I heard some rumors about the Weirdest Ever Bonsai Ever at risk of being stolen. I can guarantee that this is not the case and it is very well guarded. Here is the alligator at the pond with an eye on the tree.

Well, on a serious note, I was just taking one last photo before the auction ends, and the alligator in the pond came by to check what was going on. It is a small (about 6 feet) gator who often times scares a golfer when they come to pick balls from the pond.

This is the weirdest bonsai ever and its new "friend"

Bonsaiists have a very interesting mix of collaboration and competition attitudes that is always bringing the art to new heights. More often than not, a bonsaiist will use an online community forum to bring the attention of fellow artists towards an online auction listing and the tree will be subjected to very critical reviews. So, most likely this tree's image will be summoned in online Bonsai Forums; this is highly welcome, but any criticism should be met with facts. This is why:

We will link to posts on forums that refer to this Bonsai, so that these posts are visible to visitors of the WeirdestBonsaiEver.com.

It's been almost a year since the last set of pictures (late winter, that is a Florida winter) and I took these at night after getting back from school (I'm a grad student at the moment). The tree doesn't look much different, except for the scars are healing, it has some more proper branches selected, and the soil surface is red lava now. I decided to give it a little love and get it ready to be sold since I truly need some money. Not sure if the sale of a simple bonsai will be a lot of money, but it sure will help. I will sell the bonsai with the site and domain name to make it a little more attractive and so that hopefully the next owner puts up more pictures and I can know about its fate after I sell it.

Weird but beautiful Bald Cypress Bonsai before leaves out in Spring

This is a trial at making it into a kind of 3D bonsai (viewable from all angles and not just one front), so that there is some attractiveness from all angles. I am sure that one angle will be more appealing to some than others.

I am sure this bonsai will do well almost anywhere in the US since it is hardy in zones 4 - 10, which is probably most of the United States. More information about bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) can be found in the USDA plant data entry for bald cypress.

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.