Beautiful Bonsai – Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection

For years and years, Dogen and I, as we drove to and from Seattle would watch the signs that read Weyerhaeuser Bonsai Collection and say to ourselves, “next time we will definitely have to do that.”  We took the collection so for granted that we almost missed seeing it all together.  Alas, they closed the collection to the public on April 2nd, and how fortuitous for us they decided to open the collection one more time just for mother’s day weekend.  Let’s just say Dogen and I were thrilled that we found this out. All this was just when we were planning to drive by the collection on Saturday.  We did drop what we had planned so we could see it.

The Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection

The Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection (aka the Weyerhaeuser Collection) contains over 60 from over 6 countries.  The collection has a couple specimens that are over 100 years old.  The two wonderful volunteers that were there that day, told us some of the story of the collection and possibly what might happen to it.

Specimen 102 – Chinese Juniper on Sierra Juniper

Date of Origin: ca 1000 trunk 1970 (foliage), Country: USA, Artist: Mr. Kenneth Sugimoto, Bonsai Since: 1970

This beautiful specimen was created with two species of juniper.  The second was grafted to the tips of the larger older tree by the artist. The original tree that is centuries old had only one living “vein” that supported the lower branches.  You can see this darker living vein on the picture on the left, running up the right side of the tree.

Specimen 215 – Korean Hornbeam

Date of Origin: ca 1960, Country: Korea, Artist: Mr. John Yoneo Uchida, Bonsai Since: 1975

I found this particular bonsai just stunning.  It had just begun to bud out when we saw it.

Specimen 227 – Japanese Maple

Date of Origin: ca 1963, Country: USA, Artist: Mr. George Gray, Bonsai Since: 1968

This beautiful Japanese Maple was one of the more colorfully vibrant of the collection.  It would be such a wonderful thing to see this collection during different times of the year.

Specimen 242 – Korean Yew

Date of Origin: ca 1600, Country: Korea, Artist: Mr. Su Hyung Yoo, Bonsai Since: 1986

Here is another stunning one.  This one was originally collected from the wild at an elevation of about 4000 feet from the Seol Ark Mountain in Korea. 

What is to happen to the collection now?

As you can imagine, it was difficult to select pictures of just four specimens to show you.  The collection is varied and very beautiful.  As you can probably also imagine, many of the visitors to the collection were asking just what was going to happen to the collection now.

The two lovely volunteers who were tending the a couple of the bonsai as we walked through the collection mentioned that the economy was the culprit that moved  the decision around closing the collection to the public.  Based on one of their descriptions, it did also seem like there may have been some politics around the decision too (or may be it was around the collection in general).  The story of the collections future is questionable, what they did know for certain is that Weyerhaeuser would try to keep the collection together, they just would not be shown.  It was the hope of the volunteers that a foundation would be created for the care of the bonsai and that perhaps the wonderful trees would again be shown to the public on a regular basis.

If you know more of the details about the collection, please comment.  I’m sure there would be great interest in helping this collection stay open to the public.  I know it has my interest.

Wanna see more?

Let me know if you would like to see more of the collection.  I was able to snap photos of a good number of the bonsai.  If there is interest I will try and process more of the photos (I have to make them much smaller for viewing here), and get more of the images on the site.