AusBonsai

Hi

I dug this juniper from my parents garden about a month ago...still alive, although quite a bit of browning of the foliage. I've been giving it regular Seasol, so fingers crossed it pulls through. I'll let it recover for about a year, but I was looking for some ideas for styling later down the track. I'm not sure of the exact variety. It was growing next to a west wall of a garage so all the growth is on one side. It would be around 25 to 30 years old I think.

The trunk at the base is about 100mm in diameter and from the top of the pot it is about 1m high. The big, thick branch is approximately 60mm thick. A couple of the lower branches are dead, but I've left them on for potential jins.

Sorry about the poor picture quality...phone photos.
Edit: changed title

Windswept?
Great material, trunk needs some movement though.

Consider a bigger pot for grow out?

The straight trunk with no branches down one side is a bit of a problem. 2 possible solutions are:
- angle the trunk 45 degrees to the side with the branches and get some sort of windswept.
- angle the trunk 90 degrees (i.e. along the ground) and create a formal raft with the branches. Since the heaviest branch is in the middle this could become the primary trunk in the raft. You'd need a big pot though!

Matt.

Charliegreen wrote:trunk needs some movement though.

Why? ^^^





I wouldnt be planning anything for this tree's future in the way of design or artistic direction, Ive found this to be a curse with collected material. I would focus on the horticultural side of planning if anything. Judging by the pot youve got this juni down into, there isnt that big of a rootball?

I would go thru that canopy and remove all the dead/dying sh*t so the foliage can breath and the light can penetrate the internal buds and give this tree a fighting chance. Basically youre gonna have to match the weight of the foliage with the root ball otherwise the translocation is out of whack.

Good luck and all the best.


Also, this tree is begging to be a classic formal upright.

I would not even think of worrying about styling yet
Give it 2 years at least IMHO unless it proves Very vigorous this year.

Straight trunk, Foliage on one side only, No problem there. Just think outside the box
Think tall, top Jinned above the foliage which hangs down lower. Plently of photos in the web for inspiration.

Ken

Thanks for the advice so far. Good ideas. Ive been trimming the dead foliage back but finding the time is proving problematic. Those photos are actually about a month old. It's going ok, but still quite brown in some areas. As I said, I wasn't planning on doing anything other than keeping it alive for a good 12 months.

By the way, is seasol enough at this stage or should I be fertilising too?

No Fert, just seasol it's still trying to recover and get some roots etc fertilizer would burn the roots
peterb

If that were my tree I'd graft shimpaku onto that trunk and remove all the other branches and turn it into a lovely formal upright.

Andrew Legg wrote:If that were my tree I'd graft shimpaku onto that trunk and remove all the other branches and turn it into a lovely formal upright.

You would have to remove all the branches to achieve that as the large one will have to go in order to make formal upright out of it. Thatmeans grrafting on foliage then growing new branches.
Going to make it a very long term proposition.

you have a straight trunk with foliage on one side only which will cause challenges not easily surmounted.
I did a quick virt to show what this sort of material inspires in me.
Note the jin at top, will lead into shari all the way down the left side of the trunk rather than stoppin at the branch
think of tree that has been hit by lightning, and the top has died off

Ken

I think it would be a good idea to put this one in the corner of the yard and water as necessary. When it really starts pushing a lot of strong green healthy foliage, you'll know it's ready to be looked at. Let it grow and grow in order to establish a super strong root mass. I doubt it will be ready for heavy work until winter 2017. By 2016, it would have a lot of fine roots and probably be healthy, but they'd still be very sensitive and rip easily when the trunk is under pressure performing big bends etc. When healthy and well rooted in, this would be a good tree to take to a visiting demonstrator/workshopper to get a solid plan together and its structure set on the right path to becoming a bonsai.

Here's a photo of a tree which I dug 2.5 years (I think...hard to remember!)before the recent bjorn visit. It's now set up and ready for bonsai life but will still take another couple of years to get down to the pot size Id like and also begin the ramifying and building Beyond this very early stage work.
Adam

By the way, the above tree is built out of one single branch. You can see how straight this tree's upper trunk is. So don't be too concerned about the current branch structure, anything is possible.

kcpoole wrote:

Andrew Legg wrote:If that were my tree I'd graft shimpaku onto that trunk and remove all the other branches and turn it into a lovely formal upright.

You would have to remove all the branches to achieve that as the large one will have to go in order to make formal upright out of it. Thatmeans grrafting on foliage then growing new branches.
Going to make it a very long term proposition.

you have a straight trunk with foliage on one side only which will cause challenges not easily surmounted.
I did a quick virt to show what this sort of material inspires in me.
Note the jin at top, will lead into shari all the way down the left side of the trunk rather than stoppin at the branch
think of tree that has been hit by lightning, and the top has died off

Ken

Ooooooooo Ken, you're cheating cause you changed the angle of the branch!!! It's 90 degrees mate, and good luck bending that to 45 degrees

Complete replacement of foliage through grafting is common in Japan. Not sure why that's a problem.

It doesn't matter though cause we are allowed different opinions I just can't see that heavy right angle bend working well visually.

Good luck. Junipers are really hardy... Until you disturb their roots, and then they can just quit on the spot. I give it 20% chance of survival. I hope you can get it to pull through.... Keep updating with your efforts.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This might be a good opportunity to try something unconventional?

Hi there,

I'm with the "let it recover" crowd - at least a few years.

Once that's out of the way, this would definitely be a great candidate to produce something unique. I like Mike's sketch up for this but also think with material like this, anything is really possible.

Check out pictures of other Juni's with a similar trunk line and get some inspiration for yours too.

Cheers,
Mo