new to bonsai, any advice on this first juniper?? (pics included)

cooldaddyfunk286

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hey guys, first of all my name is Jason, Im an avid forum-er, so I knew as soon as I got into this hobby hard, I would have to find the best Bonsai forum, and it looks like I landed at the right place! I have been an indoor gardener, lots of outdoor gardens aswell for about 12 years now. I manage an Indoor gardening and Organic supply grow shop, and have been in the hydroponic industry for many years.

so, anyway I went to a Bonsai nursery here in Upstate NY and I got myself a dwarf Japanese Juniper. now, had I had done the research first, I probably would have gotten it into a training pot, worked at it for a season, and then put it into the display pot later on, altho this pot is pretty deep and wide...plenty of room for new roots to grow considering how much of the root mass I was able to ax. So shes planted in there nicely, anchored in with the wire, I bought traditional bonsai mix that they use for all their bonsai instead of some bagged scotts looking stuff the kid tried to push on me, well I didnt have enough substrate, so I filled in the gaps with some cleaned stone, some live moss and some expanded porous clay pebbles (hydroton). a day or 2 after planting I watered in pretty heavy with a very wide range of microbes, mostly fungal based as I know this is better for harder roots and trees...also a SPEC of B-1 to alleviate any transplant shock (altho there has been none!)

so a few days later I begin to prune away some branches to expose the beautiful stem, I messed around with wiring some limbs (altho I may undo it and redo it in a more appropriate manner). the real problem Im running into is, Im not quite sure how I would like to style this tree. I mean, I love the look of it so far, but that big long front end, I dont wanna chop it, I wanna kind of cascade it and have it hang down...its propped up alittle w that bowl and wired up alittle so that I wasnt pulling on the new transplant....kind of wanted to make sure it took to the new pot before I started weighing down the trunk and possibly uprooting or slanting it. but...now that I think about it, if I want the front end to cascade down, It would probably look cool, maybe eventually even exposing some roots as per the weight on the front pulling on the stalk.

Im knee deep into this hobby already. I understand how to care for the juniper, still alittle cloudy on pinching back and how and where to encourage new growth. if we were talking anything without needles Id be the expert...but Im new to this type of gardening.

anyway guys, take a look, let me know what you think. I only have it inside now because I wanted to give it a week or so to relax after axing the roots, planting into bonsai pot, chopping a few small limbs and what not. the rest of the week is supposed to be in the 60s-70s with no frost yet, so I will introduce it to the outdoors again tonight. I hope my baby is OK!

please forgive my newbie ignorance, thats why Im here. I plan on getting fully into this hobby and I know you guys will hold my hand through it! thank you so much in advance for ANY advice, words of wisdom, anything at all, even just to say hello!

thanks guys, on to the pics...(finally) (also, I can take more tonight from different angles...I need a turn table bonsai display...I know I need to focus on the whole tree 360, not just one point of view)

-Jason-

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I guess I should say a semi-cascade is what I think I may be aiming for with this one. I realized what I first probably need to go ahead and do is wire up the entire tree so I can actually start forming what Im aiming for. Im learning more and more by the minute. I dony think I need to be cutting and pruning, as much as I need to be focusing on wiring and training right now. what do you guys think?! Im sorry, Im just so excited!
 
tree looks preety good from what i see..any brown foliage needs to be removed. i would take the branch on the left and bend it down to make a full cascade out of it. Thats a really long branch and would make the perfect canadate for a long cascade downward..just my opinion which right now doesnt really matter because im new here too, but thats ok. im sure others will chime in. Also look at other peoples junipers and see what they are doing. In the second pic where you show the trunk, the branches on the right side look a little busy, once you get the hang of things you might decide to remove a few of them.

Rick
 
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