Every year, I look forward to the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show, held each March, for inspiration and landscape design ideas.

A couple of warm days and I'm ready for spring.

On March 9, 225 contestants and 30 volunteers came together to fish, have fun and raise money for Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project at the Sand Crab Classic Perch Tournament.

Last year I was introduced to the world of bonsai. Santa Cruz Bonsai Kai president Ron Anderson gave me a private tour of his personal bonsai collection at his home in Boulder Creek. Shortly afterwards, I attended the club's yearly show held then in Scotts Valley. I arrived a bit late and the afternoon demonstration had already started. The sensei, meaning teacher, was in the process of turning a large 5-gallon overgrown juniper into a finished bonsai. The wiring had been done initiating the training of the branches to form a more pleasing shape and the root pruning was about to begin. All of us in the audience were mesmerized by the seemingly brutal treatment of the plant, but the results spoke for themselves. A beautiful, graceful juniper specimen displayed in a large, brown tray did all the talking.