MAILBAG #9 - SEPTEMBER 2013        

                This has been a really hectic month with a lot of the mail about the Bahrain initiative and the exciting progress made by current study group members and new members joining. There's a lot of correspondence to set it up properly and the results will be published in future issues. So the most suitable items for this mailbag are Jerry's great photos of his hikes through Glacier National Park with Rhona!  There is also the start of correspondence from China to share.

          FUKUMOTOS PLACE PREMIUM PROPERTY ADJOINING FUKU-BONSAI ON THE MARKET!   11.14 acres of prime non-flooding Kurtistown deep soil kipuka for sale by owner:  $299,999 fee simple!

            The Big Island of Hawaii is geologically very young and much of the island is young lava with older portions having shallow soils. A large bulldozer can flatten the rocky surface and new soil and mulch brought it so plants can grow.

            Kipukas are places in Hawaii where lava has gone around in historical time and deep soil has had a chance to build up.  In the Puna district, such kipuka land rarely comes on the market.  Kurtistown was once for homesteaders who cleared the land, grew sugar cane, and got deeds to the properties.  Such land is highly desirable and the Fukumotos purchased directly from the children of the original homesteaders for possible expansion of Fuku-Bonsai.

          At 650' elevation, Soil & Water Conservation has the property at the ideal 72°F mean soil temperature so it is at the most comfortable elevation where no heating or air conditioning is necessary! 

          The property was once in sugar cane and then used to grow ginger and later dracaenas for export.  The property is a bit overgrown but has an ideal slope.  The sale of the property is a key part of refinancing Fuku-Bonsai and this is one of only three properties that will use the newly paved dead-end road.    If interested contact David Fukumoto at david.f@fukubonsai.com for more information.

DEVELOPING A CHINA CONNECTION!

           Last month I received an email from Wei Cheng Zhou of Guangzhou (Canton), China who can handle some English and who learned about us from the Chinese website www.manlungpenjing.org  featuring the penjing of the late Yee-sun Wu of Hong Kong. 

           Like me, Wei Cheng is a student of the Lingnan or Guangzhou bonsai techniques that was also utilized by Yee-sun Wu and others in southern China. But we all tend to use the techniques in a range of different ways that may depend upon the initial stock available or the characteristics of the marketplace.  In the coming issues,  Wei Cheng and I will be sharing some of our correspondence and although our trees are very different,  the application of similar training concepts will be interesting for those who are only familiar with Japanese bonsai.