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
One More Live Oak
I wrote last evening's post a bit hurriedly. I was fighting the daylight to get the trees chopped and potted, so much so that I ran out of charged power packs and had to delay this specimen until today. But it gave me an opportunity to explain a little more about...
Live Oaks and Yaupons
I visited the nursery of a good bonsai friend two years ago. At the time he offered me a couple of live oaks, Quercus virginiana, that he had planted in the landscape and needed to get rid of. Naturally I said yes. I've never had good luck finding live oaks to...
Some Design Pointers
It occurred to me that the blog I wrote yesterday on the American elm, Ulmus Americana, I lifted, potted and styled wasn't as helpful as it could have been. For less experienced artists who sometimes struggle with making design decisions, I wanted to explain in more...
Winter Sucks – Making Bonsai Helps
We're getting deep into our short but seemingly endless Deep South winter, and by next month depression will be kicking in for those of us so inclined. The only good thing about winter is that I get to collect a lot of new material, and do some actual bonsai making. ...
Hopeless Cause, Bonsai Challenge or More?
Whenever anyone talks about or posts on a forum about swamp maple, Acer rubrum (also known as red maple), I advise not trying to collect larger specimens. Why? I've learned the hard way that while these trees mostly survive collecting, they ultimately succumb to a...
Korean Hornbeam – What Does This Mean?
I've never grown Korean hornbeam, Carpinus coreana, as bonsai. I bought a few small specimens last winter and planted them out so they could thicken up in the ground and provide me with stock plants for cuttings. This past summer was pretty hard on them. One died...
An Unexpected Find
From the beginning of my bonsai journey almost three decades ago I've wanted a parsley hawthorn, Crataegus marshallii. Though I've collected my fair share of hawthorns, I've never found a parsley haw. Today that all changed. I was out collecting with a friend, and...
Hawthorn Winter Silhouettes
Winter is the time to do light pruning on your deciduous trees and, for those needing it, wiring. Today I worked on a couple of hawthorns, a Mayhaw and a riverflat hawthorn. This is the Mayhaw, Crataegus aestivalus, that I've been developing for the past five years. ...
Potting A Bald Cypress
I last showed you this bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, when I did the initial styling on it a couple of months ago. It grew very well in 2015, after being collected in February of that same year. I decided the tree was ready for its first bonsai pot this year. ...