How to grow good bonsai stock like the Japanese nurseries

[treeman]

Oh and here are a few more pictures from my last trip to japan around a year ago to get the the inspiration flowing again.

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A very cool Euonymus

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A small but very achievable sized something or other. I think i could grow something similar in 2-3 years from seed Maybe less?

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Another very cool small tree. Again this would only take a few years to produce from seed and what a great result.

They are very nice Jow. The only thing I would say is that you can make them even better by twisting-growing-cutting back-starting a new leader-twist-grow-cut back. It takes longer but if you do it 2 or 3 times you end up with a twisted tree with taper in the trunk as well which to my eyes looks a little more natural or balanced or stable..
I'm doing it with some tridents but not so heavily twisted. With junipers its not so important I guess but still desirable.
Regardless, if starting from a juniper cutting it will take...2 years before first wiring, 1 year for it to set, another year for the second wiring to set, 2 more years to thicken to 15-20mm diamater and another 2 after that to have a nice bushy canopy and some jin and shari.
Maybe you could rush a 5 year tree but 2 to 3 is really pushing it. I have some ground grown junipers which wired (but not as mame type sizes with extreme bends) Some are just now reaching about 25mm dia at the base. (about 7 or 8 years) Most are less than this. Although I did do the induced taper thing which takes longer.
All in all, I think 6 years min to have a juniper worth looking at.
I guess that is still not bad if you consider there are trees out there which look the same as they were 30 years ago.

[shibui]

how do I keep foliage close to the trunk on branches I decide to keep while letting the sacrifice branches run and potentially shade out the keepers? Should I expect to graft foliage on in the future?

I agree with Jow's comments and with Treeman's. Wiring and bending alone will give movement but does not give the trunk taper. Pruning and regrowing produces both movement and taper.
However excessive taper does not seem to be a feature of junipers. Neither is huge nebari. I guess that in the mountains the wild junipers do not really develop either of these so bonsai growers do not focus on them either. The aspects they seem to feature most is dead wood and contorted shapes that reflect the very harsh environment they grow in.

You can get some taper with sacrifice branches. I've been letting a couple of branches on each of mine grow freely. There always seems to be plenty of smaller ones that you can use to can make the tree later. Sometimes the strong sacrifice branches start to take too much from the rest of the tree. If I think the desirable parts are weakening I either cut off one or more of the sacrifice branches or prune some of the foliage off. Instead of cutting the sacrifice branches short I prefer to cut off the foliage closest to the trunk and leave a tuft of foliage at the ends. That will allow light to the shoots closest to the trunk while still leaving the sacrifice branch to add bulk to the main trunk.

re treeman's comments: I have been rooting 20-30cm long juniper cuttings which can be wired and twisted at around 1 year old but that suddenly makes them just 5-10 cm tall Young stems like these only take a month or so to set but then another year for the trunk to grow long enough to wire again. Rewire and bend, wait another year then repeat, etc. The earliest trees I have done this to were started when Jow first posted this thread so now around 5 yo and now 20-30 cm tall and 2cm trunk thickness so I certainly do agree

All in all, I think 6 years min to have a juniper worth looking at.

.........and probably more.

Note that all this is guesswork at the moment and I will no doubt modify my approach over time. I have yet to produce good bonsai from the trees I have twisted. They are still developing and are frustratingly slow to develop - even in the ground they take for ever to thicken.

A couple of months ago I selected a couple to start refining.

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I have left some of the better trunks to develop more before starting the refinement process.

[Ces]

Thanks for the replies guys, in particular Jow and Shibui. I apologise Jow, I had forgotten this was your thread (which I could've easiy looked at ) but nevertheless I really appreciate the input of two men experienced with the early nursery life of bonsai.

I shall follow your advice everyone. Thank you.

Cheers,

Ces.

Edit: I would like to add that these techniques were originally set out by Jow to grow mame or small shohin sized trees. Some of mine I was a little more gentle on and will probably be better served by growing on and letting the bends fill in through thickening the trunk. Others that were twisted more severely will still be designed as small trees.

[Jow]

Hi all,

The growth Shibui has achieved is great and demonstrates that a good caliper can be achieved in 5 years.
The above picture is from an earlier post showing the scale of these trees showing that for the most part 5 year junipers need to be on the small end of the scale to really look effective.

Shibui' trees are 3-4 time larger than this example. If you combined Shibui's trunk diameter with more compact bends you would have very thick compact mini/shohin trees.

As is, he has larger stock with some nice movement that may require a few more years continued development before the are bonsai pot ready. That said if they are styled as bunjin trees with some Shari I think they will make nice bonsai. I wonder if you could compact the bends further? Anyway I am getting off track now.....

The moral of the thread is to bend early and bend tightly. Using fast growing deciduous and evergreen species should produce even faster and or thicker results.

Joe.

[Nate.bonsai]

Shibui, although they may be painfully slow to thicken and develop, they look very, very promising.


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[shibui]

I wonder if you could compact the bends further?

I have noticed that the trunks I have already put bends into are far easier to bend subsequently. I can rewire the previously bent trunks and bend them further with far less wire and effort than would be required to put a bend into a similar sized never before bent trunk. I will have to go out and see if any of the ones I have look like they have potential to compress further into really small trees.
Next step will be to get far more adventurous with the initial bending to see if I can produce some that are a little more like Jow's picture. Here are some of the lucky candidates

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[benny350]

This blog contains some good info, although it does need to be translated. Lots of progressions across a wide variety of species with the techniques shown for how he gets his results. Pretty interesting stuff, lots of binding trunks with wire to cause swelling.

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/ ... oGWTT-Fg9A

[Scott Roxburgh]

In the spirit of tight curves I have this little cutting grown shimpaku that has been "going into a bigger pot" for about 3 years now. As you can see it hasn't and it itsnt anywhere near the thickness of shibui's.

I'm thinking it's about time to start some shari, but not sure if it should go inside or outside of the curves? Thoughts?

Also some pines that might have even gone backwards last year.

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[Jow]

Shibui, I've also wondered whether it's worth wiring sections of the sacrifice branches and then layering and or using that as pre-wired cutting stock. Thoughts?

[shibui]

Shibui, I've also wondered whether it's worth wiring sections of the sacrifice branches and then layering and or using that as pre-wired cutting stock. Thoughts?

While I was looking at these in the past couple of days I was thinking the same thing. I have a couple where I wired several of the main branches - just to give me more options in case 1 turned out better than the others. A few of them look like they might be worth trying to layer or even strike as cuttings and are already 6-10mm thick. That's probably a 3 year head start. The biggest difficulty with these really contorted trunks is finding some space to actually put a layer onto the trunk.

I have compressed the curves on a couple of the original trees. Also rewired and compressed some of last year's attempts and wired up a couple of the newer ones and really tied them up in knots. Hope some turn out ok.

I'm thinking it's about time to start some shari, but not sure if it should go inside or outside of the curves? Thoughts?

Was also looking at mine in relation to shari Scott. I think mostly on the inside of curves. That way the space inside the curve is preserved while the outside continues to thicken and thus accentuate the curve. If you shari outsides of curves that bit stops growing but the inside of the curve continues to thicken and eventually the curve will disappear.
I tried a couple of small sharis on mine today and found it is quite difficult on thinner trunks. The bark is still quite thick so you need to remove a fair bit of the circumference of the trunk to get anything worthwhile. I think a thinner shari would just heal over in a few months so probably not worth doing so I think I'll leave them to get a bit thicker before any carving attempts.

[treeman]

I think we are pretty much all on the same page. Jow, do they grow their junipers in the ground in Japan? I have found that the growth put on in the ground is not much different with what I can get in the pot. Although this might have something to do with the soil. I'm thinking of making some sand (with a bit of organic) beds for the junipers. They seem to grow much better in sand than soil. Even potting mix does not give me the same results regardless of how course the particles are. The best root growth I have seen on junipers was in river sand with maybe 5 to 10% soil in it. No organics at all!
Shibui, another consideration; What is a juniper which has been grown for 5 or 7 years, wired 3 times and jined and sharied worth?

[shibui]

Shibui, another consideration; What is a juniper which has been grown for 5 or 7 years, wired 3 times and jined and sharied worth?

I have been wondering that myself. Need to allow for the time, effort, materials and expertise. Allow for not all of them to be successful and add bit more because stock like these are quite hard to find..........
I currently have some of the culls available for $50 each if anyone is interested.

[Steven]

Hi Steven,

I'm glad you had such a great time at the convention. I've only just caught my breath and I'm full of ideas and enthusiasm.

You mentioned you spent some time talking to Koji about creating Shohin from scratch. Any chance you could start a thread and share some of what you learnt? I have half a dozen juniper cuttings I bought just for this purpose and I'd love to get some pointers.

Matt.

Following on from my post in THIS THREAD and Matt's reply quoted above, below is a summary of Koji Hiramatsu's advice for creating shohin from scratch. He was specificity referring to Pine or Juniper but most can be used for any species.

• Minimum 5 years and up to 10 years is required to create high quality shohin material before styling.
• Start with thin cuttings or young seed grown material.
• Grow in pots to control the tree easier.
• Work the roots first to ensure even radial growth and no tap root.
• Wire early. Ensure there are NO straight sections. Put exaggerated bends into the trunk and all branches. Bends should be forwards and backwards as well as side to side. AVOID CORKSCREWS. Movement should start right from the base of the trunk and the beginning of branches.
• Let the trunk and branches grow freely after the wired section. This creates the energy to fatten the trunk and branches.
• Let any low branches grow freely and uninhibited to act as sacrifice branches. These will cause the base to fatten and create taper.
• Maintain the centre foliage (Close to the trunk) and the outer foliage on branches. The centre foliage will be used for the future tree and the outer foliage creates the energy for growth. Removing the foliage in the middle of branches allows light to get into the centre foliage.
• Shari (dead wood on the trunk) should be started as a thin (>5mm) line in early Spring. It can be increased by 2mm to 5mm twice a year in early Spring and early Summer. This lets the bark grow in between cuts causing a textured and natural shari.
• If shari is done on the front and back at the same time it will make the trunk or branch fatten sideways. With practice this can also be used to create movement in straight sections.
• When shortening or removing branches turn them into deadwood (jin) first and if they are not required they can be removed later.

Regards,
Steven

[Guy]

In the spirit of tight curves I have this little cutting grown shimpaku that has been "going into a bigger pot" for about 3 years now. As you can see it hasn't and it itsnt anywhere near the thickness of shibui's.

I'm thinking it's about time to start some shari, but not sure if it should go inside or outside of the curves? Thoughts?

Also some pines that might have even gone backwards last year.

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how did you attach those pots to the wall

[bonsaisensation]

Hi guys
I wonder if anyone who participated in this since 6 years ago now, can do a bit of a show and tell? I'd like to see where everyone is up to now with producing better bonsai stock.


Regards


Tien