Bonsai Show Slated Today

It's showtime for members of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Bonsai Society, who will display their designs of perfect miniature trees - short, tall, wide, flowering or stark - today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the three-year-old group's first show.
It will be held at Edgewater Mall in Biloxi near the mall entrance to J.C. Penney.
Club officials will be on hand all day to answer questions and share their knowledge.
Trees presented at the show will vary in age from a few years to a few decades and will vary by size, species and climate preferences, but all will conform to the Japanese style, says club spokesman Patrick LaNasa of Diamondhead.
His is the only bonsai club in Mississippi and focuses on members learning and teaching the design principles and practical horticulture involved in classical bonsai.
It can take up to 12 years to create a plant deemed "show worthy," LaNasa says.
The club will have six tables and display up to 18 bonsai trees that include junipers, a Japanese elm, a Brazilian raintree and parsley hawthornes, which are native to Mississippi, LaNasa says, that can be found in woods around here.
There'll also be numerous accent plants that are used as tiny accessories to the trees.
The club meets monthly in Long Beach on the first Monday of the month at 6:30 p.m. in the Aquaculture Building of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.
Details: Call Patrick LaNasa at 255-8735.