AusBonsai

Little gangly juniper squamata.
Just wanted to play a bit on cheap material.
Yep, not the right time of year. No root cutting done, Just teased out a bit.
Cut off one small branch.
Lots of bends and corkscrews to compress it in.
Fun exercise.

I think that little tree has gotten more attention from my wife and kids than any other so far. They really like it.
Size is so easy to move around as well.
Will be doing more of those.

In the past few years I've been going to the bonsai nursery each year and buying half a dozen $5 trees. I'm finding I'm getting a lot more value out of these smaller trees. If I try something and it doesn't work, I just chop it off and it grows back. Everything about them is so much easier to work with. I have enough "5+ years to develop" trees just going through the regular cycle, I want to push myself and learn more.

I also love being able to pick them up in one hand and look at them from all angles.

Your tree is looking very happy, I'm sure in spring you'll get a nice flush of growth and have plenty to work with. Nice job on the styling, I like it

I think that’s a great approach. Lean and explore without spending a bomb. And If I get too many they make nice gifts.

Spring growth coming through.

Bit of a haircut today and fine tuning branch placement and the apex. Starting to get a feel for where I want the future of this to go. Probably leaning into a semi cascade to the left. I think the right branch is a bit heavy and I could Jin it but I’ll let it grow out again and make more decisions later.
Fun to work with this size.

Have been surprised at how quickly this one has been growing.
I’ll do more like that next year but will be leaving purposeful, sacrifice branches to thicken the base.

It's filling in nicely. I think juniper really enjoy the Sydney weather. My squamata filled the large pot with roots in the past 12 months since I did the previous repot. It would be interesting to see how you balance pot size and growth. I've intentionally given mine space and still feed it a lot, chasing a thicker trunk.

Agreed Tim, Sydney weather is good for juniper. Any Juniper I have just seems to keep kicking along regardless of what I do to it. Sometimes I think “am I going too far?”
Nope.

I may even put this one back into a grow pot next year and let some sacrificial branches run. They can always become Jin on a juniper. But will see how the trunk thickens over the rest of the growing season into autumn.

I’ve added a bit of Shari to the lower trunk for a couple reasons. To add some interest to an otherwise straight section and to hopefully add some thickness to the base with the callousing.
I’ll see how this responds and potentially bring the Shari further up along the trunk line later on.
Will see how it goes.