Becoming Shimpaku

[Mojo Moyogi]

Back in late 2008, I was lucky enough to get hold of 25-30 fairly mature Juniperus procumbens 'Nana" in grow bags for the tidy sum of $40 each. In the years since, I have repotted, styled and sold the majority, killed a couple and the other 6 or so are in what could be termed a "shabby" state. Still living in the same grow bags that they have been in since 2005/06.

What harm can nearly a decade between repots do anyway .

Fast forward to Monday this week, I found a couple of archived pics of a couple of the aforementioned ProNanas, I immediately realised that I still had those 2 trees out the back.


Theses pictures are from way back in August 2010.

10.8.2010 005 web.jpg

10.8.2010 007 web.jpg

10.8.2010 009 web.jpg

So why is this tread titled "Becoming Shimpaku"? I'm just getting to that

Cheers,
Mojo

[Mojo Moyogi]

So here are the trees today, January 2016

The first tree, hereafter known affectionately as Pro Nana #1, is in pretty poor condition. It has been in an overcrowded area for the last 12-18 months, depriving it of sunlight and causing foliage on the inner branches to die off. Oh yeah, and it has had little better than survival feeds for the last few years, hasn't been repotted since John Howard was running the show and has probably caused many insect pests to say "screw that, I'm eating the Tridents". Pro Nana #1 is currently 70cm tall.

20.1.2016 007.jpg

20.1.2016 009.jpg

The second tree, hereafter known as Pro Nana #2 (pat yourself on the back if you guessed it right), is equally as poorly looked after as it's mate. The tree is currently at 55cm tall.

20.1.2016 008.jpg

20.1.2016 010.jpg

Now lets cut to the whole point of this thread. I could spend the next 2-3 years getting these trees back into good health, pushing foliage back into the interior of the trees, imparting some kind of pleasing design on them and getting them into a bonsai pot, transitioning them from poor bonsai stock to bonsai. And I hope to do all of that. But also I intend to replace the J.procumbens 'Nana" foliage of both of these trees by grafting Shimpaku onto them.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

More soon.

Cheers,
Mojo

[treeman]

Good on you for giving this a go Mojo. I look forward to seeing the progress. If you feed well now you can start grafting in March April?

[Mojo Moyogi]

Hi Treeman,

I have a few options in my plan and I'm yet to 100% decide which way to go. You are definitely right, both Pro Nanas need to gain strength before grafting happens. This is also true of the material that I am going to graft onto them. Plenty to consider I am not bothered by how long this process takes to execute, I might be looking at (another) 5 year project.

The first step, regardless of how I go about the work ahead, was to clean up all of the dead foliage.

Pro Nana #1

20.1.2016 011 web.jpg

20.1.2016 012 web.jpg

That looks a little better, I already think that Pro Nana #1 has a lot more going for it than #2. Better movement and taper.

Pro Nana #2

20.1.2016 002 web.jpg

20.1.2016 003 web.jpg

The silly attempt at an apical jin and dull straight trunk on #2 is bothering me, this one is going to need some serious re-invention to be a nice tree.

Cheers,
Mojo

[Jow]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1453350492.010764.jpg

I think grafting shimpaku onto junipers with poor foliage characteristics is a totally underutilised technique. Here's a pic of a graft that took on one of Webos's trees. A bunch more to go to re-cloth it but it will go from a nice trunk with crappy foliage to a killer tree in hopefully only a few years.

[treeman]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1453350492.010764.jpg

I think grafting shimpaku onto junipers with poor foliage characteristics is a totally underutilised technique. Here's a pic of a graft that took on one of Webos's trees. A bunch more to go to re-cloth it but it will go from a nice trunk with crappy foliage to a killer tree in hopefully only a few years.

It will still take 10+ years but if you don't make a start it will take a lot longer!

[Mojo Moyogi]

Hi Joe, how are things going?

I think grafting shimpaku onto junipers with poor foliage characteristics is a totally underutilised technique.

Amen to that

Does Webos have a thread on here that shows the tree? I'd be interested in having a look.

Cheers,
Mojo

[Mojo Moyogi]

Is it this tree?
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3376&start=0

Cheers,
Mojo

[Jow]

Hey mojo.
I don't think that is the same tree but it's similar. I'll let Webos chime in if he wants.

It has a lot of grafts to go but it has a good branch structure already so only needs it's foliage changed which I think might be achievable in 5 years worth of lots of grafts. 10-20 a year.