1st real Juniper, hoping for thoughts/suggestions!!

[SU2]

With the trouble I've had uploading here I've simply made an album (it's curated pretty thoroughly as well ) here

https://imgur.com/a/gAy7MQW

So I'm equal parts psyched & anxious with this guy, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool "tropical bonsai guy", my only experience with Junipers is from walmart-type junipers I've bought over the years, pruning / re-potting / root-pruning them all for-practice so I'd be ready when a day like this came!

Thank you, @choppychoppy , for this amazing gift (and for taking the time to see the garden & "talk shop" with me that weekend, it was the best day of my month for sure!), I'd initially thought the trunking would have a couple silvery-white streaks from the shari it'd had but, upon inspection, there was very extensive soft deadwood (even fully-pulpy deadwood, type you use a hose instead of knife!) through that trunk I was confused at first til I realized pretty much every spot where there's a cavity in the bark, is connected to each other, I wasn't comfortable carving-through any savlageable deadwood just yet so I didn't "connect" some of the shari that I'm sure will get connected down the road, I simply got-rid of any soft/compromised deadwood and then quickly&lightly burnished the remaining deadwood before doing several applications of dilute lime-sulfur

I am especially in-love with the live-vein that separates the two lower, larger shari, over time that should be quite a feature (it's highlighted very well in the last photo in the album actually I'll upload here if it lets me!), for now I've up-potted it by ~25-35% container-volume and my plan is to continue the lines you've started but, by using root-grower/colander-type containers and up-potting as-needed over the coming 2-3yrs, I'm hoping to further-accentuate the callousing/bulging of the live bark against the deadwood areas (especially that "free"/hanging live-vein!) while simultaneously fattening-up the primaries/secondaries, to be sure I'm on the correct path I'm hoping to verify some things:

- for right now, being 2/3rds the way through summer, letting it be in its new container (didn't root-prune / bare-root or anything, just a nice simple "slip-root potting") through spring is the best-bet horticulturally, when spring comes:
- at first signs of spring-growth I'll be doing a minor canopy-reduction insofar as removing ~15-20% of the finer/outer-most branches, both for the resultant increased ramification as-well-as a more-dramatic taper from branch-to-branch as my final-goal for this guy has a small-but-dense canopy (not so much of a spread-out canopy as-is more common w/ junipers)
- I'll leave it in its current pot until I find that it's bound, at which point I'll do a tasteful(~20%?) root-prune to encourage ramification of the root-mass **while** up-potting it yet again. The 2nd up-pot will be the last up-potting, then:
- In year ~3, having had 2-3yrs of good strong growth, I'll begin reduction of the root-mass in a 2 or 3 stage approach over a 1-3yrs period , it is during this time that my work on the canopy will move from "setting bones" and fighting for dramatic taper from primaries-to-secondaries (-to-tertiaries, etc etc onward) and more towards a focus on ramification (ending with a focus solely on ramification!)

Well, that's my plan for this guy, am hoping it's "on-point" for Junipers, feel like a total-beginner all over again ROFL but think junipers are a neat specie so am eager to get myself up-to-snuff on their care&styling!

Thanks for any insight/guidance BN, and thanks a million to @choppychoppy, this tree is great and I'm still going-over a lot of the topics we'd touched upon during your visit but am most-thankful to have met another enthusiast in real life as I'm quite the hermit when it comes to bonsai, have never been to a show or bonsai store or anything like that so when I'm able to converse w/ someone who's into the art, *especially* someone as skilled & knowledgeable as choppy was/is, it's a total treat (And FWIW, if I'm being blunt, I've always found you to be a smart guy online but, in person, it was clear you were FAR more knowledgeable than I'd presumed you to be, almost caught me off-guard how well versed you were!!)

[^phone-case is to show the hole in the trunking, that 'bridge' isn't deadwood it's a thick live-vein, am so stoked for that area I think it'll look amazing down the road once it's fattened-out, I do fear for its safety as I did jostle it pretty hard while clearing-out the softer deadwood in that area - my intention, right after clicking Post right now, is to go outside and wrap the *entire* trunk with raffia, just as "insurance"/a blanket to help protect it from wind/sun/etc so I can be sure that any insults to the trunk itself [which should be 0 but I don't have that precise a touch, sadly!] can heal-up in short order, I expect the current vigor&season, plus the up-pot, plus loosening the wires, will go a long way to helping this guy show me he's got vigor as he goes-into winterttime! Oh re loosening the wires, yeah I already had some bite from the wiring you'd placed, blew my mind I mean you put that on just weeks ago and I hadn't even up-pottted it yet I only top-dressed it with a rich half-organics soil, the bite caught my eye and was sure I was mistaking it so I pulled the wiring back and sure enough I'd had a couple spots on that branch, so I went and loosened-up the whole works, gotta say I'm curious if most-others do what I do IE simply un-wind the wire in-place and then re-wind it, setting it so that the wire is touching different spots on the bark but otherwise doing the same thing it was before, I find this the simplest way to keep wire on a growing tree!]

 

[SU2]

Hrrrmmmm, well via a re-watch of BSOP/Ryan's "BSOP Series: Energy Distribution" youtube it has quickly become apparent that Junipers are the exception when it comes to touching spring-growth....gonna need to basically re-learn horticulture for this specie it seems, possibly a fun undertaking but equally likely to get tedious (no way around it though, have pretty grand plans for this lil guy ), I'll admit something I've thought for a while and never said publicly due to anticipated-scorn, but Junipers just seem like weaker trees to me / IMO, I understand that there's something about that that can be appealing to some(or to most!), and their long-lives are antithetical to how wimpy they can be in other respects, I dunno they just aren't robust like so many broadleafs which I'm not a fan of BUT I can understand now why delicate, elegant & abstract styling/design is par-for-the-course with this species!!

 

[BunjaeKorea]

Hrrrmmmm, well via a re-watch of BSOP/Ryan's "BSOP Series: Energy Distribution" youtube it has quickly become apparent that Junipers are the exception when it comes to touching spring-growth....gonna need to basically re-learn horticulture for this specie it seems, possibly a fun undertaking but equally likely to get tedious (no way around it though, have pretty grand plans for this lil guy ), I'll admit something I've thought for a while and never said publicly due to anticipated-scorn, but Junipers just seem like weaker trees to me / IMO, I understand that there's something about that that can be appealing to some(or to most!), and their long-lives are antithetical to how wimpy they can be in other respects, I dunno they just aren't robust like so many broadleafs which I'm not a fan of BUT I can understand now why delicate, elegant & abstract styling/design is par-for-the-course with this species!!

How dare you? I challenge you to a duel! Pistols at dawn! You have besmirched the Junipers.

You need to know that Junipers react VERY differently depending on species, climate etc.
They are tough as nails if you know what you are doing.
They can bend like very few trees can and will heal broken branches like no tree can.
You may have unleashed the floodgates of juniperdom on yourself.
Basically in certain areas its better to work on them late summer or autumn so that they have stored enough energy to get past winter. I work my needle junipers in mid summer as is common in Korea. It give them time to power back before autumn.
Splitting root work to late winter early spring also helps the tree. They have a very specific biological window to do what they need to do.

Potting a tree is unnatural, hence, making it easier on the tree is what these methods aim at....because junipers are unique.

No offense tropicals and broadleaf should be a piece of cake to anyone with basic horticultural skill.

 

[BunjaeKorea]

Oh yeah please post pics of the top of the tree....

 

[SU2]

How dare you? I challenge you to a duel! Pistols at dawn! You have besmirched the Junipers.

Hehe!! Different, not better / worse! I've found very, very few botanical classes I dislike (none are trees!), I just am having trouble 'getting' Junipers'-appeal, unless it is entirely rooted in their foliage? I totally get that the foliage-type gives that awesome impression of tons&tons of small leaves (ie the needles themselves looking like individual leaves/foliage on a larger specimen, inducing&enhancing the forced-perspective desired to get a tiny tree to look like a to-scale, shrunken version....I think this is 1 approach to bonsai, a great approach for sure, but just 1 of many)

You need to know that Junipers react VERY differently depending on species, climate etc.
They are tough as nails if you know what you are doing.
They can bend like very few trees can and will heal broken branches like no tree can.

Are there any 1-spot, in-depth guides you could refer me to? I've been bouncing-around websites, youtubes etc but it sucks when you have to watch/read something and only 5% of the info in it is new-to-you, would like to find a good, comprehensive/advanced guide for Junipers!

Re toughness, I'll admit I was very surprised how badly the deadwood had degraded, my normal reaction/approach is to simply get-rid of any compromised deadwood but, on something this size, I didn't expect it'd take me as-far-into the trunking as it did....not complaining, mind you, in fact I much prefer this more abstract 'holey-trunk', just makes me wonder at how the large-sized pieces of deadwood on the very-old yamadori junipers ever survived so long!


Re bending, yeah it's pretty insane....I'm going to be a straight-shooter here, I left the top out because I'd made a choice that I was afraid would upset the person who gave it to me, what'd happened was I approached it, thing was wired by a professional (who gave me the tree, great great guy) just a few weeks prior, I approached it to clean-up & inspect & protect the deadwood as-well-as to up-pot it (and, maybe, clip a root-or-two if any were excessively-long) However, upon having to tear-out so much sap-/heart-wood to get to 'sound' deadwood, and the subsequent rounds of burnishing & lime-sulfuring, combined with having found 3 distinct wire-bite locations from a cursory view of the wiring, I decided that it was best to up-pot and remove the wires so that the tree had freedom of its roots&shoots to help it recover from my interventions on the trunking, am playing it safe/conservative on this guy til I get a better idea what they can handle (thankfully I've got two other, crappy ones that I'm in the middle of killing by pushing to their limits) so I erred to 'let it grow freely' which inherently meant removing the exquisite wire-job that was just done to it, I felt terrible doing it but thought it prudent for the tree's integrity!

You may have unleashed the floodgates of juniperdom on yourself.

Understatement!! As-said I see bonsai as containing both "naturalistic" approaches (ie just trying to "to-scale replicate" trees) as-well-as containing each&every other form of aesthetic-approach to trees-in-pots, the styling of Prunus Mume in Japan is one of my favorite specific styling-types and it's very abstract / doesn't look like a tree, heck even many junipers I see - with their twisting branches & oversized deadwood - don't look much like any trees I've seen (though Junipers of that variety aren't naturalized in the states I've lived, my understanding is that in just the right places there are natural junipers w/ exquisite, extensive deadwood!) But yeah I'm beyond sold on this specie, am wary of how pricey it could become to get my next one (has to be a lot larger/thicker) but thankfully they seem like candidates for layering and I'm in a humid semi-tropic enviro so, once I've found detailed/ttechnical care-sheets, I'll know how to approach layering-off some thick stock from lawn-specimen in the area around me

Basically in certain areas its better to work on them late summer or autumn so that they have stored enough energy to get past winter. I work my needle junipers in mid summer as is common in Korea. It give them time to power back before autumn.
Splitting root work to late winter early spring also helps the tree. They have a very specific biological window to do what they need to do.

I really, really wish I knew how this applied to me, shit I wanted to avoid badgering the guy who gave it to me but also want to impress him with how far I can take the thing over the years, knowing that spring *isn't* my styling-window, & hearing what you're saying, it makes me wonder if I'm not in-the-middle of my styling window, if that's the case then - after another couple weeks of continued-growth (am taking pics & verifying continued growth as I'm wary of how slow-to-show distress the species is!) it may be time to get those wires back on it and perhaps even prune, I strongly-suspect that I'm going to be aiming for smaller, tighter 'pads' than its previous owner was setting-up (although, maybe with this species, that *is* the way towards that end... I'd still assume that I should be pruning-back to pairs on a lot of the branches and since you ask in your next post here's the canopy / whole tree (pics taken just-now )
[Note: apologies that the pics aren't that-great a show of the thing's lines I tried to do multiple angles to show it, that trunk goes upward at a 45deg angle and then splits-to-2 limbs that are immediately bent backwards (up&over back-to-the-base), this was more exaggerated when it was wired of course and is the general form it'll always take / final-form for this specimen, however am unsure (again!) if I'm better-off doing harder prunes or more 'silhouette prunes' at this guy's stage-of-development, I'm having a tough time comparing its progress to the broadleafs I'm so familiar with!

 

[SU2]

One thing I can't get out-of-mind is the idea of very heavy forced-bends at the *bases* of those two primaries (the two limbs that the trunking splits-into, where it goes from trunk to canopy), they're the start of the up&over arching of the canopy but they follow the trunk-line (ie away-from the base of the trunk) for too-far IMO, it's only somewhat-along those primaries that they begin their arch backwards, it's here - right at their bases, right where it's most-dangerous/risky- that I think the most can be gained from some strong/aggressive bending (hopefully notching won't be required, am picturing just tight raffia & guy-wiring, would do 1 of the 2 primaries at-a-time for this as to avoid killing it of course since I've never done anything aggressive on a Juniper, but for now I couldn't even guess WHEN the time to do that would be, kinda sounds like it could be now but I can't do something I'm unsure of on this specimen!)