Bonsai Presentation by David Easterbrook - Thursday 6/19/14

David Easterbrook
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The North Florida Bonsai Club has been conducting their club meetings at the Mandarin Garden Club on the second Monday each month for several years.  Thursday, June 19, 2014 from 7:00-10:00pm they will present a special program featuring David Easterbrook at the Mandarin Garden Club.  You will see a demonstration during this session from a master and his bio is below.  This program is open to the public and all are welcome to attend.  This style of gardening is quite an art.

David has been studying and creating bonsai for over 40 years.  He began studying bonsai with Jerry Stowell and then apprenticed for one year in Japan at Kidoen with Isao Shinkai.  Afterwards, he started his own bonsai nursery, which he still runs today.  In 1982, he became Curator of the Montreal Botanical Garden’s bonsai collection and recently retired in 2011.  He has always pursued an active teaching career in a variety of locations including the Montréal Botanical Garden’s School of Horticulture, in the eastern U.S. and abroad.  Further, he has served as judge of several national and international bonsai competitions.

He is a founder and past president of the Montreal Bonsai and Penjing Society.  It is now one of the largest and most active bonsai societies in North America having over 400 active members.  As well as monthly meetings, it offers four levels of bonsai classes, three study groups and several workshops.  In 1988, David chaired the ABS Annual Convention in Montreal.  Also, he served on the ABS Board from 2005 to 2008.

David has quite an eclectic collection of more than 900 bonsai.  His trees have been widely exhibited in both Canada and the U.S., including U.S. National Bonsai Exhibitions, and they have appeared on the covers of International Bonsai Magazine.  During his long career he has trained and cultivated almost every species grown as bonsai.  As a young man, he favored fruiting and flowering trees.  Subsequently he specialized in group and forest plantings and today is well known for his collection of conifers: junipers, pines and especially wild collected larch trees.

David now dedicates much of his time to refining bonsai (with the help of over a dozen of his assistants) and studying the art of bonsai presentation.