Hi All,
I picked this tree up from Chase Rosade in New Hope PA several years ago. I am just now getting it to a point of design. As you can see, it has two trunks. One is full and healthy and the other is weak and mostly deadwood. I’ve been trying to strengthen the weak side, but haven’t had any luck. I’d appreciate it if any of you would be willing to suggest some design options. The primary decision is, whether to go with an entirely deadwood trunk, remove the weak trunk or continue trying to strengthen it. . . . What do you think?
If you are in the USA and want to try to strengthen the tree, I would suggest tests and recs from Apical.
But realistically that will set you back $300 to $500 so it would depend on the value of the tree.
( If the tree is not valuable and you want to wing it , find me next spring and I will help you guess at what Eden products to use, but that would be your decision to make. )
As far as designing it, toss it in the next Q&A and get Ryan’s suggestions if you can. I don’t know if that feature is available to all tiers of membership.
I don’t have enough design experience to make a suggestion.
Good luck!
I will say this…
Like that Frank’s Red Hot slogan…
When it comes to Eden products
I put that SH/T on everything.
And I have seen nothing but improvements from my wife’s house plants, to my lawn, garden and bonsai trees.
I don’t have trees that are ridiculously expensive so I am willing to experiment and explore and I can tell you that every Apical rec I have seen in the Q&A and from my own experiences are that they are 95% Eden products.
Apical trusts Eden and so do I.
Minor changes to ph, or collecting rain water along with Eden products could help your tree recover.
Apical testing would be the best thing for your trees health, however it can be cost prohibitive for some and I think the value of the tree must be considered.
So if it is determined that the Apical route is too much up front you could invest $100-$150 in Eden products and take it from there…
It would be cheaper to chop off half the tree and stand it up, the question is what do you want to do?
Best of luck.
Er. . . I wasn’t inquiring about substrate testing. I was looking for suggestions on styling. I got what I was looking for-- I decided to debark the left hand trunk, rotate the whole tree about 15 degrees counterclockwise and begin creating some pads on the right side. I am looking forward to it filling out in the Spring. Thanks for your interest!
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Sorry I must have misunderstood your intent.
I thought the original post mentioned possibly continuing to strengthen the weaker side as an option. My mistake.
It looks great!
Did you try pushing it to about 30-35° and come back to where you are? If not I’d be curious if that libe keeps in improving in 3D at that angle. No response required, just thought I’d toss it out there.
Here is what I did with it. I plan to give it a rest and then bend it some more, maybe next fall. I’d like to bend it forward some more at the middle of the bending jack, and then pull the apex back towards center. Of course, pads need to to fill out and Im sure there will be more shaping along the way.What do you think?
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Hi well I once tried to use that bending apparatus and had zero luck with it and of all the hundreds of streams I’ve seen Ryan demonstrate he never used it. I’d trash it. The rafia was applied beautifully but the length of the trunk I don’t think is long enough to apply appropriate force unless maybe you attach a rebar apparatus. My vote for whatever it’s worth, don’t compress. Lengthen and use upper portion of tree to make interesting bends. Enjoy!
Gary
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I think there are some challenges with your tree.
The strong branch to the right has almost no movement and at this point there’s no way you’re going to be able to bend that trunk I think.
I tried to turning the picture sideways in a counterclockwise manner, making the wheel branch, almost horizontal, and the strong branch pointing straight up.
*One idea is to Jin the entire left (weak ) branch
- Change the angle, counterclockwise to make the strong branch on the right pointing almost straight up
- Bend some branches from the new top to grow straight down and eventually make deadwood on the top with the main foliage mid trunk on what is now the stronger branch.
Difficult to describe in words.
All great junipers need to have deadwood so don’t be afraid to do that.
Growing branches that are wired down to cover the straightness of the right trunk may be an option.
Not sure how attached you are to the tree or the current style. If it was mine I might Frankenbush the tree and use it for learning techniques and just go for it with “Reckless Abandon”
Have fun
Hi Gary,
Good food for thought-- of course, you are going exactly in the opposite direction from what I was thinking! One comment: I understand what you are saying about the “trunk bender.” In order to increase my chances at a successful bend, I split about 1/3 of the trunk away from the main trunk and reinforced the length with 5 mm aluminum wire. The split goes as far as the raffia, so it seems to be long enough. If i wrap any further up the trunk, the raffia will just be wrapped around thinner branches that won’t add to the applied force. If it fails, I will likely take you up on your suggestion. Thanks again.
Hey Doc,
That right hand branch was straight as an arrow before I split it and applied the “trunk bender,” but I think you are right about at needing more of a bend. One additional technique which I am thinking might work is to cut a wedge on the bottom of the branch right at the point of the existing bend.
I guess it is not showing up on the photo, but the weak branch has already been entirely jinned .I did leave a small branch near the base of the jin to create some interest (but I may not be interested for long! Lol).
I like the idea of bending some branches straight down. Ditto on the deadwood suggestion. There will be some additional deadwood that you can’t see because it is under the raffia right now. Thanks for investing your time!
Hi John
Well let me preface my response by saying I’m no expert but by the looks of the thickness of the trunk and the length of the trunk covered by raffia, the little clamp would not be long enough to make a manual bend.
Attach briefly a rebar to the end of the main trunk and use that arm to get the proper leverage to bend or extend 4 gauge and use that as a handle to bend would be your best chance of success. Somewhere in the mirai library Ryan talks about that technique, That little bending apparatus for a trunk this wide won’t do it
Good luck. Gary