Smoke and Mirrors - 006

[Smoke]

San Jose Juniper.

2015
I received this tree as a gift from Steve DaSilva, the guy who supplied lots of material I use like the big Cork Elm in SM003. This was a tree that he tried the Jim Gremel wrap it up in wire and put it into a field for a few years method and this was one of them. The tree was pretty gnarly and not much of the trunk can be seen in the before picture but it is ugly!








So this is what I had to work with. In the Spring the club does a show and sell st the yearly Home and Garden Show at the fairgrounds. They asked me to do a demo and I decided that I would give this puppy a go. Look at that hair and cheesy smile.



One can notice front and center the super glue and zip kicker activator which makes the glue even faster than it is. It will set a cracked branch really well and you can even wire them. First thing I did was jin the entire left side of the tree. It had a really bad wye thing going on. There was just no way to incorporate the whole trunk alive in the design. After twenty pounds of wire and some time I had it mostly wired out for a first go.






So San Jose is probably not...no make that IS NOT the first choice for a shohin size tree. The foliage is very coarse and does not pad up very pretty. It takes constant attention and one is nipping on one of these daily. We'll see how that goes this year.

 

[Smoke]

Winter of 2018
Nothing to do in between parties and opening gifts so work on a tree.

This is the second work over of the tree and it is starting to look like something. It is still way too heavy for a proper shohin and the jin needs to be reduced by carving. Something I am not very good at. I tend to just make holes and grooves and it looks so childish when I'm done that I would soon leave it like this. Lots of pruning of branches and removing all the growth that has grown since it was last worked on. Once again this tree did not receive any work on it for that last few years. Just the initial work and that was it. In the Spring of 2017 the tree did get repotted into this Toshu pot.



Decisions are made and the entire tree is cut free of wire. New wire is now put on and branches set in place. In the above photo one can see all the dead needles at the base of twigs and branches. All of this must be removed to get good budding in the Spring. The only way to remove this old growth id with tweezers and labor.




Anyway I think the future is bright for this one and I can see that with time it will only get better. There just may be a Neagari style exposed root tree in there somewhere. Only time will tell.

 

[Tentakelaertje]

You look like you are having a lot of fun on that photo Al, and that's a nice tree too. Thank you for showing!

 

[Cosmos]

Thank you Smoke. Keep us updated about the management of this foliage.

I’ve been gifted what I think is a raw, overgrown multi-trunk San Jose in a 10 gal pot, and the best tree hidden in there is likely to be shohin size. But man, that foliage is wild and confusing.

 

[Smoke]

Thank you Smoke. Keep us updated about the management of this foliage.

I’ve been gifted what I think is a raw, overgrown multi-trunk San Jose in a 10 gal pot, and the best tree hidden in there is likely to be shohin size. But man, that foliage is wild and confusing.

If it’s virgin then it will have to be cut out and regrown at least once to really start to look like something. The first cut on this one was pretty good but the second one was even better. It will get better each time I cut it till I get it where I want it. You just have to get in there and cut it. That’s the only way.

 

[Cosmos]

I don’t want to derail this thread, but here’s how it looked in the fall, I’ve since cleaned it up. You’re saying that the shoots on the lower part of the trunks will need to be cut and regrown a few times to get tighter needles?

I have several years of work (but mostly waiting) ahead of me for this tree, it will be repotted in the spring in a much smaller container.