fortune favours the brave

[Jamie]

gday crew!

some of you may know I have recently moved into a new house. out the back was a garden bed that was pretty much over grown and a snake pit basically. so got some family around and got it torn out, there was a couple of juni that are amazing. they are rather large, one is around 90mm across dia. the other not much smaller.

heres a couple of pics

juni trunk1.jpg

juni 1 is procumbens I beleive. other wise it could be sqaumata.

juni trunk2.jpg

juni 2 is a shore juniper, I wish it was procumbens for the foliage but I will probably graft in a lot of procumbens or shimpaku depending what I can get. I would keep it as shore juniper but the foliage is quite difficult to work with as in getting pads on them look rather messy.

juni popping all over.jpg

as I said, fortune favours the brave !

I had some concern in completly removing all the foliage, but what it had was no good, all the inner growth was dead due to no sunlight. luckily I have had some success in getting them to pop. once they a lot of foliage on them I will air layer the shore juni as it has some great movement in it, the procumbens has a great section to layer aswell.
I know these trees are rather large and more than I could handle so it will be my cousin doing the digging. I really look forward to working with these airlayers once I have them off and growing!
I am tempted to put the air layers on now , but am sure if I do they would die. even if they dont survive I will have some great deadwood to work with to graft some whips onto!

[nealweb]

Whooooa amazing looking trunks! Look at the veins in that second one
Take your time, get 'em really healthy then layer them off and you could get some amazing material.
I didn't think of grafting different species onto juni's, with sections of that trunk and some nice shimpaku foliage and good nebari from a graft...you could get something special indeed

'onya Jamie, good luck with it

[roka]

They are fantastic champ.You shold have some fun with those. Im glad something good has finally come your way, you deserve it! do you think you can dig them out whole and put em in a huge pot, or are they just way too big, hard to judge by photo.

[daiviet_nguyen]

WOW! What a find!

I have book marked this topic Jamie. I am sure you can turn it into something beautiful.

Best of luck with these findings.

Best regards.

[Jamie]

gday

cheers boys, it was a nice surprise to find them. way to big for what I like, but in saying that like I said I can layer. there is a couple of sections that will be corkers. the shore juni would make a killer literati even after I layer the section I want off, which would be a finished height of around 30-40cm. any bigger and it gets hard for me.

plan is to water well, feed and get some strength, they have gone through a fair bit getting a trunk chop which is something that is not common. I have only heard of lindsay doing it with success. so I guess Im lucky there

and yea both can be dug. one is a little close to the rock work that has been cemented in, but should be accessable will wait for a little longer so they have some extension growth on it, then I know it will be reasonably strong

see what happens come spring, are temps are warming up and I am hoping this will bring a strong flush of growth and then they can come out mid summer with any luck

jamie

[kcpoole]

Jeez Jamie!
They are far to big for you and your crook back. I think you should let me take the off your hands

Awesome trees

Ken

[Jamie]

Jeez Jamie!
They are far to big for you and your crook back. I think you should let me take the off your hands

Awesome trees

Ken

to right there champ! thats why I plan to layer of a couple of sections! if they survive the dig, which Im unsure as to layer before I get them dug.. or wait to get them out then consider the layer.

Im sure we can work something out if your interested to do a trade for one of them, ofcourse they need to survive first. I would feel terrible if I got them out,sent one away and end up hearing it had died!!

jamie

[alpineart]

Hi Jamie nice trunks , but with a bad back you need to invite me up to dig them out and remove them from under your feet .Might take a while to layer with no foliage on them .. Cheers Alpine

[Jamie]

hehehe, seen this coming, everyone wants a piece

will be getting my cousin to do the heavy work. layering is easy on the back I will more than likely once I get the layers off (which as you have said will take some time without the foliage) I will more than likely be happy to trade whats left over. juni 2 has the most potential in the trunk after the layer. juni one is a little less favourable. I will get some other pics tomorrow to show other angles

[Jamie]

here is a quick idea of the trunk lines.

juni trunk1 line.jpg

juni trunk2 layer and chop.jpg

basically air layer is red. yellow is chop. blue is trunk line, purple would be a second option

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi Jamie,

I do not have any experience with yamadori juniper. But as you have said, my priority would be to ensure its health on the ground, get some foliage out and etc.

I am completely taken by the twisted trunk line. My heart did sink a little bit when you propose layering. Since your cousin is good enough to do some of the work for you, I hope your cousin can dig it out for you as well when the time is right. Then take the next step Jamie?

I remember reading the Master Series (by Stone Lantern, publisher of Bonsai Today) on junipers -- there are several trees of this caliber, and they manage the design as a whole.

Cheers Jamie

[Scott Roxburgh]

Great trunks mate, but why didn't you graft prior to removing all of the foliage?

[Chris Di Nola]

Thats all I have to say