Exhibits & Competitions

The Iowa Bonsai Association currently has three shows annually. The Spring Bonsai Show is held at the Des Moines Botanical Center. The Fall Bonsai Show is held the first weekend of October free of a home football game at Iowa State University Reiman Gardens in Ames. The summer event is the judged show at the Iowa State Fair in August. It is properly a State Fair event open to entry by any Iowa citizen; the IBA manages the event and the entries have almost always been members of the IBA, so the membership has come to view it as their annual judged show.

The biggest bonsai event in the Midwest is held in Chicago annually shortly after the Iowa State Fair, the Mid-America Bonsai Show sponsored by the Midwest Bonsai Society and held at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Members of the IBA occasionally enter bonsai in that competition.

Best of Show and First Place, Tropical Trees Class
2010 Iowa State Fair, Alba Mimosa, Ivan Hanthorn