JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
looking really good. Shows you how much of bonsai is proper wiring.
Zuisho JWP - with Guy Wires!
- Thread starter Adair M
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Especially with pines and junipers. Clip and grow can only do so much. I was thinking as I was wiring how this is actually more sculpture than horticulture.
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
At least almost as much as, you are taking material and putting your own shape to it, keeping it healthy while manipulating it is the hort part.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
And the ability to visualize the 3d canopy. That clicked for.me a few years ago and now I can.imagine where I want to go, making styling so.much easier..
And letting it get strong and healthy enough to tolerate the stress we put upon it when we wire and prune.
I haven’t mentioned it in my posts, but I am cutting back here and there to develop a good, sustainable brainchild structure in the future. As much as possible, I strive to get a central leader branch with alternating left, right, left, right secondary branches. And also develop some “top branches” to be able to cut back to them when the primary branch gets too long. This is planning for the future, to be able to create a sustainable bonsai for the long term.
These diagrams are just a sample of the things I’ve studied with Boon at the Intensives. They show how to style natural looking pads. It’s one thing to to able to apply wire. It’s yet another how to manipulate the wired branch to make it appear natural, and as if it “Just grew that way”.
I see many beginners faithfully wire their tree out, bend the branches down, but don’t do anything else with it. No curves left and right, no undulations... young twigs (the stuff we’re working with) tend to grow out straight. But tree branches, on the macro view, wiggle. So, our job is to do on the micro level, using little twigs, to do what Mother Nature does on the macro level. So, wiring is out best tool to do this. Clip and grow helps, but you get a change in direction only at a node. What if you want a curve between nodes? Clip and grow can’t do it. Wiring can.
KillerButts
Mame
Picturing a dark figure sitting in a chair with a glass of wine. In front of him a moonlit bonsai of epic styling. Just beyond a full moon reflecting a beam of light across a picturesque koi pond. Now just make sure someone gets the picture tonight 
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MrWunderful
Omono
Looking good, excited to see the apex.
Shima
Omono
Yep.
BunjaeKorea
Omono
Ok, I’ve pretty much finished wiring it out. There may be a few loose ends I might need to do, and I’m sure I’ve jostled some twigs out of position while doing the upper parts, but this this how it looks:
And as a reminder, here is the “before” picture:
And as a reminder, here is the “before” picture:
BunjaeKorea
Omono
Very nice . It looks like it has some good age for a Western tree. 35-40?
No, closer to 20. I bought in the fall of 2012. So, I’ve had it 7 years. It was rough stock, just out of the ground from Telperion Farms. They grew it maybe 12 years in the field? They let a sacrifice get 15 feet tall to build the trunk. The wound is still callousing over. It still had a second sacrifice branch on it when it was shipped to me. I kept it for a couple years before I removed it.
BunjaeKorea
Omono
Oh that makes a lot lot of sense then. It really is the fastest way to do it. Ground growing just can't compare with growing in a pot which as you well know stunts growth speed like mad.
Saw a Boon vid the other day. He cracks me up. Is he originally Thai?
Yes. He goes back there once a year to visit his mother, and give classes.
BunjaeKorea
Omono
There are some very good bonsai nurseries in Thailand.
Dav4
Drop Branch Murphy
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Yeah, Adair... great work and another very nice pine in your stable. Jeez... now you've got me hooked on JWP, too! I've only got one and they're kinda like potato chips...
I gave it a good watering, a tweet or two, and it’s back on the bench.
The pot’s too big. I repotted three years ago, gave it a HBR, on the left side. There weren’t many roots on that side. The right side is still in Julian’s turface.
I’ll repot next spring. Finish the HBR.
Setting the pads, and particularly the tips is tricky. What you don’t want to do is turn them straight up, or even sharply up right at the end. Lots of people think that’s the way it’s done. And, I’ll be honest, I did, too, back in the day. No, it’s far more subtle. You want to have the twig come down off the mother branch, then slightly curve upwards about halfway between where it starts to the tip. At the end, the bud should be facing out, just barely above horizontal. And do it in such way it looks natural, and not perfectly uniform.
Mind you, it will look it’s best when next year’s growth comes in.
This tree is still young. The trunk is just beginning to develop “flaky” bark. It needs that to extend up into the apex to develop a mature look. And, I’m hoping the trunk will fatten up, too!
The pot’s too big. I repotted three years ago, gave it a HBR, on the left side. There weren’t many roots on that side. The right side is still in Julian’s turface.
I’ll repot next spring. Finish the HBR.
Setting the pads, and particularly the tips is tricky. What you don’t want to do is turn them straight up, or even sharply up right at the end. Lots of people think that’s the way it’s done. And, I’ll be honest, I did, too, back in the day. No, it’s far more subtle. You want to have the twig come down off the mother branch, then slightly curve upwards about halfway between where it starts to the tip. At the end, the bud should be facing out, just barely above horizontal. And do it in such way it looks natural, and not perfectly uniform.
Mind you, it will look it’s best when next year’s growth comes in.
This tree is still young. The trunk is just beginning to develop “flaky” bark. It needs that to extend up into the apex to develop a mature look. And, I’m hoping the trunk will fatten up, too!
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
That is very nice, thanks for sharing the wiring journey!
leatherback
The Treedeemer
Excellent work! Such a transformation. Congratulations on another amazing tree on your benches.
Just makes me giggle thinking that there are people who do not wire
Just makes me giggle thinking that there are people who do not wire
