Kyleboldy2003
Shohin
If you can or have a garden for both these trees. Plant them in the ground and come back in 3 years at least. Then have a lot of fun.
Best beginner juniper?
- Thread starter GailC
- Start date
milehigh_7
Mister 500,000
Never feel stupid, every experience is one to learn from. Mastering Junis is a skill set that is far more complicated than it seems. Go to a regular landscape place if you can find one. Look for the stuff that's been sitting for a few years. They won't be able to sell this as landscape. Then when you find some old overgrown Junis try to see the trunk. Basically look for spiders... Then stick your hand in and brush away the old needles and loose dirt from the base and see what you have for size.
Find the biggest trunk with decent features and low branching that you can. Then tell the manager. "I don't think this one will sell as landscape. It looks like it's been sitting around awhile. How much will you sell it for?" It may happen that the manager will practically give it to you. ;-) There now you know my trick. Enjoy.
milehigh_7
Mister 500,000
Go slow and look at it before you do much of anything.
I do too, I'd be happy to take it off your hands.
No place for ground planting, thats why its in a grow box
It sure seems that way. I know I'm not in the least bit comfortable in my care of these. If this one dies, I'll probably just give up on them and stick with deciduous. I'll keep a eye out at nurseries for a bigger, better tree. There are no nurseries here that grow in the ground though so what ever I find will be in a pot.
Maybe this will help:
Start off "simple". When I first starting doing bonsai, I had no clue about styling. I just tried to copy what I saw in the books. Well... that really didn't go well! Lol!
Luckily, I took a few classes from David Cook in Atlanta. We started with a class on formal upright. Next class was informal upright. Next was slant. Then cascade and semicascade. The last class was forest bonsai.
Now, doing it this way taught us the basics of looking at trunks and nebari, looking for basic branch structure, choosing branches to keep, which to eliminate, picking the front, etc. We basicly learned the basic "rules" and learned how to style by following as many of the rules as possible.
So, we started our formal uprights using foemina Juniper. All the others were Procumbens. Except the forest was Trident maple.
I think learning the styles in that order helps, too. While it's very rare to make a really top quality Formsl Upright, the "rules" of styling one are pretty straight forward. Informal upright introduces the concept of curved trunk and branches. It's more complex because now, not only do you need branches at certain heights on the trunk, you want them on the outside of the curves.
As you work thru the styles, new "complications" appear.
Now, many here think I am too much guided by the "rules". Lol!!! But that foundation has served me well over the past 40 years
Start off "simple". When I first starting doing bonsai, I had no clue about styling. I just tried to copy what I saw in the books. Well... that really didn't go well! Lol!
Luckily, I took a few classes from David Cook in Atlanta. We started with a class on formal upright. Next class was informal upright. Next was slant. Then cascade and semicascade. The last class was forest bonsai.
Now, doing it this way taught us the basics of looking at trunks and nebari, looking for basic branch structure, choosing branches to keep, which to eliminate, picking the front, etc. We basicly learned the basic "rules" and learned how to style by following as many of the rules as possible.
So, we started our formal uprights using foemina Juniper. All the others were Procumbens. Except the forest was Trident maple.
I think learning the styles in that order helps, too. While it's very rare to make a really top quality Formsl Upright, the "rules" of styling one are pretty straight forward. Informal upright introduces the concept of curved trunk and branches. It's more complex because now, not only do you need branches at certain heights on the trunk, you want them on the outside of the curves.
As you work thru the styles, new "complications" appear.
Now, many here think I am too much guided by the "rules". Lol!!! But that foundation has served me well over the past 40 years
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
There is nothing wrong with having the ability to navigate around the different styles. There is one thing looking at a cascade, or a Formal Upright, or a Wind swept it is quite another to design one from scratch.
You've received pretty good info. To support Vance' idea, here is a picture of mine bought as cascading...
Here's a link to follow developing little junies. Look, which parts are left to grow and why, which are preserved... I'll take an advantage of wires biting in to create a spiraling Shari...
https://www.bonsaiempire.com/inspiration/progressions/shimpaku-juniper
Here's a link to follow developing little junies. Look, which parts are left to grow and why, which are preserved... I'll take an advantage of wires biting in to create a spiraling Shari...
https://www.bonsaiempire.com/inspiration/progressions/shimpaku-juniper
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
Awesome of you to share that!
@petegreg YES to Sargentii!
Mine is STILL GROWING!
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/dont-salute-the-sargent.23180/
Even after a wicked mite infestation and being left underwater for over 24 hours to cure it!
Tough!
Sorce
Read through that the other day and didn't get a lot from it. I thought the end product was really ugly, looks like it was chopped on haphazardly. I'll read it again though.
You sure did abuse the poor thing, kinds surprised its still alive. I'm sure it would have died if I did that.
For now, I'm just going to leave mine alone. Let it recover from the root work then figure out what to do with it. I'd love to find a native juni but they are very high up, still too much snow to go fetch one right now and by the time the snow is gone, it will be quite hot down here. Same with the native yew, they are only on the highest peaks.
Well, the final product in that article is only 7cm tall, but techniques matter - how to grow sacrifice branches for the trunk and jins...
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
The moon was right.
It went into a...ahem....colander.
And I fertilized the doo doo clunk out of it the year before.
Ten Hut!
But screw Nana! Nocumbins Juniper for me!
Who screws Nana?
The Sargent!
Sorce
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
It helps if you tell everybody exactly what happened and not some sort of double- entander bovine scatology full of esoteric symbolism and expect everybody to understand what you are saying. Of course it's only me and I'm getting old and don't always understand the kind of crap some of you younger persons shovel out, I do try to help when I can. The short of it is this: If you had trouble with your Procumbens Nana what happened and what did you do?
M. Frary
Bonsai Godzilla
They handle footwork if done at the right time of year.
I do mine in early summer. I've done some pretty severe root jobs on these things and they take it fine.
herzausstahl
Chumono
I think you've nailed it her Vance, often times newer people are very enthusiastic but don't take the time to look, or buy a tree for the sake of buying a tree, or in my case are still learning what to look for. I'm learning I think, I went through a dozen mint junipers last week before picking what I thought was the best one & had reasons for rejecting the others.
As for design, most of us are lost in the dark due to our lack of vision when looking at a tree, we lack the experience to see what you guys see (working on that too), so it's a big help when more experienced members like yourself or @Adair, @Smoke, @sawgrass, and @Brian Van Fleet and others comment on these threads offering advice. Definitely helps me to learn what to look for when analyzing a tree. As Adair said much better way to learn (if not able to take a class, go to a club meeting) than just looking at pictures of finished bonsai. So all of you please keep doing it! Ignore the 1 person out of 20 on here that may react negatively to a post, many more of us benefit from them than don't.
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