California Juniper finally ready for show

[Eric Schrader]

I bought this collected California Juniper in January 2005 at the Collection North benefit sale at the Lake Merritt garden center in Oakland. In early 2006 Boon grafted some Kishu shimpaku scions onto it for me because the native foliage was really coarse and was also not in a place that made sense for the design of the tree. You can see the two grafts that took in the first photo, they're the small green bits near the large jin.

At the time I lived in San Francisco and the grafts grew very slowly. Three years later they were still not big enough to wire. In April 2010 I moved to SoCal and found that CA junipers really like the heat in SoCal. It grew more in one season than it had in the previous three combined and I was able to wire it in the fall. One more growing season filled out the foliage and I was able to show it this January. Finished height is about 23 inches.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[tmmason10]

I bought this collected California Juniper in January 2005 at the Collection North benefit sale at the Lake Merritt garden center in Oakland. In early 2006 Boon grafted some Kishu shimpaku scions onto it for me because the native foliage was really coarse and was also not in a place that made sense for the design of the tree. You can see the two grafts that took in the first photo, they're the small green bits near the large jin.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7204/6867537637_fe7272229d_z.

At the time I lived in San Francisco and the grafts grew very slowly. Three years later they were still not big enough to wire. In April 2010 I moved to SoCal and found that CA junipers really like the heat in SoCal. It grew more in one season than it had in the previous three combined and I was able to wire it in the fall. One more growing season filled out the foliage and I was able to show it this January. Finished height is about 23 inches.

[img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/6867536089_9978752783_z.jpg

Cheers,

Eric

Fantastic transformation I like it a lot. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Smoke]

Beautiful tree. Very nice transformation. Foliage filled in very well.

Al

 

[rich415]

That was one of my favorite trees at the show. Amazing transformation. Its good to know it's story.

Rich

 

[treekutter]

very nice. Job well done!

 

[Harunobu]

Yes! Very good.

 

[Ang3lfir3]

really NICE!

 

[Vance Wood]

Spectacular transformation. Not meaning to complain about it----but it is too bad you don't have the between pictures so we could see how it developed.

 

[bonsai barry]

I laughed at my response. I saw the first photo and thought "what a loser" and then I saw the second one and was amazed at the transformation. Kudos to you for seeing the finished tree in the intial material.

 

[october]

Outstanding tree!.. Never underestimate the power of a few young branches on a juniper.

Rob

 

[Vance Wood]

I laughed at my response. I saw the first photo and thought "what a loser" and then I saw the second one and was amazed at the transformation. Kudos to you for seeing the finished tree in the intial material.

This is probably the response the majority had about this tree. It just goes to show you that you shouldn't limit yourself, or abandon a good trunk. After all, what was there about this tree? The trunk! There were no branches, there was no visable bonsai hidding just around the corner, there was just a trunk and an idea and the willingness to pursue that idea, graft and craft.

 

[brianjuniper]

Beautiful tree, great job.

 

[crust]

Wonderful juniper. A great example of sucessful grafting and the benefit of appropriate climate.

 

[Eric Schrader]

Hi all, glad you like the tree. Frankly, it turned out much better than I imagined when I bought it. I really liked the trunk with the slight twist and a slight S shape too; I but wasn't sure what I would do with it. The foliage being ugly made it cheap ($125) so I decided to give it a try. I think I owe Boon a nod on this one since the vision for the finished tree came more from him than me.

I wish I did have in between photos of the tree - I have it in a few photos of my yard that I took but not close enough to be able to see the shape very well. The best I can do is from last summer when it was already wired and starting to look pretty good. After this we thinned it one more time and then it filled in again to what you saw in the second photo.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[Vance Wood]

Hi all, glad you like the tree. Frankly, it turned out much better than I imagined when I bought it. I really liked the trunk with the slight twist and a slight S shape too; I but wasn't sure what I would do with it. The foliage being ugly made it cheap ($125) so I decided to give it a try. I think I owe Boon a nod on this one since the vision for the finished tree came more from him than me.

I wish I did have in between photos of the tree - I have it in a few photos of my yard that I took but not close enough to be able to see the shape very well. The best I can do is from last summer when it was already wired and starting to look pretty good. After this we thinned it one more time and then it filled in again to what you saw in the second photo.

Cheers,

Eric

I assume that the cloth around the pots is to keep them cool?

 

[Eric Schrader]

Yep, with such intense sun and heat I find that the pot will be hot enough to almost burn your hand. An old ripped-up bed sheet seems to reduce the temperature inside quite a bit. I put those on last summer when the temps were consistently 90-100 degrees - honestly, I'm not sure it did any good but I figured it couldn't hurt and it wasn't much effort.

 

[Vance Wood]

In your original post you did not say much about what method of grafting you used. Could you address that point please?

 

[greerhw]

You did a nice job with what you had to work with.

Harry

 

[Eric Schrader]

In your original post you did not say much about what method of grafting you used. Could you address that point please?

Vance - sorry, I composed a reply to this and thought I had posted it but it appears to have disappeared....must have done something wrong. Anyway it went something like this:

These were scion grafts. Take a piece of shimpaku about the same size as a matchstick, or slightly larger. Remove all the foliage except two tufts near the end. Cut the other end using a sharp grafting knife in a slicing motion to make a flat angled cut at about 35 degrees. Then cut the opposite side at a slightly shallower angle to that the scion has a lopsided wedge shape - the end of the wedge should be square to the length of the matchstick not angled to one side or another. If it ends up angled recut the scion until it's square. Also take care not to make the cuts curve - they must be flat to match up properly to the plant that will receive the graft.

Use the grafting knife to make a cut starting further from the roots and slicing down and inward at a shallow angle until you're into the wood a bit. The flat side of the grafting knife should be to the inside of the cut such that the angled side pushes the bark outward. You should have a flap of bark and cambium about 1/2-3/4 inch long with width depending on the size of the branch. Twist or slide the grafting knife so that you can see the part of the cut that is still attached to the trunk (not the flap) and insert the scion to match one line of the cambium, not just a single point but as much as you can match up. If the branch that receives the graft is small enough you can potentially match up two sides.

Once you have it in place tie with grafting tape. These grafts were bagged with a small plastic bag containing a tiny amount of sphagnum moss and water and covered with a small piece of masking tape to reduce the intensity of the sun hitting the graft. If the sphagnum dries out use a syringe to add more water. After the graft starts growing and more moisture builds in the bad from transipiration you can cut a small hole in the bag to let it out.

Ideally you would graft in early spring with the receiving plant having started growing but the scion still dormant (or appearing to be dormant at least.) Since this was grafted I've used parafilm instead of bags to do grafts, wrapping them tightly like a hand-rolled cigarette. Successful scion grafting on juniper takes some practice - and even with that you'll have a serious rate of failure. Always do extra grafts to give yourself a few more chances to succeed.

All that said - I prefer approach grafting using small junipers and grafting at an angle using the knife to create a flap and then shoving the small juniper in with bark sliced off from two sides. The success rate is a lot higher but it works better on larger trees rather than smaller ones.

 

[Vance Wood]

That's what I had figured, and thanks for sharing the details, and the time to write them up----again---thanks.