I live in Washington DC, zone 8a. I wanted to invest more seriously in more developed stock that I can turn into a statement piece for my bench while I work on smaller more approachable nursery stock projects.
I wanted to try work the roots this spring but I have changed my mind and want it to push out some more growth for a season or two.
I was hoping for some general design advice to consider going into this spring. I think the apex is too pronounced and needs to be reduced. I want to reduce it a lot so I can encourage growth in lower parts of tree before growh starts to burst. I am not sure how much I should reasonably take off to do this.
Long term, I am not sure how to handle the apex for design. It seems too tall to keep the rest of tree in proportion. I want to try and wire the branches down into the negatives space below the top of the C trunk. I suppose I could go with an ‘act of god’ tenjin… but no offense intended … I think deadwood is overdone.
Here you go
Nice piece btw
I know it’s temping to style, remove something, wire something but don’t do it!
Put it in a bonsai pot, visualize the nebari, let the foliage growth strengthen the tree after the repot. If tree growing crazy,in late summer you can address the foliage.
When I say visualize nebari, first reduce roots from bottom up. When you think it will fit in pot then look at nebari
Here’s my two cents, your tree has some decent trunk movement but there are a couple really straight spots of the trunk. It’s a good time of year to wire junipers. I’d get some heavier gauge wire around these two spots and give the trunk some movement. The rest of your tree is nice, just thin out some of the crotches of the branches and growing downward shoots. Let it grow for the rest of the year and fertilize heavily, get the tree healthy. Then next spring repot it into a more horizontal nicer grow container like a terracotta tokonome grow pot. Tease the roots out as you pot up. Start growing it more.
I would go with the get it in a bonsai pot, use the foliage to recover faster then after it’s strong style advice…trust the process it saves time in the long run
I also vote for getting it in a bonsai container . Its a great time of year to do so . Give it the rest of the year to recover and grow . Do light pruning to keep it from getting out of control . Then this time next year, hard styling . Justsayin
I listened to the mirai video on spring Juniper pruning. My takeaway was that you don’t do the type of pruning I asked about on a juniper (i.e. cutting back short growth to get elongated growth elsewhere.) It seems its better to wait until you see a lot more elongated overgrowth and then start pruning those to redirect energy.
So applying that to everyone’s feedback:
This year - only pruning to clean; no repot; wire movement in trunk; fertilize heavy and let it grow hard
Next year - repot into anderson flat in preparation for a bonsai repotting
That tree has a really lovely form! I’m no expert, and have a smaller juniper that I want to work on so I’ll look for that video you found. Thanks for the thread.
I found this video about shipaku transplant on line Google Search
I was curious how big your tree is, and is it a yamadori, or was it grown in a pot or field? Also wondering if it would need to step into an anderson flat before bonsai pot. Have you seen the roots?
