Best in Show Professional – Andrew Smith
Mid-America Bonsai Exhibition
August 20/21/22, 2021
When I visited the Midwest Bonsai Society’s Mid-America Bonsai Exhibition on August 21st I had a powerful sense of déjà vu. It was in the spring of 2012 when my wife and I happened to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden on the weekend of their May bonsai show. While touring the trees on display in the Regenstein room that day, I asked a couple questions of a person in an apron. He told me that the CBG offers classes taught by the curator of the bonsai collection. In August of that year, I started my first class with Ivan Watters. Flash forward to the 60, or 70, or 80 trees in my backyard today and my membership in PSBS.
The Exhibition, their 43rd after missing 2020 due to COVID and perhaps one other show years ago, lived up to its usual standards of many great trees in the show and on display from the CBG collection. A friend of our club, Andy Smith, won Best in Show in the professional category, and Tim Cox won among the amateurs.
Larry Stephan, chair of the event, shared that they believe this show is the single largest event in bonsai each year between the east and west coasts. The only sour note for the event was that attendance by the public was down this year, likely due to the fact that CBG is currently only selling limited timed tickets to non-members to restrict the number of visitors due to COVID. While there was a fairly steady flow of people while I was there, it seemed that the crowd was not as great as in previous years. That said, some vendors said they had sold more than before, possibly due to pent-up demand from the cancelled 2020 show. Sara Rayner Pottery had lots of vacant space on her shelves on Saturday.
By the numbers, the show stacked up as follows:
- There were 102 trees entered in the show;
- There were about 20 vendors from ten states, including ones from AR, OH, MN, NY, and SD, in addition to adjoining states; and,
- Sixty kids participated in a Children’s Workshop where they could buy a tree for $10. An assembly line of members repotted the tree and Frank Mihalic (Wildwood Gardens in OH) styled the tree, helping to bring a new generation into the hobby.
Other highlights of the show included a dinner for participants on Saturday night at the Heller Nature Center in Highland Park, the raffle of a Scots Pine styled by Phil Mahliot in a demo during the show, and the participation of The Cactus and Succulent Society of Greater Chicago for the second year. An additional highlight was the viewing of Jim and Kay Erlenborn’s trident maple forest on a rock, recently donated to CBG and on display in the Regenstein Center in a new display in the center hallway.
The Midwest Bonsai Society dates back to two clubs of that name, one founded in 1957 in Dundee, IL and later spawning a new group with the same name in 1967. Their first show was held in 1978. In normal years Midwest holds two shows at CBG, one in May and the other in August, both very much worth attending.
Writing and photos by Craig Conquist
Donation by
Jim & Kay Erlenborn
