AusBonsai

An update on some 2014-ish starts?

A couple came from Shibui.

I think they all need to go into bigger pots

Scott! Great to hear that you are still with us even if only occasionally.

The bends in those trees look good - quite random and natural looking. I see you have also started to add the beginnings of some shari. I've also been taking a little bark off each year to try to create more layered and natural looking shari.
No doubt that you would get some increased growth in these if they had a little more space to spread roots. I'm sure they would even appreciate being slip potted into larger pots even at this time of the year. I've done that a few times and they do respond. I figure I'll probably eventually prune the roots back to the size of the smaller pot anyway so it won't matter if some are tangled and going in odd directions around the edge of the current pots.

An update on some 2014-ish starts?

These came from Shibui as well. You can see how they looked when I first purchased them earlier in this thread, back in 2015. They are now all tight little balls of crazy shapes but it's hard to get a picture of how the trunks and major branches are looking as they are buried under all the foliage. Sharis have been started too, and I extend them every 6 months. The trunks are about as thick as my thumb. The plan now is to stop wiring new shoots into place and just let the extension shoots grow as they want to thicken everything up, especially the lower branches.

I've got about a dozen of these, but here are two of them.

Matt.

What a fantastic thread.
I'm still fairly new to ausbonsai, but this has to be the best I've come across... (Even though many others have bee extremely informative)
Hopefully, there are more updates on progress from the guys that began it over 10 years ago, as well as the newer ones.

I'm inspired to try and source some whips to curl up into little balls myself
I'll post some pics when I get some underway...


Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk

Here are a few more developing twisted trunk shimpku: More still in orchid pots to grow. Sacrifice branches galore to thicken lower trunks.

and a few more:
These were styled at Bonsai week last year (or maybe the year before?) Some more in grow pots with sacrifice branches......

And a couple that spent a few years in the grow beds. Now in 30 cm orchid pots

My tormented"Snow in Summer "with another rough wire job.

Great examples Neil, thanks for showing us.

A few weeks ago Bjorn Bjorholm did a great 2 part video on exactly this technique:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D__nos4lmiw

One thing he mentioned that I found interesting was that wild chinese junipers twisted both clockwise and anti clockwise on the same tree, and when putting in the first round of twists and bends he occasionally switches between the two. All mine are clockwise only!

Matt.

Bends all one way ends up as a corkscrew
It is possible to change the curve of the bends and prevent the real corkscrew but I learnt real quick to make some bends curve back the other way so combining clockwise and anti on the same tree. I've also tried to include some down and up curves as well. Plenty of change to make it look really random and natural.

Yeah, corkscrews are to be avoided. My bends are all random-ish (up, down, back on itself etc) with no corkscrews but before I bend I always twist the young branches a couple of turns so that any future sharis can follow the twists that I created. I'll start introducing occasional anti-clockwise twists but keep bending the same way I have been.

I have not found it necessary to twist one direction or to follow the twist when making shari. There may be live veins and dead parts in older trees but no such thing on younger stock.
All trees naturally send sap the shortest way possible between root and branch but they also have the ability to adjust sap flow to adjacent cells.
I've put many shari twists across and around these trunks as long as there is some continuous connection between roots and the branches it is OK. The only failure was when there was an already dead patch hidden under the bark that I did not notice but which meant the entire living connection to the upper half of the tree was severed.

Some air layers from one of my shimpaku stock trees.

Initially I was striking small cuttings then waiting a couple of years for them to grow before wiring and twisting. That approach had a number of drawbacks.
Then I discovered I could strike long thin cuttings and bypass the first growing bit. Saves a couple of years but I was still potting up the straight cuttings and waiting for them to settle into the pots before wiring and bending. Still not satisfied with the bends, especially down low on the trunks so I began wiring the rooted cuttings as I potted them on. Much better bends down low as the wire can be applied right from the roots and make bends closer to the base.
Still a couple of drawbacks. Cuttings can take a year or more to root sometimes and if I bend a little too far trunk snaps and I've lost that one.
Then I hit on this latest idea. Wire and bend long shoots on the stock plants. They grow faster with all the roots and energy from the large parent plant. Twisted shoots thicken to 1 cm in a year or 2. If I'm a bit careless while bending nothing but a bit of wire and a few minutes lost and there's plenty more shoots waiting. I can even wire and bend again after a year if I want more bends or longer trunk.
Now when I'm happy with the shape and size I can layer it off the parent in just a few weeks.

Anyone still growing these?

I'm having a crack with some junipers Jow, but only been wired about a year. Yours looks great. And this is a very valuable thread.

I just spent the morning reading through this post - great wealth of information. Thank you to everyone who posted.

I wonder though... it has been 14 years since the first post, so shouldn't there be a lot more twisty Shohin Shimpaku around? I haven't seen very many. The only ones I've seen have been from David Nassar at the Bonsai Northwest exhibition. I can only assume the owners have chosen not to show them at exhibitions.

I'm very much at the beginning stages of this process, and learning how to keep my trees alive and healthy (fighting off tip blight...). I have twisted up a few JBP and Shimpaku, just need to let them thicken now.