Friday, August 10, 2007 - Federal Way

Today we ventured north to a town, and we thought it was just an exit, known as Federal Way – about half way between Tacoma and SeaTac Airport. During several drives up and down I-5, we had seen signs for a Rhododendron and Bonsai (bone-sigh) gardens. The exit for this happened to coincide with the exit to get to Trader Joe’s grocery; how convenient!

Both gardens are located on Weyerhauser’s Corporate headquarters campus – a beautiful, treed, park setting. I say it was the corporate head-quarters; it was impressive enough to be. Cut into a hillside, the multi-tier building looked more like the hanging gardens of Babylon than a glass and steel structure.

We went snap-happy taking pictures of every bonsai we liked – which was most of them! Margaret’s camera batteries died or we’d have had more. The guide book listed 215 separate trees. I’m not sure all 215 were in this one garden, but there were a lot. Officially, the title of the garden is: Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection. It was amazing. A history of ownership and cultivation of two plants first was recorded in 1500 AD. Can you imagine? A tiny pear rested at the corner of one tray, testifying to its prolific, if miniature, harvest. Several were miniature forests with multiple trees, up to 50, and another was a scenic overview with rock mountains with moss filled nooks, sea –with tiny junk -- and forests. Some of the displays were rescued trees of normal size, pruned and brought back to life. These incorporated the dead, bleached wood with the live. Others draped over rocks, anchored with tiny root fingers reaching into the soil.

I wish we could put all the photos in the blog, but there were too many. So I’ll just include an overview showing the setting and one particular tree we both liked a lot. Enjoy.