The annual BCI meeting was held in St. Louis in conjunction with the American Bonsai Society from June 16 – 20th. The weekend was filled with a number of bonsai events for its 200+ full registrants and an unknown amount of daily registrants. For those that couldn’t attend, I will try to summarize the weekend.

For us, the “weekend” started with a visit to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. This 79-acre site includes a variety of different botanical exhibits including an English woodland garden, both a Japanese and Chinese garden to name a few. The Kemper center for home gardening is 23 thematic residential garden exhibits, which can give you many ideas on how to landscape your personal back yard. The botanical garden contains almost every type of plant that a garden enthusiast would like to see. It is a place that one could spend a whole day going through. Unfortunately, there are only a few bonsai exhibited.

One of the local St Louis bonsai members, Mike Perkins, opened his personal garden and house to the attendees for an evening of good cheer and an outstanding bonsai exhibit. Mike has converted his whole back yard (~150 by 150 feet) to a fantastic Japanese garden complete with waterfall, koi pond and extensive bonsai stands. Mike has about 75 finished bonsai in his collection - a number of specimen quality. He has used a combination of wood and granite for his show tables, as well as having several in ground displays. It is a real pleasure to visit.

The convention itself was a mixture of workshops, exhibits, demonstrations, vendors and a time to meet and discuss trees with other bonsai enthusiasts. There were about 23 vendors from various parts of the US who had a variety of trees and supplies. Believe me, they were all willing to take your money. All the demonstration trees prepared by K. Shaner, Boon Manakitivipart, Brussel Martin, T. Masumi, W. Valavanis, M. Invernizzi, S. Sukosolvisit and T. Gondo were either raffled off or auctioned at the closing banquet. Vendors and individuals alike donated many bonsai articles for the silent auctions and raffles (I got two trees at the raffles valued at $150 for $55 - quite a deal). There were a total of 17 workshops in the 3 full days on a variety of tree species and styles. A number of the workshop trees could almost be considered finished material before the classes started. I was sorry I didn’t take more of these workshops but learned a lot by watching others. Everyone I met at this year’s meeting was friendly and willing to offer tips or answer any question I could ask. It was a time to learn new techniques and watch what other attendees did to their workshop trees.

The next BCI international meeting will be held in Washington DC, Memorial Day weekend 2005. Those of you who have not had an opportunity to attend one of these type meetings should definitely try to attend.