Critique and input on a Juniper

[jandslegate]

I was hoping for some input from the community. I've lurked here and on other bonsai communities for awhile now. Until last Sunday I had never shown anyone who knows anything about bonsai any of my work. Some of it was that I always got frustrated with reddits flare requirements, lol. I've been involved in bonsai for around 4 or 5 ish years and felt like it was time to come out from my rock a bit.

Anyway, this is a juniper I've had in cultivation for about 3 years. It's nothing special material wise. It was a big box store piece of nursery stock I got on clearance and I've slowly been learning along with it. Most of what I've learned has come from YouTube and forum lurking. My poor wife has listened to the Mirai BSOP videos so many many times, heh. I would appreciate any feedback and I don't expect kid gloves, just please don't make me consider dropping the hobby, lol. Thanks in advance.!

 

[jandslegate]

The first image is more or less front. Second is a close up of some of the deadwood work. This was the first season I started working on Shari and Jins etc. Third and fourth image are of some back budding I did not expect to get and now I'm not sure what to do with. Finally, an older 'before' picture of the tree. Ty again.

 

[PaulH]

I can see you've been trying techniques that you're trying to learn. First, your wiring looks pretty good, better than most beginners, but sometimes it appears you've applied wire that serves no actual styling purpose. Again, nothing wrong with practice. Also your raffia is pretty rough. work on getting it tight and smooth . Then only use it where need for major big bends. You can only learn so much from forums and YouTube. Join a club and take some workshops with a pro and you'll be amazed how quickly you develop skills you can only learn hands on. As far as styling, your left branches go down and the ones on the right go up. This creates an unbalanced and rather jarring image. Study as many great trees as you can to train your bonsai eye.

 

[jandslegate]

Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to post. The raffia was rough when I applied it but now it's been on for awhile so it's super rough this far along. I had my first workshop this past Sunday and I learned a few neat tricks from Raffa at Eisei-en's open house. It was a humbling experience altogether. The workshop was meant for way above my skill level and my available material. It was a surprise gift from my wife who didn't necessarily realize what I was being thrown into, heh. Raffa was very cool though.

We used to have a club where I live but it fell apart at some point before I got into bonsai. However, Eisei-en is only a few hours away and Bjorn also recommended checking out Bogan's Bonsai which is a bit closer. Fortunately, my wife likes road trips.

 

[tangledtanuki]

Nice looking tree. Again giving feedback on photo's is always tough but from what I can see here is my two cents, please take with huge spoonfuls of salt:
- The main trunk is pretty straight so you've gone for a taller looking tree, this should probably lead you decisions for the top if you keep it this way. Keep it light and sparse to accentuate this.
- If it were mine I would build the tree just from the first lowest branch or even graft between the two big jins to create a more compact tree. This will take a bit more time but you can build something with more interest nearer to the base.

 

[tangledtanuki]

Something like this maybe

 

[Srt8madness]

The only thing you should quit is smoking
I won't comment on the tree because others know better, but that landscape maple in the back is dope.

 

[jandslegate]

The only thing you should quit is smoking
I won't comment on the tree because others know better, but that landscape maple in the back is dope.

Thank you and you're right it's a terrible habit and I really wish I had cropped that better, lol.

 

[jandslegate]

Nice looking tree. Again giving feedback on photo's is always tough but from what I can see here is my two cents, plese take with huge spoonfuls of salt:
- The main trunk is pretty straight so you've gone for a taller looking tree, this should probably lead you decisions for the top if you keep it this way. Keep it light and sparse to accentuate this.
- If it were mine I would build the tree just from the first lowest branch or even graft between the two big jins to create a more compact tree. This will take a bit more time but you can build something with more interest nearer to the base.

Thank you for the help. That image isn't the greatest. The trunk is pretty straight but there is some movement that isn't carrying over. The image doesn't really depict the depth very well and my yard is so packed I don't have a good spot for images. What's really bothering me is how sparse it looks now. It feels like what I used to end up with when I first started and just had a lanky pom pom shrub. It was much more full but very unrefined and a lot of growth in the wrong places.

 

[rockm]

Nice effort. I'd work to get the foliage more compact and closer to the tree. But that's refinement. I think the basic skeleton you've developed is pretty good. I would, however, get rid of that third big jin at the big fork in the trunk. It's distracting and unnecessary.

 

[jandslegate]

Nice effort. I'd work to get the foliage more compact and closer to the tree. But that's refinement. I think the basic skeleton you've developed is pretty good. I would, however, get rid of that third big jin at the big fork in the trunk. It's distracting and unnecessary.

Yeah those were some of my first real attempts at jins and I left them knowing they were a bit obnoxious lol. It was sort of a quit while I'm ahead situation. You think remove altogether or reduce to a smaller snag?

 

[rockm]

Yeah those were some of my first real attempts at jins and I left them knowing they were a bit obnoxious lol. It was sort of a quit while I'm ahead situation. You think remove altogether or reduce to a smaller snag?

Your choice. If it were mine, I'd reduce to very short snags, but in doing that, leave enough of a stub to carve down to make it look believable. Start with halving the jins. Then practice carving the ends (chipping away a bit, pulling strips of deadwood with pliers, etc.)

 

[jandslegate]

Quick and probably last update on this one for awhile. I did a little tweaking. I figured I'd try to transition to a literati styling. I felt like it might be a better fit style wise and make better use of what I have to work with. So, I removed a couple of branches that felt like they were crowding things and or in poor locations and worked on those obnoxious jins, lol. I did very little with foliage as I want to let what I have left have some time to recover and I want to do some more studying on actual basic fundamentals regarding juniper pruning, etc. The second image is turned slightly to get a better view of the deadwood work. Also, apologies for potato images.

 

[jandslegate]

Took this before work. I think it's a slightly better picture and front. This is problematic as I'm standing slightly over the tree. I think I've figured out one issue though. I stand when I work on my trees and get caught up and don't think to consider perspective and viewing angle.

 

[jandslegate]

Update. Made a pretty extreme change. The tree has constantly pushed new buds so I think it can take it but I guess a gamble is still a gamble. First image is just a closer look at some of the shari work.