Split in small Blaauw Juniper

[Lane]

Hi,

I noticed this split between the trunk and first branch last week.

I was hoping when re-potting next season to turn it on an angle and use it as the first branch, Is this repairable or should I cut my losses and chop it now?

As it is now there is no loss of colour or effect on the foliage at all, although I'm aware they are very slow to react.





Cheers

Chris.

[Raymond]

Grafting tape son. Wrap it nice and firm. simple. In years to come this will always be a weak point, so dont forget about it.

[Lane]

Thanks Raymond, I was hoping it would be something simple!

[shibui]

Looks like it has been split for some time. I think I can see callus healing the edges? Might be worth scraping the edges to get fresh cambium so it will join a bit quicker but even as it is it should join up in time if you hold the edges tightly together for long enough.

[split007]

Guys how tight should one wrap the tape and how long would you keep it on for? For example if someone was to say snap the main trunk of a Japanese white pine in training in half....hmm. ..not me[LOUDLY CRYING FACE]. Wrapped in tape 4 weeks ago and it has a huge amount growth above the FAULT LINE now, quite dense...am amazed.

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[treeman]

It's unlikely that the split will heal. Even if it does it will be very weak so your best option is to do nothing and let it grow as is.

[Jarad]

You could also create some shari and make a feature out of it. It's a young tree and has many years of growth ahead of it ( ).

Have a read of this thread to give you some ideas: How to grow good bonsai stock like the Japanese nurseries

[Raymond]

You could also create some shari and make a feature out of it. It's a young tree and has many years of growth ahead of it ( ).

Have a read of this thread to give you some ideas: How to grow good bonsai stock like the Japanese nurseries

Guys how tight should one wrap the tape and how long would you keep it on for? For example if someone was to say snap the main trunk of a Japanese white pine in training in half....hmm. ..not me[LOUDLY CRYING FACE]. Wrapped in tape 4 weeks ago and it has a huge amount growth above the FAULT LINE now, quite dense...am amazed.

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as long as possible. I have left grafting tape on for 18 months in the past. How tight? I usually pull on it every turn, just as it starts to stretch.

[Lane]

I will pick up some tape on the weekend on my travels, tape it up and hope for the best.

Cheers everyone.

[Jarad]

As it is now there is no loss of colour or effect on the foliage at all, although I'm aware they are very slow to react.

Also Chris, while bonsai are quite easy to kill they can also survive quite a lot of abuse.

[Lane]

[/quote]Also Chris, while bonsai are quite easy to kill they can also survive quite a lot of abuse.[/quote]

I hope so! My new house mate has a Jack Russell who is very well behaved but I came home to a couple of plants knocked over and it's no mystery who the culprit was....

[shibui]

Guys how tight should one wrap the tape and how long would you keep it on for?

Tape tightly. As Raymond said stretch the tape a bit as you wind it on and it will be just right. Leave it on until you see that the trunk is starting to bulge a tiny bit above or below the tape. Keep an eye on it because letting it bulge too much will make it look awful. take the tape off and check how things are going. If it is not healed properly put more tape on and leave it longer. Typically junipers need about 1 year to heal properly, sometimes longer but a young, vigorous plant might unite a bit quicker.

Putting this split back together is not actually necessary. You already know that it is not affecting the health of the tree and has already started to heal up. All it has really done is give a better branch angle. Might be just as well to leave it and work around it.

[Lane]

Hmmm, I was looking forward to trying my hand at it even for the practice and experience regardless of how simple a task it may be.

[paulpash]

I wouldn't advise cutting it off - Junipers generally need a lot of foliage to keep them vigourous and this branch constitutes about 60% of it's solar panels. You've not got a lot of options to create much in the way of a branch structure because it's still quite young. Keeping it in this pot it could be another decade til it puts out enough growth to get a complete branch structure set - if you're happy with that then great but if you want to cut this in half (and have fun restyling a bush) then ground grow and dig it in 5 years. In that time minimal pruning will be needed, just taking out anything that casts shade on inner buds / foliage. You can also wire out the long runners from the sacrifice branches and air layer, giving you more material you can style to keep or sell on for different stock.

I did this to an air layer on a large (4ft tall) piece of stock I've had in the ground 10 years now. This is it separated and put in a training pot and then styled:

Raw stock from air layer then ground grown, dug & put in a pot to stabilise for a season


Same stock a year on and styled - the roots will be addressed at repotting time and it'll get another thinning and fine wiring to better define & separate the pads


Good luck whichever path you choose.

[tgward]

if it was mine----------I would remove the left hand branch about an inch from the trunk and try striking it---the remaining stub could be later jinned and add interest to a smaller literati style tree