Rudd’s California Juniper #2

[Ruddigger]

It’s probably time to start a progress thread on this tree. I posted my initial styling in my Apprenticeship thread, but I’ll post the pictures again here.

I initially styled this tree belonging to David Nguy in November 2022.




There were a couple issues with this initial styling, first that the tree needed to put on a lot of foliage, and more importantly, that stick straight apex. The perfectly vertical apex branch was an eyesore, and made the foliage seem disconnected from the trunk. It looked like a triangle of green floating off in space.

At that time I really wanted to bend that apex branch to the right to engage with the trunk more, but the issue was that there was very little live vein on that branch, it was mostly deadwood, which would make it risky to bend. Sensei Nguy instructed me not to bend it.

Flash forward 6 months and I bought the tree from him and brought it home. All the while that apex bothered me while the tree grew.

Well, January 2024 it’s my tree now, nobody to stop me. I split and carved away a large portion of the deadwood, put in a wire spine and raffia. Bent with a guy wire.



Before bending:


After bending:



And after completely wiring the whole tree. The new design makes the foliage and the trunk feel more unified. Compressing the apex to just below the highest point of the cascading trunk and growing the branches in towards the pot help with this. There is a whip I’m growing out to be a new back branch that will fill in more space on the lower right by the pot as well.



Now I need a better pot to replace this Chinese production thing. Open to suggestions, my initial thought is a deep round. Paging @NaoTK

 

[Scriv]

Awesome work dude. Really. Crazy how a small structural change can make such a huge difference.

 

[ZombieNick]

Good work Ryan, huge improvement on the initial design!

 

[NateDyk47]

Amazing work!

Had the tree ever been styled before you worked on it in 2022, or was that the raw stock?

 

[Ruddigger]

Amazing work!

Had the tree ever been styled before you worked on it in 2022, or was that the raw stock?

It looked like a couple of the primary branches had been wired once before.

 

[Bonsai Forest]

It’s probably time to start a progress thread on this tree. I posted my initial styling in my Apprenticeship thread, but I’ll post the pictures again here.

I initially styled this tree belonging to David Nguy in November 2022.

View attachment 526836
View attachment 526837

There were a couple issues with this initial styling, first that the tree needed to put on a lot of foliage, and more importantly, that stick straight apex. The perfectly vertical apex branch was an eyesore, and made the foliage seem disconnected from the trunk. It looked like a triangle of green floating off in space.

At that time I really wanted to bend that apex branch to the right to engage with the trunk more, but the issue was that there was very little live vein on that branch, it was mostly deadwood, which would make it risky to bend. Sensei Nguy instructed me not to bend it.

Flash forward 6 months and I bought the tree from him and brought it home. All the while that apex bothered me while the tree grew.

Well, January 2024 it’s my tree now, nobody to stop me. I split and carved away a large portion of the deadwood, put in a wire spine and raffia. Bent with a guy wire.
View attachment 526839View attachment 526840


Before bending:
View attachment 526843

After bending:
View attachment 526842
View attachment 526841

And after completely wiring the whole tree. The new design makes the foliage and the trunk feel more unified. Compressing the apex to just below the highest point of the cascading trunk and growing the branches in towards the pot help with this. There is a whip I’m growing out to be a new back branch that will fill in more space on the lower right by the pot as well.

View attachment 526838

Now I need a better pot to replace this Chinese production thing. Open to suggestions, my initial thought is a deep round. Paging @NaoTK

 

[NaoTK]

Question! How high can you raise the rootball above the soil? Just to give it more vertical height and visual mass before it then drops down. All the business is down there, so my inclination is to raise the trunk and use a more interesting pot like a many-lobed pot or something. but yeah a rounded feeling. smaller pot?


If you went super cascade does it buy anything design wise?

 

[Ruddigger]

Question! How high can you raise the rootball above the soil? Just to give it more vertical height and visual mass before it then drops down. All the business is down there, so my inclination is to raise the trunk and use a more interesting pot like a many-lobed pot or something. but yeah a rounded feeling. smaller pot?
View attachment 526882

If you went super cascade does it buy anything design wise?

View attachment 526881

No idea whats under that soil, but my goal is to elevate it out of the pot a little as you described. I dont thing angling it down helps the design, I like the position of the deadwood as is. I like the lobed pot idea, and definitely smaller. This one is 13” square.

 

[Nybonsai12]

Really nice work. The Foliage organization is money.

 

[ACooke]

Oh man, what a beautiful and well-styled tree.
The foliage looks good too from what I can see. I'm not super familiar with foliage types between your native junipers but it seems commonly 'poor' enough for people to want or 'need' to graft in something denser.

 

[Ruddigger]

Oh man, what a beautiful and well-styled tree.
The foliage looks good too from what I can see. I'm not super familiar with foliage types between your native junipers but it seems commonly 'poor' enough for people to want or 'need' to graft in something denser.

Thank you. California juniper foliage is much nicer than some other species, like rocky mountain.

 

[Ruddigger]

Lime sulfured. And I bought a backdrop.

 

[Scriv]

Lime sulfured. And I bought a backdrop. View attachment 527053

Ooooo, nice. Gotta iron that thing out tho

 

[Ruddigger]

I asked Bjorn for advice on pot selection for this tree. He likes a more square pot, with some flare or taper to the sides. A lobed squarish round was his idea, which I think could be cool.

Maybe a tall, unglazed version of this Nao Tokutake pot, with the walls slightly more bowed out.

 

[clem]

hello, I made a few virtuals. I dunno what you think, but IMO the last pot is better ->






You have the chance to know Bjorn, did you ask him about changing a little the inclination of the trunk ?

I tried to lower it a little more, if the nebari allows it. My2cents : the line of the trunk is better when we lower it a little (more elegant movement of the deadwood, no horizontal line of the trunk) but maybe the nebari/base of the trunk will be weaker in that inclination ? .. just my feeling. It is a very good tree and styling whatever the trunk inclination

 

[Hartinez]

Lime sulfured. And I bought a backdrop. View attachment 527053

Now you just need to buy an iron….jk

Really though. I like the pot in the first virtual that Clem did. Something about the hard lines and frame within the pot that contrasts and highlights the movement in your tree that is appealing to me. Great tree Rudd

 

[Ruddigger]

Lots of things to think about. Thanks for the virts @clem and the opinion @Hartinez

Now I need to think about making a stand too.

 

[FreshAirSunshine]

I asked Bjorn for advice on pot selection for this tree. He likes a more square pot, with some flare or taper to the sides. A lobed squarish round was his idea, which I think could be cool.

Maybe a tall, unglazed version of this Nao Tokutake pot, with the walls slightly more bowed out.

View attachment 530941

???

 

[Nybonsai12]

I like the shape of the second pot, but i like the color of the first pot. I'm no help.

 

[Dabbler]

Very nice tree! I'm no help either as I kinda like them all