Hello friends! Long story short, I misidentified my live vein on my juniper and removed a LOT of bark…roughly six inches by one inch…and I’m wondering if I should leave it alone to heal (if it will), or to cover the area with wound paste / wound sealant? I know Ryan has stressed in streams many times that little scratches here and there are absolutely fine, but my gaff is substantial and I’m worried. Any guidance greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Are you talking about CREATING a new dead wood vein; or, cleaning the edges of live vein along old dead wood?
Either way, do you have enough LIVE vein for the tree top to survive? 1/3 of limb / trunk diameter…
If you have NOT removed the underlying yellow cambium and white floem layer… it should survive.
Worst case, cover it with liquid cut paste. It WILL take forever for it to slough off, even if the trunk wood area dies…
If you have NOT watched it, the fall ‘live vein cleaning’ videio is healpful.
Bonsai On…
…and learn from your mistakes…
Post a follow-up photo… before and after…
KurtP
Kurt–I’m super grateful. Thank you kindly…indeed, I’ve watched those streams–partly why I felt confident to do this–where Ryan often stated small scraps etc are absolutely no problem. But in this case, because I had misidentified the stretch of trunk as being deadwood when it was live vein…I removed a substantial amount of it. I covered it with some plant wound sealant…here is a photo…the wound is on the side of the trunk on the first six / seven inches (haven’t started on the apex yet).
And yes…live and learn! If youre not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. =) I’ll be patient and optimistic and will post an update down the road…I was mostly afraid that putting on that much wound sealant might somehow be bad…like oxygen being needed to make a scab sort of thing…so your response gives me some peace. Warm wishes dude!
