Bonsai Potential???

[pureheart]

Hello friends,

What do you think of below plant? (Whatever it is?) I need to remove it and questioning if this is bonsai material for a formal upright or not?





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[juan73870]

Personally, I wouldn't be bothering with it. It doesn't look too healthy, also doesn't look like it has much potential design-wise. That's not to say you couldn't put it in a pot and do something with it, I just wouldn't bother with it myself.... I'm always happy to be proven wrong though

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[shibui]

I guess it is a juniper or cypress and probably one of the tall thin types.
Bonsai potential:
anything can be used if you have the time and patience.
Conifers can be reluctant to bud on older, bare wood so you really need to plan on building the tree from any low live shoots.
Formal upright can make use of tall, thin trunks but still look better with some thickness
Formal upright still needs some branches along the trunk. A tall, tin trunk with a cluster of foliage at the top probably belongs in topiary rather than bonsai. How tall will your bonsai be if you use some of the current branches?
I have found the tall thin type trees are quite difficult to style as bonsai. They just don't like to have spreading branches and just concentrate on upward growth at the expense of any you wire out to make branches.

Some positive thoughts. Even if it does not give you a great bonsai:
You will learn something from the transplant process.
Assuming it survives transplant you will learn some more about how trees grow and respond to pruning and have opportunities to practice pruning and shaping techniques.

I would not bother with this one for bonsai but I am a bit spoiled for choices. Others will see it far differently.

[pureheart]

Ok thank you all, it’s the Bin then!


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[tgward]

if you have another one similar you could do a tall twin with very high foliage

[Per PF]

Maybe get some severe bending training in? (before the bin)

[tgward]

possible style?

https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/fun-w ... oki.20871/

[pureheart]

possible style?

https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/fun-w ... oki.20871/

mmmm that is interesting....
ok if I wanted to attempt to remove them without killing... what do you think I should do?
I was thinking instead of a transplant to do a ground layer (ring bark) ? but that may take a year to work?
Or should I just try my luck and pull out now hoping they would survive?

[tgward]

I would water them well ,two or three times over a couple of days---leave for a week pick a cool day then remove with as much root as practical .-open free draining potting mix- wire so they cant move--seasol - the bin will still be there if they don't make it.

[Akhi]

As Shibui said, these are narrow straight growing blue junipers. I had pulled up some four such junipers of which three survived. They take ages to even just get to a baseline but really a great juniper to learn. Mine have (after 3 years) finally shown me some green growth dense enough that I could prune. The way to get them out is to take as much of the root you can and keep as much of the foliage you can...as you would have read from this forum that junipers use their foliage to support growth! Counter intuitive to what we do with other trees..less foliage less stress on the roots:-) funny world this...once potted somewhere, give it a nice fine water mist spray a couple times a day depending on where you are. Ensure the tree doesn’t move in it’s pot as I suspect you will have one tall lanky teen there with hollow legs. Give it a season and if it has survived, you will see green tips else RIP it is. If green tips do not disturb and let grow for another season before attempting anything... good luck I am still learning how mine behave and anything you learn and share will help me too