About

Welcome to Big River Bonsai. I am James, and while I spend most of my time as a career academic, much of my free time is spent as a bonsai artist based in Southeast Louisiana (bordering USDA Zone 8b/9a). While I am not a professional, I created this site to share my journey in this hobby (more of a lifestyle) and to document the development of my tree collection, which comprises right around 100 trees at the time of writing this. I was born and raised in Louisiana and grew up exploring the outdoors - fishing, hunting, and hiking around Louisiana's unique and diverse wooded environments. I have grown to deeply appreciate and respect these native environments and see bonsai as a way to cultivate this appreciation. As such, the vast majority of my collection comprises native tree species that I sustainably collect in my region. I hope that this site inspires others to pursue working with America's native tree species as bonsai. I also hope that documenting both my successes and failures will add to the corpus of knowledge in the community.