The Bonsai Files
Your free access to general and how-to articles, The Bonsai Files. Detailed and filled with bonsai pictures, Zach shows you step-by-step how he designs bonsai and provides before, during, and after images.
The Bonsai Files
BC Hunting Season Ends – It Was Just About My Best Ever
With an early spring in the offing, today was probably just a bit beyond the end of the collecting season. All of the specimens I brought home today were already leafing out. Now, I've had good luck collecting cypresses after they start budding, so I don't have a...
It Was A Happy Hawthorn Hunt – Check Out The Cool Parsleys
Collecting season 2017 is drawing to a close. One species I wanted to be sure to have some stock of is Parsley hawthorn, Crataegus marshallii. Today I took care of that chore. Here are a few that I brought home. This guy isn't much to look at, having only slight...
How To Make A Parsley Hawthorn Bonsai Better – A Cut And A New Pot
Creating a bonsai is a step by step process that goes roughly like this: Select, buy or collect a piece of raw material Prune away unneeded branches and excess trunk to create a single trunk line (for formal, informal, slanting, and cascade...
More New Collected Trees – Aren’t These Just Great?
Today was another opportunity to collect some great new material. Here are a few of the trees I brought home today. First up is yet another terrific Bald cypress, Taxodium distichum. This one has a 5" trunk 5" above the soil surface, and is chopped at 27". The...
More BC Excitement, And The Tree With The Knees
So the best thing to do after posting a blog about not acquiring any more really big bonsai is to go out and collect some. There are two extenuating circumstances, however: one, I did say I would continue to collect big trees for artists out there who love the big...
No More Really Big Trees For Me – Just This Last One
I have always loved really big bonsai. No matter where you see them, either in a show or in someone's collection, your eye is invariably drawn to them. They're so ... big! And yet they're a small representation of something that's super big, which is a little odd...
Allen’s Crape Gets A New Pot – More On How To Make Your Bonsai Better
I mentioned recently that it was time to repot this nice old Crape myrtle bonsai, Lagerstoemia indica, that was gifted to me by my late friend Allen Gautreau. In addition to the needed repotting, this tree is also seriously overgrown and needs to be brought back in. ...
It’s The Little Things – Check Out This Cool Surprise I Got
I have recently lifted and potted a couple of Hackberries, Celtis laevigata. Hackberry is a great species for bonsai, featuring relatively small leaves that get even smaller in bonsai culture, and taking to life in a bonsai container without any complaints. This...
Repotting A Yaupon; Making It A Better Bonsai
When we last checked in on this Yaupon bonsai, Ilex vomitoria, it was coming along well with the final stage being development of the crown. It's been in its bonsai container for a couple of years now, and I'd been waiting for a good time to repot the tree. There...