Long time lurker, first proper post.
Have watched a few videos on starting a shohin juniper from nursery stock (Mirai live, Bjorn on bonsai empire, bjorn on eisen-en, bonsaify) and decided to give it a shot.
I am based in Melbourne Australia and purchased this material from Conifer Kingdom near Mount Dandenong. Fairly straight trunk but the nebari appeared to have potential, the foliage and branching was dense and the top had potential for an airlayer or jin feature.
Trunk diameter was about 3cm at the and maybe 3.5cm including root flare. Assuming some slow thickening over time and aiming for a shohin tree with a height/girth ratio of 6, i decided to aim for a final height around 24cm.
I took the point on the trunk at about 24cm and ringbarked and contorted it with heavy wire. I aim to airlayer this off as my next tree and use the remaining exposed trunk below the cut point as a potential future apical jin.
I followed the basic steps shown in the videos above. I found bjorn's 3 part video on bonsai-u / eisen-en the most helpful. Essentially 4 stages:
1. Trim the downward growing foliage of each lignified branch + crotch growth to reveal the structure
2. Wire each lignified primary branch
3. Position each primary branch
4. Wire and position the secondary branches to form pads
5. Trim the pads
After all primary and secondary branches wired (first image probable front):
Also got about 50 potential cuttings, to which i applied rooting hormone gel and placed into a mix of pumice and sphagnum:
We are just approaching the end of spring, so I will focus on nursing the plant through our hot summer and autumn, aiming to address the roots and repot early next spring in about 8 months.
This process took about 6 hours, so I have a new appreciation for the work you all put in on larger specimens!
Please let me know any feedback, tips or advice and thank you for making such a wonderful community on enthusiasts.
Have watched a few videos on starting a shohin juniper from nursery stock (Mirai live, Bjorn on bonsai empire, bjorn on eisen-en, bonsaify) and decided to give it a shot.
I am based in Melbourne Australia and purchased this material from Conifer Kingdom near Mount Dandenong. Fairly straight trunk but the nebari appeared to have potential, the foliage and branching was dense and the top had potential for an airlayer or jin feature.
Trunk diameter was about 3cm at the and maybe 3.5cm including root flare. Assuming some slow thickening over time and aiming for a shohin tree with a height/girth ratio of 6, i decided to aim for a final height around 24cm.
I took the point on the trunk at about 24cm and ringbarked and contorted it with heavy wire. I aim to airlayer this off as my next tree and use the remaining exposed trunk below the cut point as a potential future apical jin.
I followed the basic steps shown in the videos above. I found bjorn's 3 part video on bonsai-u / eisen-en the most helpful. Essentially 4 stages:
1. Trim the downward growing foliage of each lignified branch + crotch growth to reveal the structure
2. Wire each lignified primary branch
3. Position each primary branch
4. Wire and position the secondary branches to form pads
5. Trim the pads
After all primary and secondary branches wired (first image probable front):
Also got about 50 potential cuttings, to which i applied rooting hormone gel and placed into a mix of pumice and sphagnum:
We are just approaching the end of spring, so I will focus on nursing the plant through our hot summer and autumn, aiming to address the roots and repot early next spring in about 8 months.
This process took about 6 hours, so I have a new appreciation for the work you all put in on larger specimens!
Please let me know any feedback, tips or advice and thank you for making such a wonderful community on enthusiasts.
