AusBonsai

Well after my last attempt and the feedback given I spent about $100 on material that I could practice on.

I picked this Juniper Chinesis for $20 and spent a day trying to get the hang of techniques.

I valued the feedback since my last post and hope for some more.

If I get the time today I am hoping to pick up a pot... any ideas?

Hey there.

If it were mine I'd redirect one of the upper branches on both trunks to make new apexes.
When this is done you will be able to shorten each of your branches as well.
My belief is that due to the relatively thin trunk width this will add a little taper and improve the illusion of age.

Brown rectangle pot for mine.

Good effort keep it up!

P.s. Not sure how great this juni is for bonsai. I think it's "spartan"? Not to worry anyway its great praise to wire style and care for.

Hi Daluke,

I think you are on a winner here. Just one thing- watch your wiring; if it is too tight you could lose your tree as the wire will cut into the bark.

Nice design - well done.

Cheers,

Brad75.

Formal upright can be a challenge but I like what you have done.
I think a round or oval pot (not too large) would be the long term aim. Understandably you are new and keen to get it into a pot but see how it recovers before stressing it further.
Ideally branches will all leave the trunk at the same angle, in this case slightly downwards. What you have is slightly upwards and weeping downwards which will not look good in the long term. I would suggest bending down a little more and straightening the downward curves close to the trunk.

The tree is pushing out new growth.

Things seem to be going well after the stress of my styling (hacking?).

I also bought a rectangular shaped brown pot a few weeks back and have been fighting the temptation not to get it in.

Quite a nice design. Tall and elegant.
Important point about the wiring I can see. It looks though each branch is wired with a single wire indvidually anchored to the trunk. A far more effective method is to use one wire long enough to cover two branches, with the section of trunk in between the two branches used as the anchor for both. Sound tricky but trust me a branch that is anchored more securely will hold better.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, and I'm probably guessing you know, but just mentioning.... but don't cut a lot of the foliage off on Juniperus Chinensis in one go. Gradually reduce it over a year or 2. The tree needs the foliage to live. If it loses too much foliage it wont be able to feed itself and die.

Do not repot or root prune this tree now, considering that you have heavily pruned it. You'll probably kill it or leave it close to it.

The most common mistakes newbies make with conifers are:
- Do not over water (only water when soil becomes dryish but not bone dry)
- Needs a lot of sun
- Don't cut off all the foliage, and as a general rule, best to stick to a safe rule and... leave more than 50% of the foliage or more least, after a heavy pruning.
- Don't continually cut and then a few weeks later decide to cut more, etc etc. You will stress and possibly kill the tree.
- Do not cut back hard with pruning or cutting branches and root prune at the same time.

good work and great potential-(suggestions only)---there looks to be too many branches overall--a couple of branches could be wired more to the back to give solid depth-there is a front branch hiding the smaller trees' apex and the branch above that apex should be repositioned( or jinned) so it doesn't shade it.---the small trunk could possibly have a little curve away from the main trunk(growing towards the light)--after a couple of years of trunk thickening the bottom four branches on the main and bottom two on the smaller trunk could be removed.

Here is an update;

I've taken on the advice about watering (not as much) and have noticed the leaves looking greener and fuller.

I also removed a few branches from the main trunk as there was a bit too much happening.

How can I add depth to the second trunk?

Is it best to pinch out new growth (where applicable) to increase density in the pads? Or should I just leave (no pun intended) it as it's trying to put more green out to compensate for the pruning?

Bump

Hi Daluke, I'd just let it grow and recover from the prune and style for now.

Time to find another tree to work on

Much better branch shape, you can add depth by placing one tree forward and one slightly back I prefer the smaller tree at the back which will make it look more distant.
You saw my juniper at the show last week and commented how "green" it was. This is because I avoid pinching the healthy new growth.

this still looks 2 dimensional---about 2/3 up there should be a front branch hiding some of the trunk--also a couple more back branches---you seem to have many to chose from so experiment a little----go outside and look at old trees

Gerard wrote:Formal upright can be a challenge but I like what you have done.
I think a round or oval pot (not too large) would be the long term aim. Understandably you are new and keen to get it into a pot but see how it recovers before stressing it further.
Ideally branches will all leave the trunk at the same angle, in this case slightly downwards. What you have is slightly upwards and weeping downwards which will not look good in the long term. I would suggest bending down a little more and straightening the downward curves close to the trunk.

I agree. Branches should leave the trunk in a straight line. I don't know if you will able to achieve this without tearing the junction though.

treeman wrote:

Gerard wrote:Formal upright can be a challenge but I like what you have done.
I think a round or oval pot (not too large) would be the long term aim. Understandably you are new and keen to get it into a pot but see how it recovers before stressing it further.
Ideally branches will all leave the trunk at the same angle, in this case slightly downwards. What you have is slightly upwards and weeping downwards which will not look good in the long term. I would suggest bending down a little more and straightening the downward curves close to the trunk.

I agree. Branches should leave the trunk in a straight line. I don't know if you will able to achieve this without tearing the junction though.

Tearing the junction isn't a major problem on Junipers and I often do this on purpose with branches too thin to undercut. As a wise man once told me "pull em out of their sockets mate".

-Mo