Cleveland Bonsai Club sets weekend kusamono and kokedama workshops with Young Choe

The Cleveland Bonsai Club is turning its April weekend into a two-stop lesson in plant composition, with Young Choe leading a kusamono workshop on Saturday, April 25, 2026, at Rockefeller Park Greenhouse and a kokedama program on Sunday at Mulberry Creek Herb Farm in Huron. For club members, it is a chance to spend a full weekend learning two related forms that push beyond tree styling and into the way bonsai is presented, balanced and maintained.

Saturday’s meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. in the classroom at Rockefeller Park Greenhouse, the City-owned botanical garden and greenhouse at 750 E. 88th Street in Cleveland. Soil will be provided, plants will be available for purchase, and attendees will need to bring their own pots and tools. Dues-paid members will attend free. The club is also asking members to bring an existing kusamono planting, including one made at last year’s event, so the group can compare, evaluate and discuss annual maintenance together.

That detail gives the workshop a different feel from a routine club meeting. Kusamono is not being treated as a one-off craft project; it is being positioned as an accent-planting practice with continuity from season to season. Choe’s presentation will go further into how kusamono should match bonsai in display, which places the class squarely in the language of composition that experienced growers already use when they build a show bench or refine an exhibit.

Choe brings that perspective from a long career that includes more than 20 years volunteering at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum and work as a horticulturist at the U.S. National Arboretum. The National Bonsai Foundation describes her work as a fusion of horticulture and art, and her path includes traditional art study in Korea, a BS in horticulture from the University of Maryland, and kusamono training in Japan with master artist Keiko Yamane, a former student of Saburo Kato.

Sunday’s kokedama event at Mulberry Creek Herb Farm widens the weekend’s reach beyond Cleveland and into another hands-on form. Kokedama wraps a plant’s roots in soil and moss, and the club notes that some drought-tolerant shrubs or trees can be used to create a presentation style that feels closer to bonsai. Paired with the kusamono workshop, the weekend gives members a practical look at companion plantings, display balance and material choices that can carry well past a single session.