AusBonsai

Found this juniper a bit over a year ago, its grow pot was deep in a pile of weeds in the back paddock of the local bonsai nursery. it was extremely unhealthy and looked like it had been in a bush fire.
I had been looking for a trunk that suited literati, so despite knowing i shouldn't buy a plant so unhealthy, it came home with me with a couple slightly healthier specimens for a total of 42 dollars... I immediately halved the roots, it then went into a colander with some big blue fertilizer pills and into the ground for 12 months to gain some vigor.
at about the 6 month mark, once all the tiny unhealthy loking foliage had been replaced, i started branch selection, jinned a few old branches, tightened some bends and started cleaning away at the natural shari from the base, that i think was caused by the before mentioned bushfire.
And about a month ago it went into this cheap blue pot my girlfriend picked on a trip to europe.
I had origanaly been styling it as more of an up right, but after getting into the roots, i think this is the only suitable potting angle... give or take a few degrees either way.
the crazy bends you can see from its current front are a bit of an illusion but i like the tree none the less.
hopefully it survives the coming winter, and then i will get stuck into refining the remaining branches to build a convincing canopy.

thanks for looking, and as always criticism and critique is welcomed.

I like these little things. The wilder the better as far as I'm concerned. You might want to stop extending it now and work it more into a settled mass. Nice

Very nice
for me a little mor variation in the shape of the curves as they are too similar smooth. A few kinks will make it a little more dramatic

Ken

thanks treeman, i like them too, i was going to try keep all the branches moving that way to give it a real windswept look, but with hard to work needle foliage and with the jins moving in the same direction, im not sure if that makes much sense anymore. so i think refining them into a more traditional juniper/pine 'triangle' shape would be the way to go..
and thanks ken, id love to put some kinks in there somewhere, but i believe the tree is a fair bit older than it first seems so everything back from where my wire starts is set like stone... and the large Shari means i couldn't put anymore movement in that section even if i wanted too. mite be worth thinking about when im more confident with my skills though.
the best thing about this tree is that the bends and angles change so drastically depending on the viewing angle... plenty of possibilities.

Mbunro wrote:thanks treeman, i like them too, i was going to try keep all the branches moving that way to give it a real windswept look, but with hard to work needle foliage and with the jins moving in the same direction, im not sure if that makes much sense anymore. so i think refining them into a more traditional juniper/pine 'triangle' shape would be the way to go...

Maybe more like 2 very flat (shallow) domes rather than one triangle?

thankls for the suggestion mike. Just having a hard time visualising what your saying...
do you mean kind of like this?

Nice little tree you have, love the movement in the trunk.
I would be going with more flat longer pads, and have like 3 or 4 of them rather than 2 big clouds.
Something like this (I know it's an entirely different tree but something similar)

I love the trunk however both jin's detract from the line of the trunk, I would prefer to see perhaps carefully placed shari along the trunk line and if you wish to use jin's then my choice would be to include them down among the foliage pads.

just my 2c worth

Cheers,
Jeff

thanks for the advice Jeff. I was always unsure about the jin closest to the foliage, but the other one was part of the plan from the very beginning so iv grown a little bit attached. But il leave that decision until i have the foliage pads under control

Hi Mburno,

Are you able at all to tighten the bend between the two jins? This would in turn bring the foliage in closer for a more compact tree if you like that idea.

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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Thanks for everyone's advice.. after taking it all into consideration I ended up turning the last 10 cm of trunk back on itself, bringing the furtgest extending left branch from the original photo all the way back to the right I also brought the lowest left facing branch back to the right to fit the new canopy... Still not super happy but Il try not to touch it again until after winter

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at the moment it looks great but from one angle only - the first large sweeping bend looks too big from any other angle--I would try to tighten that first bend low on the trunk over a couple of seasons-- using guy wires or clamps--could give you more options for front or planting angles

Yeah thanks tgward. I took your advice and put a guy wire on the first bend... Didn't have much wire left so it's a little crude, but should be effective... Il probably go pretty slow with it but it already moved a couple of cm without any hassle. I will probably put another one on the second bend when I get some wire but I'm in no rush at the moment.

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I spent the afternoon a couple of weeks ago doing bit more work on this one... The original guy wire broke so I have done it a bit more heavy duty this time. I decided to go hard this time and pushed the trunk to its limits, not stopping until I started hearing the wood begin to creak... I think this has made a great improvement to the movement in the trunk so fingers crossed it sets without indentations..

Also while the trunk was bare I decided to widen and extend the shari up to the first jin, I will likely do another Shari on the opposite face of the trunk, but that can wait for next year. I think it still needs a good couple of months of strong growth for the main branches to set so I will leave it wired and untouched until early next year at which point I will start thinning and wiring the secondary branches into more defined pads.




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that first bend has tightened very nicely--might need to leave it wired for a couple of seasons--looking good