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bonsaiTALK Master
Join Date: Jul-2006
Location: massachusetts
Country: United states
Posts: 350
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Japanese Garden Juniper
Hello all.......This is a tree I found at my bonsai nursery as overgrown stock in a nursery container. It is a japanese garden juniper. Normally, I not that fond of japanese garden junipers. However, I thought this one had some nice potential. Someone must have spent a good amount of time keeping a tabs on it. Although overgrown and having too many branches. I saw a nice informal upright in there and there were main branches that seemed obvious thats why they were on there.
After getting the tree home, I picked my front, however, I just wasn't happy with my choice. The apex was really nice with my front and it looked like whoever had it designated my front because of the way the apex was formed. However, the trunk meet the ground in a weird fasion. Also, there was some bar branching towards the top. I removed a couple of branches to expose my choice of the front. However, being undecided on everything. I figured second opinions were in order so I took it to a workshop.
At the workshop, I was fortunate enough to meet up with Dav4 from this site, a great bonsai artist who's work I always enjoy seeing. He suggested a different front from mine. Then my teacher John shared Dave's opinion concerning the front. I was happy to use their choice for the front. Although somewhat losing the nicer view of the apex, the trunk was more pleasing. Also, even though I had stripped off some branches for my front. It would not affect the design.
After the front was picked, John and I came up with a rough plan for some of the side branches. I did some light pruning in the workshop, but kept all the major work for when I brought the tree home. The tree would now need a restructured apex and needed much wiring of all the main branches. In the end, it appears that all the suggestions where the right courses of action. I am pretty happy with the outcome. I recently got it in it's first bonsai/grow pot. This pot was not necessarilly my first choice, but for health reasons, this was a good choice. One flaw that the tree has is that the taper is mediocre going up the tree. However, not enough to ruin the overall look of the tree. The tree has a very strong essence, but at the same time, elegant, because of the nice curves of the trunk.
Pic 1 is the tree as it was purchased. Pic 2 is the tree with a couple of branches stripped away exposing the initial choice for the front. Pic 3 is the tree after chosing the different front and after lots of pruning and wiring. The last 3 are the tree in its first bonsai/grow pot
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