Hey! I’m an absolute beginner to bonsai. I Wan to start designing on this Juniper. I’ve cleaned it and chosen this as the front, but I’m having a tough time visualizing where to take it. I would appreciate greatly any ideas, tips and advice on what I could do.
Based on the front you’ve chosen I’d drop the left branch and start forming that pad. You’ll need to remove the small branch that’s behind it. It’s a junction of 3 (the branch on the left, the small branch behind, and the trunk) which will lead to swelling.
From there I would go with a change of planting angle. Tilt the righthand side of the pot up a bit to take the verticality out of the trunk as it exits the soil. That will set you up to making that far right branch the continuation of the trunk. That first branch to the right would then be removed. From there the work to build secondary branches will begin.
I love the variegated color of that foliage too. That’s gonna be a cool tree.
Alternatively, while still making the angle change, you use that first branch on the right to continue the trunk line up to the right a bit and then back to the left. Then the far right branch is retained to be used as a branch. The relative similarity of the thickness between those two right branches could make that difficult though. Typically you want the branches to be slimmer than the trunk. However, this path would require less removal of big branches which is a lot easier to swallow when you’re first starting out lol.
If you do this I would go with an up and out insinuation for the left and right branches. Actually…now that I think of it this way I think this is the way I would go.
thanks a lot! Didnt even thunk about the tilting idea. Thank you so much! Will look into it first thing tomorrow.