The Grove Bonsai

The Grove Bonsai Miami based bonsai artist 🌴
Teaching you how to source, style, and care for your bonsai tree. Garden open by appt

Can’t wait to see this big bald cypress in its fall colors. Child for scale!💚
10/17/2026

Can’t wait to see this big bald cypress in its fall colors. Child for scale!💚

10/05/2026

Finding nursery stock is honestly one of my favorite things to do. There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing potential in raw material and creating something from almost nothing.

I’ve always wanted a Blue Atlas Cedar, and today I stumbled across one at a local nursery and had to make my move.

For this first styling, I focused on finding the structure hidden inside the nursery stock, removing unnecessary growth, selecting the branches I wanted to keep, and setting the initial movement and direction of the tree. I wanted to create a long, elegant framework that gives the tree direction now while leaving plenty of room for it to mature and develop its character over the years.

I love looking back at my trees’ progressions.Here’s a 2023-2026 series Looking back at the progression of this Ilex, I ...
09/20/2026

I love looking back at my trees’ progressions.

Here’s a 2023-2026 series

Looking back at the progression of this Ilex, I realized I actually prefer the more thinned-out look. I’ll probably go back in sometime in late winter, or after the spring flush has hardened off, and open it back up again.

For now, though, she gets to grow, get all fat and sassy, and prepare for her first Portland winter.

Initial structure set on this Root Over Rock Willow Leaf Ficus. It was getting a little too big to be under the grow lig...
09/18/2026

Initial structure set on this Root Over Rock Willow Leaf Ficus. It was getting a little too big to be under the grow lights so it needed to be compacted and styled.

Coral rock from my yard in Miami

Here you can see the right branch has been lower by wedge cutting close to the trunk.

Here’s the right branch before the wedge cut. I felt like the structure was too upright and pulling away from the interesting base. The tree was telling two stories. I needed to start bringing the branches down to emphasis to the roots.

Midsummer when the top came off. This is the “cutting back for taper and shape” stage.

You can see here the initial structure that was being set up was way too leggy

June 2026. Freshly dug up from the grow bed

It spent 2 years in the ground thickening.

Here’s the initial wrapping of the roots around the rock. The wrap forces the root to grow downward and along the sides of the rock.

Here is the placement of the roots. I wanted a “draped” feeling that swooped to the right.

Here it is in 2023. I used to call this “The Little Cursed Cutting” I swore that it jumped off the bench every time I tried to pot it up. I finally put it in the ground but the gardeners constantly were accidentally ripping it out. I swear it wanted to unalive itself every time I looked at it.

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