volunteers, exhibitors and traders, superb event and long may it continue to grow.

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EXPO Bonsai Show 16th April 2023

Great to be going along tomorrow to the ExpoBonsai 2023 bonsai show again at K2 Crawley, Pease Pottage Hill, Crawley, RH11 9BQ.

One of our club members, Sally May has had one of her bonsai trees approved for the show so it will be great to support her and see the other trees on display too as well as see the extensive set of Bonsai traders who attend the event as you can see from last years lead photo.

The event is organised by the team that has brought you both the well-known Heathrow Bonsai Show along with ExpoBonsai and is fully supported by the UK Bonsai Association. It will be a not to be missed exhibition of individually owned high-quality bonsai trees.

As with 2022, this event is aimed at the individual enthusiast, whether a club member or not. Each exhibitor will have a space of 6ft to display each of their trees in an appropriate manner. The intention of the show is to place an emphasis on display, whether traditional or contemporary and follow the successful formula of the previous events. Here is a link to the post from 2022.

So hope to see you there.


Japanese Black Pine April Club Night talk with Andy

Tonight we had a talk on Japanese Black Pine by Andy, our new Vice Chairman and everyone who attended found it really interesting and useful. Andy started by explaining the different types of pines and how his talk was to focus on the two needles predominately which Japanese Black Pines are within.

He went on to explain what a Japanese Black Pine is ie in Latin Pinus thunbergii which is a native tree of Japan from low-lying regions, that lives in damp conditions within a warm temperate climate which is why they do well in the UK. Their needles are in pairs and they are revered for their black rugged bark and overall character particularly when old. They have a 2 flush growth habit and a large needle growth but can be reduced with pruning techniques.

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Lee Verhorevoort Bonsai

Lee Verhorevoort Bonsai is the biggest bonsai tree nursery in Kent and his new bonsai imports have arrived and are now available for purchase for anyone wanted to start a bonsai collection or add to their existing one. If you want to visit contact Lee on 07976 709613 or via e-mail at info@lvbonsai.co.uk to book an appointment and check out his website for further pictures of some of the new stock he has available.

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March club night trees

Elaeagnus AKA Silverberry

There was no tree of the month competition in our March meeting. We had an annual general meeting. That didn’t stop our members from bringing in and displaying some trees anyway. Here are the pictures. This truly is my favourite time of year for looking at bonsai.

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LodderBonsai Nursery Open Weekends

The open weekend events held at LodderBonsai are a great opportunity to look around the largest bonsai nursery in Holland in addition to having many additional traders at the event. You can spend time talking with everyone about bonsai as well as studying so many bonsai tree species in so many forms it is an amazing experience. The staff at LodderBonsai are available on hand and offer a wealth of information on how to care for bonsai too which is great and the value of being able to spend so much time just admiring bonsai on the displays as well as those for sale and looking at the techniques used to create them is awesome. There is something for everyone here and well worth a visit if you can.

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LodderBonsai Open House 2023

It was great to be able to attend the LodderBonsai Open House weekend in March in Utrecht in Holland this year, and it was a good opportunity to catch up with friends and talk bonsai for a whole weekend. As part of the open house weekend celebrations, there was a superb bonsai display, bonsai traders, demonstrations by Peter Chan and Jan Culek and so much more. I will set out the photos from the event in a series of posts of the highlights from the weekend.

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