Juniper styling

[Alex_B]

Hi All,

I have a Shimpaku Juniper that I have been growing and I think it has gotten to a good size where I think I should trim some of the foliage and start styling it.

However, I am not sure what time of year is best for pruning foliage and wiring a Juniper.

I'd also like your opinions about styles. I was thinking about a semi-cascade or cascade style but would like some other opinions about that.

[Stu]

To make a better assessment of design options, a view of the trunk line and major branching would be handy. That said, you can do just about anything with junipers. Do whatever takes your fancy. I believe anytime is fine for pruning and wiring branches. Leave roots go until beginning of Spring though.

[shibui]

I work on junipers whenever I have time and a tree that needs work. There is some evidence that careless bending in summer when the tree is active can cause death of branches if the bark separates from the wood underneath. That does not tend to happen as easily in winter when the cambium layer is not as active.
Pruning any time. Pruning when the tree is active will get a rapid response and regrowth quick. It takes longer for the tree to regrow if it is dormant in winter but the result is still the same.

I can't offer any advice on a style for that tree as all I can see is a green blob which is normal for a juniper photo. At a workshop I would investigate the shape of the trunk and any branches under all that foliage before making any decisions.

Some bits of general advice though:
1. Cascade and semi cascade look great but are really hard to achieve good results. It has taken me many years and many tries to make a couple of satisfactory cascade junipers. Informal upright is much easier but if you are set on making cascade go ahead and try.
2. Your tree is very young. Beginners tend to rush into styling with immature plants. That usually results in immature looking bonsai. For many starting out that is OK, just don't expect world class, show stopper results from a skinny young tree.
I would normally start some bends in young trunks like this while they are still flexible enough to get good bends but then just allow them to grow to help thicken the trunk. Solid trunks give bonsai a sense of age and stability. Most of my shimpaku junipers are 10-15 years old before I really start to style them as bonsai.
3. Always find the best lateral roots before making and decisions on style. Nerbari (surface rootage) is important in bonsai. nothing worse than styling a lovely well proportioned tree then finding that the first roots are another 5cm in the soil making your great little bonsai look like a lollipop on a stick (yes I have done that ) or that the best roots are offset so the tree really would have looked better leaning the opposite direction

Take some time now to gently dig down near the trunk and look for roots. You don't have to stop at the first skinny one, you are really looking for a few thicker roots from all sides of the trunk as a better root base. There is no telling where that may be on a commercially produced tree even though the tag says bonsai.

[Alex_B]

Thanks for the replies.

I have attached a few more photos of the trunk and roots of the tree so hopefully they give a bit of a better few of it.

Some bits of general advice though:
1. Cascade and semi cascade look great but are really hard to achieve good results. It has taken me many years and many tries to make a couple of satisfactory cascade junipers. Informal upright is much easier but if you are set on making cascade go ahead and try.
2. Your tree is very young. Beginners tend to rush into styling with immature plants. That usually results in immature looking bonsai. For many starting out that is OK, just don't expect world class, show stopper results from a skinny young tree.
I would normally start some bends in young trunks like this while they are still flexible enough to get good bends but then just allow them to grow to help thicken the trunk. Solid trunks give bonsai a sense of age and stability. Most of my shimpaku junipers are 10-15 years old before I really start to style them as bonsai.
3. Always find the best lateral roots before making and decisions on style. Nerbari (surface rootage) is important in bonsai. nothing worse than styling a lovely well proportioned tree then finding that the first roots are another 5cm in the soil making your great little bonsai look like a lollipop on a stick (yes I have done that ) or that the best roots are offset so the tree really would have looked better leaning the opposite direction

Take some time now to gently dig down near the trunk and look for roots. You don't have to stop at the first skinny one, you are really looking for a few thicker roots from all sides of the trunk as a better root base. There is no telling where that may be on a commercially produced tree even though the tag says bonsai.

I am fully expecting that this tree is not going to be a showstopper haha but as the rest of my trees will probably be either informal or formal upright I thought I would have a crack at something different.

My main reason for wanting to style now is that the main branch is getting thick enough that it is no longer easy to bend. I tried giving the tree a bit of a bend today and there wasn't much give in the trunk. So I thought while I can still bend it a little bit I should probably start putting some sort of a design into it.

From when I have slip potted the tree it looks like there are some decent roots which you might be able to see in the images. I haven't trimmed the roots since I bought it so I was thinking of looking more closely at the root system this year when I give it a root prune.

[shibui]

The original photo did not give any indication of the actual size of the tree or the trunk. You are right to want to bend this now. Even at that stage you may have a battle to get good bends. I usually wire and bend shimpaku when they are less than 5 mm thick so I can get good tight bends and twists without too many breaks.
Thicker junipers are often wrapped before bending but your trunk has way too many shoots to wrap successfully so you will just have to do what you can or clean the lower trunk and wrap.
I can see it forks into 2 quite low. That's great because it gives you taper when one is eventually removed. It also gives you an insurance policy so when the first one snaps you can have the other as a backup for more gentle bending.
Some tips:
-let the tree get a little dry before bending. It does make a big difference to how flexible the wood is before snapping.
-twisting the section while bending seems to allow more bend as it takes the pressure off a single line through the wood as you make the bend.
-I can get better beds by staggering the bend over a couple of days. Day 1 bend to just before breaking. Leave it sit for a day or 2. Day 2 bend the same section further. I guess the plant cells and fibres have time to start adjusting to the new shape. I have been amazed at how much more bend I can get the second time.

The roots look good for informal upright, windswept, leaning or cascade styles. I concur with trying new styles and having something other than informals on the bench to look at. Cascade is still frustratingly difficult to get right so good luck.

[Alex_B]

The original photo did not give any indication of the actual size of the tree or the trunk. You are right to want to bend this now. Even at that stage you may have a battle to get good bends. I usually wire and bend shimpaku when they are less than 5 mm thick so I can get good tight bends and twists without too many breaks.

Sorry for the original photo not being great, I should start uploading more detailed photos from now on haha. Yeah the tree has thickened faster than I thought it would, I have only had it for just over a year and the trunk has almost doubled in size since then which I didn't expect.

Thicker junipers are often wrapped before bending but your trunk has way too many shoots to wrap successfully so you will just have to do what you can or clean the lower trunk and wrap.

I am a bit unsure what you mean by wrapping thicker junipers. Do you mean wire has already been wrapped around the trunk or is it something else? I intended to trim some of the foliage off and maybe a few branches as well as at the moment it has become a bit wild haha so I would like to clean up the trunk a bit before wiring and if wrapping the trunk will allow me to put in some good bends then I'm happy to do it.

I can see it forks into 2 quite low. That's great because it gives you taper when one is eventually removed. It also gives you an insurance policy so when the first one snaps you can have the other as a backup for more gentle bending.
Some tips:
-let the tree get a little dry before bending. It does make a big difference to how flexible the wood is before snapping.
-twisting the section while bending seems to allow more bend as it takes the pressure off a single line through the wood as you make the bend.
-I can get better beds by staggering the bend over a couple of days. Day 1 bend to just before breaking. Leave it sit for a day or 2. Day 2 bend the same section further. I guess the plant cells and fibres have time to start adjusting to the new shape. I have been amazed at how much more bend I can get the second time.

The roots look good for informal upright, windswept, leaning or cascade styles. I concur with trying new styles and having something other than informals on the bench to look at. Cascade is still frustratingly difficult to get right so good luck.

I didn't even think of the lower down fork as a good back-up incase I snap the trunk, it makes me feel a little more comfortable now that I know I can salvage something if all goes wrong Thanks a lot for all the tips I will definitely follow them especially the staggered bending one. I didn't think staggering the bends would allow me to get more bends out of them tree.

[terryb]

Thicker junipers are often wrapped before bending but your trunk has way too many shoots to wrap successfully so you will just have to do what you can or clean the lower trunk and wrap.

I am a bit unsure what you mean by wrapping thicker junipers. Do you mean wire has already been wrapped around the trunk or is it something else? I intended to trim some of the foliage off and maybe a few branches as well as at the moment it has become a bit wild haha so I would like to clean up the trunk a bit before wiring and if wrapping the trunk will allow me to put in some good bends then I'm happy to do it.

When making bends in thicker conifer material, the trunk or branches are generally wrapped with raffia before wiring and bending. The wrapping helps support the plant tissue during the bending process and avoid catastrophic breaks. You still need to be careful and listen for cracking etc while performing the bends. There is an example of how raffia is used here https://www.bonsaitree.co.za/blogs/tree ... like-brett. A search online should give you a guide of how to use raffia.

A number of other materials have been suggested for wrapping trunks prior to bending (bicycle inner tube, rope, tape to name a few) but you will need advice from those that have used these to see how useful they are.

[shibui]

Raffia is the traditional material used to bind a trunk for bending but newer materials are being used in some places. I've seen strips of rubber bike tube used by visiting Japanese demonstrators. I have used bale twine, jute string, electrical tape and vet wrap elastic bandage. Anything that is flexible enough to apply tightly in a spiral round the trunk will provide some support for the fibres as the trunk is bent.
Here's a series showing a bending a juniper about the size of yours using blue electrical tape

bend blue tape 1 - Copy.JPG

bend blue tape 2 - Copy.JPG

bend blue tape 3 - Copy.JPG

bend blue tape 6 - Copy.JPG

If you need more bend than the trunk will allow there's an additional step that allows the trunk to bend even more:

bend split trunk 3 - Copy.JPG

bend split trunk 4 - Copy.JPG

bend split trunk 5 - Copy.JPG

bend split trunk 6 - Copy.JPG

Because the trunk has been split it will bend much easier. The split won't hurt the tree and as it continues to grow the trunk will heal up and unite back together in the new shape.

[Alex_B]

Thicker junipers are often wrapped before bending but your trunk has way too many shoots to wrap successfully so you will just have to do what you can or clean the lower trunk and wrap.

I am a bit unsure what you mean by wrapping thicker junipers. Do you mean wire has already been wrapped around the trunk or is it something else? I intended to trim some of the foliage off and maybe a few branches as well as at the moment it has become a bit wild haha so I would like to clean up the trunk a bit before wiring and if wrapping the trunk will allow me to put in some good bends then I'm happy to do it.

When making bends in thicker conifer material, the trunk or branches are generally wrapped with raffia before wiring and bending. The wrapping helps support the plant tissue during the bending process and avoid catastrophic breaks. You still need to be careful and listen for cracking etc while performing the bends. There is an example of how raffia is used here https://www.bonsaitree.co.za/blogs/tree ... like-brett. A search online should give you a guide of how to use raffia.

A number of other materials have been suggested for wrapping trunks prior to bending (bicycle inner tube, rope, tape to name a few) but you will need advice from those that have used these to see how useful they are.

Thanks for the help, I didn't think you would have to wrap the branches with anything to support it but it makes sense that the thicker parts of the tree will need some extra support.

Raffia is the traditional material used to bind a trunk for bending but newer materials are being used in some places. I've seen strips of rubber bike tube used by visiting Japanese demonstrators. I have used bale twine, jute string, electrical tape and vet wrap elastic bandage. Anything that is flexible enough to apply tightly in a spiral round the trunk will provide some support for the fibres as the trunk is bent.
Here's a series showing a bending a juniper about the size of yours using blue electrical tape

Wow you got some impressive bends out of those thicker trunks, makes me feel a bit more hopeful that I haven't left it too late to start styling my tree.

Looks like I will be cleaning up the tree a bit before I start wiring it all together. I will make sure I take some photos of how the process goes, hopefully I don't get any sort of major break in the trunk

[shibui]

Just some clarification. Wrapping is not to support the trunk in the sense of holding it up or similar. When wrapped tightly the wood seems less likely to break because all the wood fibres are held in place. The wrap is tight enough so that if/when the trunk or branch does crack the bark is held in place. It makes the breaks less severe and because it is all held close together the torn edges heal up really quick and generally without visible scarring.
It is important that the wrap is firm on the bark. Not tight enough to cut of circulation but tight enough to hold everything in place.
Branch junctions are generally weaker points on any tree and will often split while we are bending. If you choose to leave branches protruding from a wrapped trunk as I did on the one shown that will also be the weakest points so be careful when bending. Note that I chose to put the most bend below that first branch to avoid stressing that area and in the split trunk example the bends are above the protruding branch.

[Alex_B]

Just some clarification. Wrapping is not to support the trunk in the sense of holding it up or similar. When wrapped tightly the wood seems less likely to break because all the wood fibres are held in place. The wrap is tight enough so that if/when the trunk or branch does crack the bark is held in place. It makes the breaks less severe and because it is all held close together the torn edges heal up really quick and generally without visible scarring.
It is important that the wrap is firm on the bark. Not tight enough to cut of circulation but tight enough to hold everything in place.
Branch junctions are generally weaker points on any tree and will often split while we are bending. If you choose to leave branches protruding from a wrapped trunk as I did on the one shown that will also be the weakest points so be careful when bending. Note that I chose to put the most bend below that first branch to avoid stressing that area and in the split trunk example the bends are above the protruding branch.

Thanks so much for the advice, I am definitely starting to see how bonsai is an art form with how intricate everything is. Seems like it might take a bit of practice to get the tape on just right but hopefully it works out well. I will post some photos of the finished product once I have gotten some bends in the trunk.

[Alex_B]

So I thought I would give a bit of an update after my first attempt at wiring a bonsai tree.

After pruning the foliage quite a bit and cutting some branches that were in the way I wrapped the tree in electrical tape and wired the trunk. The wiring probably won't win any awards but it looks like it is doing the job. I had to double wire the tree as higher up the trunk wasn't as thick so I thought I should probably use a smaller diameter wire for higher up, also I cut the other wire too early at first haha. I also made a bit of a mistake in not pushing the wire up against the trunk enough the first time so the extra wire has helped to keep it in place a bit more which is good.

I have attached a few images of the tree before and after wiring. I tried to stagger the wiring over a few days which definitely helped although lower down the trunk I couldn't get a a whole lot of bends in as it is a bit too thick.

I might keep trying to stagger some of the bends over the next few days but so far I am happy with how the tree is turning out. It's still got a while to go but I think at least the bottom part of the trunk has started to get some nicer character to it.

[terryb]

Much neater than many of the first attempts I've seen, so well done on that front and don't feel bad when your wire is too short, it happens to me too. A few suggestions for future wiring. Wire needs to be touching the trunk/branch for it to effectively hold the bends you put in. You will see from your second picture that there are gaps on the left hand side and at the base of the trunk between the wire and the trunk. To get the wire close at the base of the trunk, insert it directly next to the trunk at a 45 degree angle into the soil all the way to the bottom of the pot (or as deep as you can). Using your photo 2 I think the entry point into the soil should be on the left hand side of the trunk so that the first contact with the trunk is very low down. If you twist the trunk/branch in the direction you have wired (clockwise in your case) as you bend, the wire tightens further and helps hold the bends. The plant fibres also twist and you can get more severe bends into your material. Lastly, your tape looks rather loose, so I suspect it is not adding much support. It probably doesn't stick well to the trunk but should to itself, plus electrical tape has some stretch so you should be stretching it a bit as you apply. If you start nice and tight, you will find it easier to apply tightly.

[Alex_B]

Much neater than many of the first attempts I've seen, so well done on that front and don't feel bad when your wire is too short, it happens to me too. A few suggestions for future wiring. Wire needs to be touching the trunk/branch for it to effectively hold the bends you put in. You will see from your second picture that there are gaps on the left hand side and at the base of the trunk between the wire and the trunk. To get the wire close at the base of the trunk, insert it directly next to the trunk at a 45 degree angle into the soil all the way to the bottom of the pot (or as deep as you can). Using your photo 2 I think the entry point into the soil should be on the left hand side of the trunk so that the first contact with the trunk is very low down. If you twist the trunk/branch in the direction you have wired (clockwise in your case) as you bend, the wire tightens further and helps hold the bends. The plant fibres also twist and you can get more severe bends into your material. Lastly, your tape looks rather loose, so I suspect it is not adding much support. It probably doesn't stick well to the trunk but should to itself, plus electrical tape has some stretch so you should be stretching it a bit as you apply. If you start nice and tight, you will find it easier to apply tightly.

Thanks for the advice Terry!

I realised after I had put the wire into the soil that I perhaps should have changed sides as you are right in saying that the current position tends to not really hold the tree that well. The double wiring has definetly helped though so hopefully it should hold it alright, at least I know now for my next tree that I wire. You're also right in saying the tape isn't tight enough, I've already noticed after a few watering that the bottom of the tape has already become a bit loose but again hopefully it holds for a few months until I take the wire off.

[terryb]

The tape (or other binding) is only relevant in the area you are bending, it serves no purpose elsewhere, except maybe for protecting the bark in thin-barked species. Have a look at the examples Shibui posted above. See how he put the bends in the middle of the taped area? Your bend is at the top edge of the area you taped, so I'm not sure how much function it has. For the position of the bend you made, the ideal place to tape would have been from above the third branch (2nd photo) to half way down the part of the trunk you bent (1st photo). Just keep tweaking your method each time you try to find what works well for you.