1st Attempt at Styling a Nursery Juniper

[Poink88]

I love the phrase, "make the smallest tree possible". It's a good principle heading into some design work.

I have been saying for years that good bonsai are made by cutting larger trees down into smaller trees.

I do not know where and when I read it (multiple times actually) but I've subscribed to it almost instantly. You could be one of many Vance that influenced me. Granted it get trumped by finding the best tree in a material, it is a great guideline to start with. Especially true when you are lost and do not know how to proceed with a material.

I think this is the very reason why I became a "chopper".

 

[sikadelic]

Thanks for all the comments and info...I appreciate it and have learned not to overlook good advice. I am doing my best to learn this art on my own with the help of this forum and the books I have bought.

I guess I could attribute my excessive work on this guy to itchy fingers. I just want to work to trees! I have another tree that I bought from the same place and was repotted into a similar box. I have not trimmed as much foliage from that one and only removed no more than 50% over the same time period. I hope to use some of it for grafting.

How long has it been in the box? It may be worthwhile getting it into a smaller pot now if you did the root work recently. Alternatively, if there is a lot of soil without roots, you could remove the soil and replace it with something solid, like solid Styrofoam. Obviously, full sun and really watch the watering. Good luck.

I repotted it about 45 days ago. I have been checking the moisture level and the top 3" or so are dry within 8-12 hours. I have been watering twice per day but I can back off and only water daily.

 

[Vance Wood]

Thanks for all the comments and info...I appreciate it and have learned not to overlook good advice. I am doing my best to learn this art on my own with the help of this forum and the books I have bought.

I guess I could attribute my excessive work on this guy to itchy fingers. I just want to work to trees! I have another tree that I bought from the same place and was repotted into a similar box. I have not trimmed as much foliage from that one and only removed no more than 50% over the same time period. I hope to use some of it for grafting.


I repotted it about 45 days ago. I have been checking the moisture level and the top 3" or so are dry within 8-12 hours. I have been watering twice per day but I can back off and only water daily.

There is one fact that cannot be altered. You cannot learn bonsai without actually working on trees. It is one thing to sit around looking at pictures and watching videos and thinking about this stuff all day long. This is what I call the dreaming process. The dreaming process creates only impressions of what you think you can do if you had this and if you had that. When you get this and that you will find creating the dream is not so easy as you dreamed it to be. Imagination and the creative process, though closely related, needs the process of dirty hands, broken fingernails and a lot of frustration in understanding, that what seems so easy,---- is so hard.

You have to work on trees but you also need to understand the limits to where you can push a tree and keep it alive.

 

[Paradox]

Jarrod,

You may have only paid $10 for this tree, but Ill tell you that this was a great deal! The trunk on that tree is pretty awesome IMO for a $10 tree. I really hope it survives because you might be able to make something really nice out of this some day.

This was sort of glazed over so I wanted to bring it up: You said that you removed the foliage gradually over 4 months and I got the impression that you felt that this was OK. This is not the case.

As some stated, junipers rely heavily on their foliage compared to their roots and removing this much in one growing season could be a big problem. You should never remove more than 30-50% of the foliage and/or root mass in any given year (read: growing season). 50% may be extreme in most cases. 30% is a good guideline.

You need to remember trees work on a schedule of seasons and years. Doing too much to a tree in any year can and will kill a tree. I know you are new and excited and enthusiastic and "just want to work on trees". We all went through that stage and it is awesome to have someone that is so enthusiastic. But, you need to learn patience when it comes to the trees. It has been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn and I have dead trees as a result. If you really must work on something, do what most of us do, accumulate several trees to work on. Also when you cant work on them because its not the right time, read and re-read everything to get the basics ingrained in your head until it becomes part of your psyche when it comes to trees.

 

[sikadelic]

Again, thanks for all the great input everyone. I have a few more trees that I have collected and worked on this year. I will make a few more posts tomorrow regarding those as this thread has been a great experience for me. I would do it tonight but my wife and I are taking the kids to the drive-in.

I am extremely excited about moving at the end of the year because there is an informal club in the area. If I am having this much fun on my own, I may pass out when I get around some like minded folks!

 

[Neli]

Your better off chasing growth back up the branches. I would have left all of that foliage on, given it full sun and fertilize and as the new growth appears, pinch it and wait for budding to appear . When it gets strong, trim off the extension. Repeat for several years to get growth back toward the trunk.

As it stands, I wouldn't trim off any more foliage. Let it sit in the sun and grow for a season or two.

Your probably going to get mostly juvenile foilage for sometime, it may take two seasons to recover if it makes it.

I believe Walter Pall is the one credited with the phrase "make the smallest tree possible"...and you did just that. Perhaps you were too aggressive and quick to remove foliage, but I have always said that junipers are extremely tough and can handle ALMOST any insult, given the appropriate aftercare. This is where the current pot is going to be an issue. As others have said, it is way too big for a tree with such a small amount of foliage. Roots and foliage on a healthy, appropriately potted tree act together to pull a significant amount of moisture from the soil every day...if you only have a small amount of either, the whole process slows down dramatically, and can keep the soil too wet to allow for normal root growth. How long has it been in the box? It may be worthwhile getting it into a smaller pot now if you did the root work recently. Alternatively, if there is a lot of soil without roots, you could remove the soil and replace it with something solid, like solid Styrofoam. Obviously, full sun and really watch the watering. Good luck.

If this tree survives I suspect you might get some back budding at the base of the branches You jinned. Dont remove anything and the bark at the base of the branches too.
I would eventually go for a very compact, not higher than 10 cm from the height it is now.

 

[sikadelic]

Thanks Neli. I am terrible at trying to do virts, but my plan was to fill in all around the jins and keep it at the current height. I am pretty sure it is gonna make it and am really excited to see how it progresses.

My second one has back budded a lot this year and I will have a lot of good foliage to work with next year.

 

[Neli]

Think of something in this lines:
Just ideas or directions in which you can go.

 

[KennedyMarx]

Thats a big foliage reduction. I really hope it pulls through. Junipers are tough plants. I can imagine this looking awesome with a few years of development.

 

[Cadillactaste]

I should have included that I removed it in stages. The foliage was removed over the course of about 4 months or so. The first pic was last summer. The second was in December, and I removed the rest last month.

I held off on posting until I saw new green tips on the remaining foliage. It looks like it has survived. I'm guessing it will be a while before it fully bounces back to vigorous growth.

Thanks for the comments. I keep updating when there's something interesting to post.

Indeed...your title thread makes one think this was all done at one time. Though...I am not knowledgable to juniper to give advice. I do hope for your sake...this pulls through. Because I would love to see what you do with it.