A new Twisted Seargents Juniper

[kcpoole]

Hi all

I several Twisted ( starter ) Junis, inspired by the post / Challenge of Jows' here in these threads,
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1281
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1307&hilit=+jow#p12385
and this is a link to my own where id twisted the starters, viewtopic.php?f=131&t=4120&start=0&hili ... +japan+jow .

Well I decided after seeing lots of other nice twisted, stunted, Snow flattened Junis in Europe, i thought I might do a larger one to hasten the process.
I also have dug a fairly large Juniper form my own garden recently, and after it recovers will need some serious attention and styling. So thought I might get some practice in Wrapping and bending larger stock.

I got a larger Juni in a larger pot from Ray, and last week Wraped it in Raffia. Put a 5 mm wire in with it between the layers, and then tonight final wire and Bent it

Soak the raffia in water, then wrap fairly tightly on the branch. Run a length of wire along the branch to help hold the shape. Finally wire the branch as normal then bend the Stuffing out of it

Enjoy
Ken

[ricardo]

any more pics of the final bending

[kcpoole]

Tonights effort was to wet the the raffia again, then apply wire and Bend
No real plan except to get the foliage and ends of the branch in tight with lots of twists and turns.
the more upright branch, ended up being the 1st branch and the thicker left one was the trunk leading up to the apex

Over the next year, I will let it go mad and see if it copes,It can put on heaps of terminal growth so i can work the final branch position next year maybe.
Next year too will get a repot, and the tree will need to be tilted to the right to bring the trunk to the correct line

After the raffia and wire comes off, then we can look at shari / deadwood or an exposed vein

Ken

[kcpoole]

any more pics of the final bending

too quick
Up now

[Jamie]

good work Ken!!

that has come out well, I like where it is going, I think in the long run the first right hand branch would probably turn into a jin later down the track. I will be keen to see how it all comes out in a couple of years I have a couple going at the moment that arent as big as this one, well to start with they werent, they were just whips, ten to fifteen mm thick, I put four together with some deadwood bits in and around them all, now its just grow grow grow

jamie

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi Ken,

Are you thinking of ground-grow them? How do we know when to take off the wires in this case?

Cheers

[kcpoole]

Hi Ken,

Are you thinking of ground-grow them? How do we know when to take off the wires in this case?

Cheers

No I will leave it in the pot as it is about 300 MM across so plenty of room to grow.
I will leave these wires on till next winter unless I get really good fast growth.
I assume the tree will slow down after its abuse so think that a good 9 months of wire will be required to set the branches

yeah Jamie it may well get jinned as there is not much thicker material to make Jin out of, and a Juni does need them I think, but no hurry yet.

Ken

[Mojo Moyogi]

I like your thinking Ken, dull tree + biceps = bonsai

Cheers,
Mojo

[bodhidharma]

Well done Ken and i am happy that you have used the "Sargenti" instead of the classic chinese juniper. It is under used in Australia but go to Japan and they are everywhere. Look forward to its progress.

[Chris H]

I prefer them to the other junipers cause they dont spike my fingers as much!

[Jamie]

gday guys

I reckon the shimpaku or sargeantii is a littl under used here in Aus aswell, in place a lot use squamata, I beleive the shimpaku are a much better variety of juniper as they get the tight scale foliage and give a much better finish to the trees, especially in this sort of style, the squamata's adult foliage when it gets it is some what coarser, but still good for larger trees.

I will try get some pics of the one I am working on mate

[aussie4bonsai]

Nice work it shows what you can achieve if you are game enough to try.

[Pat093]

that was come crazy bend-age lol

[Istari]

Do you have to use raffia? or is there a similar subsititute?

[kcpoole]

Do you have to use raffia? or is there a similar subsititute?

Anything that can supply tension to the branch will do
rubber Inner tube, Vet tape, Electrical tape,

I used Raffia, as I wanted to keep the small shoots allover the branches before bending and with raffia it is easy to work around them

Ken