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.

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