Branch selection/long shoots

[SmallTreeGuy]

Hello all,

I’m new to Bonsai Nut so please go easy on me. Lol

I live in Texas (Dallas zone 8a). Weather has just started to cool down just a bit from the scorching summer heat/drought that we’ve had.

Anyways, I bought this Parson’s juniper about a month ago at a local nursery and have cleaned out the crotch growth, downward growth, junctions of branches with 3 to keep from getting large nodes and anything that was too weak to keep. I carefully dug down to find another two inches of trunk underneath the nursery soil and came to some 1/4 inch sized roots and then stopped because it started to show signs that the trunk may get narrower and I didn’t want any reverse taper. I know Parsonii junipers aren’t usually used for bonsai but I thought I would at least give it a try. The trunk size and movement caught my eye as I was looking through the plants at the nursery. (And for 30 bucks, I couldn’t resist.)

I guess that’s enough for an introduction so on to the issue that I have.

The tree I’ve noticed, is almost all comprised of long shoots. I want to get more light into the interior but I am unsure how to proceed. Should I trim back the shoots? Should I cut some off entirely using normal branch selection? I’m not looking to style yet but I want to get the tree to a point where I can ponder more easily the best route to proceed with for future development of the tree. These long whips are full of healthy foliage but I cannot seem to wrap my head around how to proceed to set the tree up for wiring and creating pads in the future.

I don’t want to remove too much foliage and I want the tree to remain healthy first and foremost. I’m just confused on how to proceed with the design process on this particular tree with so many long shoots. The other junipers I have, seem to be more straight forward with their compact growth so I haven’t really run into this before for myself.

I would really appreciate any input on what to do with these long shoots.

Thanks!

 

[Potawatomi13]

Going easy on you. Did you repot? How much root removed? Trunk looks good, lots of foliage. Good you did not go nuts whacking foliage. Can afford to subscribe Bonsai Mirai Live? Several educational Juniper live streams of great value to you there. Personally can not answer questions posted.

 

[Shibui]

Most junipers and many other species grow with long shoots like this. Their aim in the wild is to take up as much space as possible to outgrow any nearby competitors. Our job is to stop long growth to create compact branching.
Cut long shoots back to a secondary shoot which then becomes the continuation and end of that branch. Doing this shortens the branch, puts a bend in the branch and puts taper in the branch - 3 bonsai wins for just a single cut. You will usually need to cut branches shorter than the desired tree outline to allow for growth. Trees rarely grow shorter so we need to cut shorter to allow for the branches growing in future. Shortening branches will also stimulate more growth on interior secondary shoots.

If there are more branches than desirable -and there are usually way more than necessary - you will need to remove some completely.
There's lots of unsubstantiated info telling us that taking off too much will kill a juniper and they usually quote minimal reduction as safe. I've reduced plenty of junipers way more than half without any more problems than some juvenile needle foliage so I tend to ignore the minimalist prune brigade.
If you are at all worried space out your pruning a bit. I'd be taking out excess branches first then a few months later - maybe next spring for you - cut the keepers back.

 

[SmallTreeGuy]

Sounds great and thanks for the info! I’m thinking a windswept design may be good for this tree. Not really in a hurry to get it to a certain style though since I can see it going in several directions.

Good suggestion. I think I may go slow with this tree and just focus on branches that I know I don’t want to keep based on their thickness relative to their position on the tree and branches that are growing parallel to each other. That should reduce the mass of shoots that are coming from the top because their are so many.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Srt8madness]

Pick at front (pic 2 or 3 in my opinion) then start to imagine what style you want from there. I think windswept is the easy way out.
Watching that crazy artistic British guy who makes juniper transformation videos helped me learn juniper styling. I still suck at it but much less than before

*Edit - Bonsai Releaf on YT

 

[SmallTreeGuy]

Lol

I’ve heard windswept was rather difficult to actually make look really good so that’s why I considered it (for the challenge) but if it’s the east way out in peoples’ eyes then I probably won’t. I’m just gonna cut some of the shoots back for now and remove branches that aren’t necessary and then maybe the design will show itself as I keep looking at the tree throughout this next month or so lol

 

[SmallTreeGuy]

Going easy on you. Did you repot? How much root removed? Trunk looks good, lots of foliage. Good you did not go nuts whacking foliage. Can afford to subscribe Bonsai Mirai Live? Several educational Juniper live streams of great value to you there. Personally can not answer questions posted.

Yes I did a repot. I took it out of the nursery pot as it was busting out of it at the bottom and planted it in this temporary terracotta pot. I cut the ends of some roots by like an inch but that’s it. It has tons of roots that go down at least 8 inches down and are very dense. I plan on slowly replacing the nursery soil with a better draining mix but am not gonna do anymore to the root system till another season or so.

This repot was done about a month ago.

Mirai is tempting. I think I’ve watched all of Ryan’s videos on YouTube so I keep rewatching them (and others). It’s my nightly wind down routine before I go to bed. I think I may register because I like his method of teaching.

 

[Paradox]

This repot was done about a month ago.

Then I would leave this tree alone for at least a year. Feed it and let it recover and grow next spring and summer.

Reevaluate the tree next fall and see if it's regained vigor enough to do some wiring on those branches.

Don't risk killing it by doing too much now.

 

[p_anova]

Picked up a parsons myself this past Spring to play with. Looks very similar to yours! I basically did the same thing you did, cleaned, found nebari etc. I elected to jin most of the triple branches to give me some options later and did a cut back here and there to allow light in. I plan on letting it grow out next season and possibly do some heavy bending in the fall based on health. I too did not want to rush the process so I will keep you updated on its progress. Hope this helped.