Local club opens 2026 with Japan travel bonsai presentation

Mark Takagishi brought scenes from Japan to the club’s first meeting of 2026, delivering a deep-dive presentation that connected traditional landscapes to practical bonsai work. The January 15 meeting at the Foster Community Center, Room 211 gathered members for socializing at 6:30pm before the 7pm program and ran until 9pm.

Takagishi’s talk traced a path from Japanese landscape gardens to Niwaki practice and concluded with reflections from a family visit to Yakushima, the remote island where 1000-plus-year-old Cryptomeria stand. The UNESCO World Heritage context gave members a living reference for scale, bark texture, and canopy sculpting — elements many in the room said they want to emulate on a tabletop scale. Attendees saw how observing old-growth cedars can inform choices about trunk line, taper, and deadwood in their own collections.

The program emphasized hands-on relevance. Photographs and field notes illustrated pruning rhythm and crown reduction used in Niwaki, showing how selective branch spacing and thoughtful thinning build structure without forcing artificial ramification. Takagishi also highlighted soil and moss relationships observed in Japanese gardens, tying those observations to winter care and display practices that will matter as members prepare trees for spring shows.

Club organizers posted meeting details and the program announcement on January 11, and the club page continues to list who’s online as well as links to past meeting topics, show information, and ways to get involved. That central resource now serves as a quick reference for anyone wanting to revisit techniques from Takagishi’s talk or to find show deadlines and volunteer opportunities.

For practical takeaways, members left with clear next steps: study nebari and taper examples from field photos, practice Niwaki cuts on sacrificial material before working prized specimens, and adapt canopy reductions to preserve live growth while improving silhouette. Those steps are directly applicable to upcoming club shows and group critique sessions.

The meeting reinforced a common theme in our community: field observation fuels better styling choices at the bench. Check the club page for past presentations and show details, and consider applying Yakushima-inspired principles to winter maintenance and spring wiring as the next season approaches.