Workshop-Chinese juniper.

Hi,
At Dragon bonsai Wednesday workshop I brought my chinese juniper for it's next phase.
Bending of the trunk into a more pleasing and usable position.
The tree


The trunk was split with branch splitters, and then with a keyhole saw the gap was widened and packed with damp tissue .
Then self amalgamating rubber tape was tightly wrapped around the trunk and the area was wired using 5mm wire.
With all hand to the deck and the use of a bending bar, guy wires and a lot of grunting, slowly with a few rests for the tree and participants, the trunk was rotated approx 90 degrees vertically and the foliage mass moved by another guy wire, about 15 degrees forwards.
Both sides.



With no signs of cracking or breaks, the process appears to have worked very well.
I'll leave it now to heal, rest and hopefully set.
Next year I plan to rotate the straight upright into a more pleasing position.

A fuller history of the tree can be found Here

Hi Jerry, I like what you did..... but then I'm biased….. as I have a mountain hemlock that looked like your C.J. and did something like that.....only I had to do a more elaborated technique as the main trunk was very stiff.
Question......did you have a solid idea on its future (a sketch or drawing?) for it back in 07 or have you just improvised as its grown?
Cheers G-man

Hi G-man,
Thank you.

gman wrote:Question......did you have a solid idea on its future (a sketch or drawing?) for it back in 07 or have you just improvised as its grown?

No I'm not that well organised. , I make it up as I go along.
If anyone would like to do a drawing or a virtual I'd be very happy.

Hi,
This is how it looked March 2008.

and in May 2008.

I liked the base, but all the foliage was too far out to be useful. I expect it would be have been possible to back bud, but I decided it should be a small and compact tree, so I cut it down.
I am looking forwards to the next step.

Bold moves Jerry. I'm sure you'll turn it into something wonderful, in time.

Thank you Kevin for your encouraging words.

Kev Bailey wrote:Bold moves Jerry. I'm sure you'll turn it into something wonderful, in time.

Bold as in

I can see a chuhin size tree with small compact foliage pads.
I think I need to remove a good portion of the extend branch and work with the upper portions to build the foliage canopy.
This tree is very vigorous and with pinching out and wiring I expect the foliage to respond well and compact as I need it.

I meant bold as in "I'd have air layered those off and wasted a year or two". Great choice though.

Looking good Jerry.

You will have to stop showing pictures of splitting and bending main trunk though I had an aweful flash back to Burrs 07 when Enrico and Ivo split the trunk on my Juniper which by the way is looking top notch this year

Look forward to seeing progress on your tree, thanks for showing

Regards

Andy

Kev Bailey wrote:I meant bold as in "I'd have air layered those off and wasted a year or two". Great choice though.

Hi KEVIN,
Interesting ou say that.
I got the trees a few years back quite cheaply. The previous owner was using it for air layering and over the years had made a great many new tees from it. When I got it it had 3 air layers ready to be cut. (I have plans for them, a procumben that I plan to graft the shimpaku foiage onto.) So it had served it's time as a donor and was now free to become a full fledged tree / bonsai in it's own right.

Stone Monkey wrote: You will have to stop showing pictures of splitting and bending main trunk though I had an aweful flash back to Burrs 07 when Enrico and Ivo split the trunk on my Juniper which by the way is looking top notch this year

Hi Andy,
Thank you.
Funny enough it was mentioned during the splitting and bending. "You only s'pose to blow off the "Bl*#~*ng doors off", etc.
Happy days.
I have seen the tree on your website, looking real good. If mine ends up a 10th as good I BE HAPPY.

Hello Jerry

I would possibly put another bend in the trunk. Into the reverse direction.
I can only decide that by the pics.....maybe it's impossible.....!?
I've done a quick virtual.....

Kind regards
Martin

Klaudia & Martin wrote:I would possibly put another bend in the trunk. Into the reverse direction.
I can only decide that by the pics.....maybe it's impossible.....!?
I've done a quick virtual.....

Thank you for your virtual.
You seem to have bent the branch and then turned the whole tree 180 degrees. All posibble I think.
I'm thinking about removing the far left hand extending branch and rotate the foliage. I also plan to tip the whole tree to the right. Your virtual front is my back, at present.

Hi,
I started to lightly move the foliage a little to see if it worked.
I still need to remove the far right foliage pad, bring the heavy trunk tighter into the base and fine wire and separate the large pads into smaller and finer pads.
I prefer this front, at present.

gman wrote:Question......did you have a solid idea on its future (a sketch or drawing?) for it back in 07 or have you just improvised as its grown?

At Dragon's Sunday workshop today I got Bob Hill to put pen to paper at sketch out a few options.


This being my prefered direction.


I removed the excess branches, rotated and re-angled, with a new front.


Once the moved trunk is set and with the branches wired, we see a good outcome for this little tree.