Latest recession victims: Weyerhaeuser's bonsai

Dave Cody's sweeping gestures filled the conservatory as he demonstrated how wide the banyan tree's branches would be had it not been crafted into a bonsai.

"You can take a huge tree and make it into this," he told his extended family that joined him at the Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection Friday. "It's fascinating."

His two grandsons hardly needed help drawing the contrast while viewing the bonsai collection on one of its last days open to the public. The tree was nestled in a forest of its giant relatives at Weyerhaeuser Co. headquarters in Federal Way.

Weyerhaeuser's collection of 60 bonsai, a gift to the state on its 100th birthday 20 years ago, will close after Wednesday. It will have a brief reopening Mother's Day weekend for Federal Way's "Buds & Blooms" festival.

"It's one of the many things that we're having to do during the economic uncertainty to save costs," said Weyerhaeuser spokeswoman Shannon Hughes.

As one of the world's largest producers of the lumber used to build homes, Weyerhaeuser has suffered during the recession. So far this year, the company has closed 14 lumber and manufacturing facilities and cut more than 1,000 jobs.

The company's 2008 sales of $8 billion were about half of what they'd been in 2007, a difference partially due to the $6 billion sale of the company's container-board packaging and recycling facilities to International Paper in August.

Closing the garden will cost the company one full- and one part-time position and help save on operating costs, though the amount of savings wasn't made public, Hughes said.

Full-time curator David De Groot will stay on to maintain the collection with the necessary pruning, caring and feeding, in hopes that it might someday return to public display once the economy turns around.

"We therefore are saying 'so long' rather than 'goodbye,'" De Groot, who was unable to speak with the media, said in a statement on Weyerhaeuser's Web site.

The collection features a dozen tropical bonsai in the Weyerhaeuser conservatory. The rest of the species are outside displayed on pedestals.

Rick Peterson, co-executive director of the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden located next to the collection on Weyerhaeuser's campus, says he will miss the neighboring garden and the 30,000 yearly visitors it often shares.

Peterson said traffic to his garden has doubled in the past month as people swing next door after their last visit to the bonsai collection.

A chilly drizzle Friday morning usually would have dissuaded crowds from the outdoor bonsai exhibits, but not during one of its last days.

Jean Bradbrooke, a resident of Tacoma for nearly 20 years, said she was visiting for the first time because it was her last chance.

"It's something that's been on my list, but I just never got it done because I figured it wasn't going anywhere," she said.

Now that it's closing, she wishes she could pay admissions or donate to keep it open.

It was a question many visitors had Friday, noting that the rhododendron garden next door charges a $5 general admission and will remain open.

But the rhodie garden — run as a nonprofit on 24 acres of campus donated by Weyerhaeuser in 1974 — is of a different financial breed.

Hughes said that though the company considered all kinds of options for keeping the bonsai collection in public view, charging admissions or asking for donations was "not the best way."

Peterson said liability issues, with Weyerhaeuser being a self-insured corporation, were a major factor in the decision.

Bradbrooke said she understands the garden's closure, given the need for businesses to cut back.

"It's a shift to the necessities. Until the economy stabilizes, every company has to do this a little bit," she said.

Don Tempel and members of his Lakewood photography class made their third and final trip to the collection Friday.

"When we heard the bonsai was closing, we wanted one last hoorah," he said, going on to describe his favorite part about capturing the unique plants.

Growing the trees into miniature versions of their natural species is an ancient Asian art form achieved by potting roots into small containers. Artists manipulate the trees by tying, pruning and bending the branches into the desired shapes.

Twelve-year-old Alex Cody, the youngest of five family members privy to his grandfather's educational bonsai tour that day, was catching on to the art by midmorning.

"It just looks like it's totally a miniature tree," he said pointing out his favorite tree, an arrow-shaped citrus. "Like if it were 10 times bigger it would look exactly the same."

Dave Cody, who's kept his own collection of bonsai for 20 years, said there's no better exhibit to introduce his family to the wonders of bonsai.

"We've been all over the world, and you'll never see a collection like this," he said. "It's a shame that they're closing this."

Peterson said the Pacific Rim exhibit is considered second only to the national collection in Washington, D.C., but he thinks the local display is better.

Diane Robinson, president of Elandan Gardens in Bremerton, said she's deeply saddened to become the only bonsai museum in Washington.

"It's losing a jewel out of the crown in the Northwest," she said of the one-of-a-kind Pacific Rim collection.

Barbara Trimble and Linda Tatlock, retired teachers and "dabblers in the arts" from Lakewood, were out Friday looking for signs of spring — and mourning the closure of one of their favorite gardens.

"I understand the need for corporations to cut back, but it's too bad," Trimble said.