American Bonsai Society March Newsletter Features Longwood Gardens Lecture, Upcoming Events

The American Bonsai Society's March newsletter carried program announcements, speaker schedules, calls for entries, and links to upcoming lectures and demonstrations, with one of its featured pieces detailing the Brandywine Bonsai Society's week-long annual exhibition at Longwood Gardens, held as part of that venue's Chrysanthemum Festival.

The relationship between the Brandywine Bonsai Society and Longwood Gardens stretches back more than 30 years. It was first organized by two foundational figures in the American Bonsai Society: Dorie Froning, the second President of ABS, and Jack Billet, an early member of the ABS Board of Directors. The BBS draws its membership from Southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Maryland, and Delaware, a regional footprint that reflects the society's deep mid-Atlantic roots.

At the exhibition, the BBS showed 16 trees spanning nearly every recognized form, including literati, semi-cascade, broom, and forest. Participation is open to all BBS members regardless of experience level, which gives the show an inclusive character that separates it from juried-only exhibitions. Longwood Gardens built out the display environment with matte black colored podiums in place of traditional stands, soft neutral backgrounds, and lighting that, as the newsletter described it, "gave the trees a casual elegance that delighted the visitors."

Ongoing renovations at Longwood Gardens eliminated the space needed for live demonstrations, so organizers pivoted to an educational display instead. Steve Ittel, a longtime instructor of the bonsai classes at Longwood Gardens and a BBS member, assembled a three-juniper progression model illustrating the stages of bonsai development. That model was placed on the information table for visitors to study at their own pace, a practical substitute that let the exhibition retain its educational weight without the demonstration floor space.

The ABS newsletter is edited by Susan Daufeldt, reachable at newsletter@americanbonsaisociety.org, with Ross Clark serving as Assistant Editor at Large. The society maintains a national network of state representatives, including Robert W. King for Delaware, Charlie Santostefano for Florida, Lawrence Magee for Illinois, Pat Deutschman and Dan Wiederrecht for Colorado, Brian Van Fleet for Alabama and Georgia, and Kathleen Ebey for Hawaii.

One note worth flagging for anyone cross-referencing this material: the newsletter content referencing the Longwood Gardens exhibition carries internal date markers pointing to October 4-9, 2023 and a March 2024 masthead, while Kifu Bonsai's summary identifies the newsletter being circulated as the March 2026 issue. The supplied materials do not explicitly connect whether the Longwood Gardens piece is archival content being republished or a current-cycle report, so members seeking clarification on that timeline can reach the editorial team directly at the address above.