This tree was a natural, when nature has its way, many different things can happen, in this case this bonsai started its live in a nursery pot in a local Tampa Nursery called Kerby's Nursery. It was kept in a 3 gallon nursery pot where it lived most of its childhood. That is where I found it; some of its interesting root structure was exposed, and it looked... how would I put it... weird. This is the reason why most likely no body had bought it, and probably also the reason why it wasn't repoted to a larger nursery pot.

Bald cypresses are very long lived trees (some might reach 1,200 years of age) that are loved here in Florida and most of the South of the United States, because they are fast growers, and make landscapes beautiful. Bald cypress also like marsh lands and water type environments which makes them good material for beautifying ponds and man made lakes.

It is possible that the interesting root structure on this soon to be bonsai came from the restrictions of growing inside this man made pot which allowed nature to take its course and tangle the roots in such an interesting way. Whatever the reason, it makes it a very weird, and a controversial choice for a very interesting bonsai.

When I bought it, I immediately took it home and logged into bonsaiTalk, one of the online bonsai forums and asked a couple of my friends about their opinions on this tree; some told me it looked like a roasted chicken, some others told me it looked like things not worth mentioning in this article. I took some of their recommendations and chopped the tree down to where the image below shows. I did this last spring (2007), and just took the tree to a nicely spot at my parents backyard where it got a good amount of sun in addition to the daily water from the automatic bonsai watering system I installed about a couple of years ago.

This is the bonsai I'm talking about

From the Spring of 2007 to now (Spring 2008), the tree has thickened its trunk, which shows its healthiness of this tree. The cut from the large trunk is well on its way to healing and might be almost unnoticeable when this growing season is over.

At this point, the tree is starting to create new buts everywhere in its branches; it will be a beautiful site to watch when all the buds become more little branches and leaves.
From the Spring of 2007 to now (Spring 2008), the tree has thickened its trunk, which shows its healthiness of this tree. The cut from the large trunk is well on its way to healing and might be almost unnoticeable when this growing season is over.

At this point, the tree is starting to create new buts everywhere in its branches; it will be a beautiful site to watch when all the buds become more little branches and leaves.