Yamadori Juniper - a winter sale moment of joy

Hi,

Yesterday I had to drive about 400 miles to meet a customer and I knew a little detour (less than 15 miles ) would put me at one of the UKs larger bonsai nurseries - Newstead. I'd read there was a proper '50% off' all trees sale ending in a week as the nursery is relocating, and I knew from a previous visit there were some awesome trees that you really struggle to find in the Uk these days at realistic prices. I spotted a few of the specimen trees that had left an impression previously and the price tags were all the same, and they were all halved

I love that feeling of excitement when looking for the tree that shouts out at you from the bench.....I did 3 circuits and had a 10 tree shortlist ! - there were 2 tempting cuspidattas, a rigida that would be great to work with, a selection of excelent maples and pines.......and at least 5 totally wow yamadori junipers.

Next circuit of the benches and your eyes fade out the other trees so you only see the 'hit list' trees, now i'm down to 4 junipers and a taxus cuspidatta - the yew came 5th, now its time to play the pros and cons game......4 yamadori junipers - one very big one with so much potential, one that just oozed class (it was itiogawa grafted to yamadori at a very famous nursery), one equally good compact twisted tree but still with its own longer blueish foliage and an amazing, elegant slanting tree with a hollow trunk and plump but narrow perfect live viens.

I love the next stage of picking a tree - I balance the price, the potential finished image and the time scale needed - that knocked the big one out of the running. Then I factor in putting my own mark on a tree - it doesnt excite me to buy a tree that just needs maintaining as it is, someone else has had all the creative fun - so the grafted itiogawa is off the list as it was just about finished - but it was the most refined tree of the 3 (and i just saved a few pounds as it was the most expensive).

One on one.........the unbelievably twisted trunk of aged natural deadwood with compact but slightly looser blueish 'wild juniper' foliage or a very elegant fluid trunk - hollow, cracked aged wood and a tighter foliage of deep green? (it turns out to be the older yamadori juniper chinensis sargentii). In the end trunks were equally good, branches were equally good, so down to the foliage - and the sergentii won. The best 2 hours i've had in ages...........



I picked the tree as it has all the refining and fine tuning to do, but it has all the branches, foliage and maturity that takes decades to achieve. First thing to do was clean up the algae attached to the trunk base and to remove all the moss



I charged up my electric toothbrush and donated it to the bonsai tool kit - very soon the algae was off in every nook, cranny and hollow




tomorrow i will lime sulphur the trunk base if it is a dry day and then do a virt breaking up the large foliage masses into smaller pads so the heavy upper left area is broken down into pads and spaces. The tree has an amazing bend near the top so a space needs making so the viewer can get a glimpse of this feature too. The brown lumps on the foliage are the forming flowers that will dust pollen over everything in the spring - if the tree makes fruits they will be cut off as they will weaken the branches.

over the next few years the outline will be pushed in smaller and tighter by about 20-25% but this will be done gradually as these very old trees dont like to be weakened too much, and there is no rush to force the final image.

Thanks for reading the story

Marcus

Nice one, Marcus.

Yeah...that's a really nice tree already. Looking forward to it's future evolution.

Beautiful new baby, Marcus!!! You done well.

Nice! Great find and I now wonder how the others look like!

I love watching projects like this...educational and entertaining. Please post as this progresses and thank you for sharing.

Russell Coker wrote:


Beautiful new baby, Marcus!!! You done well.

Thanks everyone,
i'm still grinning ear to ear, and i think it was the most gentle 400 mile drive home i've ever done

I just been playing with photoshop until it gets light and came up with a little neatening up of the pads; this is the way i'll aim to go i think.



cheers

Very cool find. That'll help many a happy hour pass.

Great find Marcus,
I like the narrower canopy in your virtual. Works well.

And the electric toothbrush - what a great idea. We have one just sitting in the cabinet. No more!!!!

Rob Kempinski wrote: And the electric toothbrush - what a great idea. We have one just sitting in the cabinet. No more!!!!

It's fine as long as you wash it before you give it back to the missus.

I cant believe he can track down a tree like this in 2hrs time! Master level stuff
-Jay

Hi Marcus
A very beautiful tree. Really a successful trip.
Congratulations to catch.

Gretings Pavel

fiona wrote: It's fine as long as you wash it before you give it back to the missus.

OOPS !

Thanks Jay,
To be honest I think there are only one or two places in England where you could find several trees like this to choose from all under one roof, (at a possible price). The trees were imported from Japan originally by Danny Use at the Ginko bonsai centre, Belgium. John then visited and selected the trees he wanted for Newstead. The luck was to be able to detour there when the sale was on - (sort of by design but dont tell Mandy haha)
I have found pictures on the website of the tree newly delivered in 2008, then initial styling in 2009 and further styling in 2010 for the Newstead 4 exhibition.


John worked the tree into its present design and had it as part of his personal collection. He gave me excelent background information about how the tree had settled in, how the foliage is now forming the tighter growth that comes with life in a pot, and a lot of really interesting Juniper facts.

cheers everyone, I'll do my best with the refining

Marcus

A Really good find and buy....I know you will injoy this one a lot !!!take care john

Very nice tree! And I like it the way it is going...

Please be sure to treat the deadwood at the rootbase sufficiently!

Very very nice! What are you gonna do with its seeds ? (wich by the way give a nice yellow shading on your tree )

https://servimg.com/view/17207525/21

Hans Vleugels wrote:Very nice tree! And I like it the way it is going...

Please be sure to treat the deadwood at the rootbase sufficiently!

Hi Hans -
Yes I will -as you can see it is essential to the design to keep this base from rotting any further - the trunk is totally hollow at the bottom so i am going to use a 'modern' wood preserver/ hardener on the insides - some type of complete preservative I think. I was also going to brush the soil away from the trunk base and treat the wood that is under soil level with the same compound before replacing the soil. I will use lime sulphur for the exterior and visible deadwood - i tend to do this annually on my other old juniper so will do the same with this tree.

Hi manosvince
Yes the tree is very heavy with flowers at the moment - i will cut off every seed when they are small and not fully formed as their production would make the tree branches weak when i want them very strong to make better foliage pads. (I cut off all seeds from all my trees before they form for this reason.). As you say though the appearance of the tree is changed by the brown 'pollen balls' - it is nice to see a seasonal change to an evergreen tree

cheers Marcus