AusBonsai

Hey There fellow Bonsaiers,
I am fairly new to Aus Bonsai. I have a slight styling issue with a Hinoki Cypress
I hhave had in my collection for a few years. I bought it cheap about 4 years ago as pot stock from a nursery because I though it was a bargain for $30.00 as the person that worked there had been there for a long while, and remembers it from when they started about 9 years prior.
Sadly, I have been toying with a few ideas, but none of them seem to grab me. This year I feel it is high time to do a bit of work to it? But what?
I am hoping that a few of you could help me out with a possible virt to help this poor thing along??

I hope the pic is good enough to work with??

Pweeeeeese help me



Thanks,
Mac

Hi Mac,
Hinoki cypress are a tricky species to work with as they don't backbud on hardwood, they can be very thirsty tree unlike other conifers, needing a bright spot, but direct strong sun can damage their foliage, without the adequate lighting you can get a lot of dieback of foliage or even worse branches. Their soft foliage can also be tricky to maintain, I think the key is to remember to continually pinch in growing season otherwise you get leggy branches.
With yours I don't know if its just the pic but I think the tree might be due for a repot I think mid spring is best, get it nice and healthy before a major restyling if that's what you had in mind. I find wiring can be done any time of the year and it has to be done several times for the branches to set, so keep persisting with that too.

I would suggest to maybe get a few more pics of different angles it will help to make any comments regarding styling.

Good luck,
Elias

macros heres one idea. sorry about the size not sure what went wrong there.

Hey Eliast,
Thanks for the tips, I know Hinoki can be a bit tricky, but I suppose if we don't try, we don't know?

Hey Ant,
Thanks for the Mame Virt (LOL), bloody computers are meant to make things easier

These are some ideas I thought of replicating??






Thanks, and keep up the good work,
Mac.

Hey Guys,
Thought I would put a few pics up of some of my other trees aswell

This is my Juniper squamata, I'm still undicieded of what to do with the pom pom on top?
This is my Japanese Maple Forrest wich still needs work, but is getting there

And this is my first pine, its a Japanese red pine, a bit of a stick in a pot at the moment, but I will feed it up over
the next growing season in a bigger pot

Please feel free to comment


Thanks,
Mac

Re your juniper.... I feel it is getting too tall and you need to reduce it. Therefore, I would remove the pompom and work on a lower silhouette. This will enhance the trunk and give the tree an older look. Start from the top and go down the trunk looking for a branch that can be wired up for a new leader and alter your styling from there.

I find one of the most common faults in bonsai is the enthusiastic enthusiast lets the tree grow upwards until the height is out of proportion to the design and the trunk width and cutting the tree back can open a number of possibilities for an older more interesting tree.

The maple forest is coming along well. When you repot I would like to see the 'path' area moved just a bit away from the centre and slanted and curved so there is mystery there. Consider getting a very young maple and positioning it with the group of 4 just to the right of centre. I like a lot of the positioning but just feel it needs to be fine tuned a bit. Also, on your alpha tree, it looks as tho it has two arms reaching towards the gods, remove one to remove the symmetry.

I am only learning pines and you need someone else to go into the pine but my first thought is get raffia and wire on it and put some strong movement into that long stretch of straight trunk. The tree is getting too too leggy and pines don't shoot back on old wood. You could consider using the current header as a sacrifice branch and working with the lower left branch as your eventual tree. But again, I am not really knowledgeable with pines having only just brought two into my collection but this tree needs urgent work before it gets away from you.

Hi Macros, I would start by wiring the tree and layer it into pads they are great trees to work on i have attached a pic of the only one i have after wiring

as usual its the wrong way round

hey macros. im new to the site so hi guys. ive just been going over the threads and this one i felt like i needed to say something.
i am only a junior to bonsai compared to some, but lookingf at the j. squamata with the pom pom, i think with just the removal of that will give the tree a much better look. more of a tree image.
the foliage is thick enough to wire into pads, with some careful placement of the pads a nice image will emerge.


kindest regards

jamie