My Very First Tree...

Daniel

Greetings,

My name is Daniel, 23, living in Seoul, South Korea.

This is my first tree, and my first plant really. I just became interested in bonsai 3 or 4 days ago and I went out and grabbed this juniper from a nursery.

Here's a picture of what I started with:

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tree 007.jpg (30.4 KB, 97 views)

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Daniel

Here's my baby an hour later, after some major cutting. I picked my first 3 branches, and cleared everything else. I kept the foilage and smaller branches that were stemming off these 3 so I can have some foilage out to the far extensions of my bottom 3 branches. I am trying to get a triangle shape.

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tree 009.jpg (38.3 KB, 93 views)

Daniel

Here's where I was at yesterday. Yesterday I repotted it, and tried my first wire job. I wired the bottom branch dawn a bit. Since it is a young tree, my branches are all pointing to the sky (I think this is why).. I am trying to flatten them down and form the base of my triangle.

I also repotted my tree. I wanted to get it into a nice fresh batch of soil, and I think the new pots looks a lot better.

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bonsai 014small.jpg (36.1 KB, 91 views)

Daniel

Finally, today I wired one of the higher smaller branches.


Here's my thinking, please let me know if I am dreaming or not.


I want to get a triangle shape. So I got my 3 branches now, but I don't have anything left. I don't have a 'leader'. That is, my big thick trunk turns into what I want to be my bottom third branch (heading to the rear of the tree).

So, I want a new trunk. I took a tall (but skinny) branch, strung some wire around it, stuck it straight up, and clipped some branches underneath it.

Question is, will I be able to stop the rear branch from continuing as my trunk, and have this new branch become the new trunk? I want the trunk to go straight up, so I can have all sorts of branches coming out in layers. Left at the bottom, right next, then rear, left, right, rear, left right rear. The problem I have is my third branch, the rear one, is actually the trunk, I need it to become a branch and to make a branch the trunk.

What do you think?

TreeBay

Congratulations on getting a great start on an exciting hobby.

I am curious how your plant might look if you inclined it some 30 degrees to the left and turned it clockwise about 200 degrees.

If that looks good, you might unwire the branch formerly on the left and wire the trunk. I think that branch might have had a good line already with the change in planting angle.

Regards,

Matt

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Daniel

I've been looking at it for a bit now...

It seems that no matter which way I turn it, unless the trunk is heading away from me, it looks very strange.

It looks very strange when the trunk is heading towards me.

I've got it the way it is now so that the trunk heads away, and it looks more inviting. When it comes towards me, if I rotate it, it seems to lose it's depth.

I don't know, maybe I am not visualizing it well enough.

Daniel

Hmm. I can't decide. I have a better idea of what your suggestion is now. I think you mean to have branch I have on the right, the big bushy one, become the main trunk and go upwards from there?

My old plan was to stop with the right branch, and develop using the rear branch.

Are you suggesting stopping the rear branch I have now, and using the right branch as the new leader.

The current left branch becomes a right branch, the rear branch becomes a left branch, and the current right branch heads to the rear, and upwards.

Is that right?

What about the fact that the base of the tree leans significantly into the viewer? All the way from the base of the tree even up to the highest branch it inclines right towards the viewer. Hmm..

Daniel

Please have a look at the first picture. You can see that there is really a strong slant to this juniper.

The way I have taken the other pictures hides the slant. My front is where my elbow is in that first picture.

My front is directly opposite where the slant is going to, so you cannot see the slant in these pictures.

Rotating the tree 200 degrees (about 180) has the slanting trunk heading right to the viewer.

TreeBay

Greetings,

No I was suggesting using the entire tree. The big branch now on the left would be on the right. I don't have the tree and can't really turn and tilt it but it might look something like this, particularly if you can wire the trunk. The branch placement is good, you just need to get the apex over the rootbase

You should be able to correct that with some wire. From here the cleanup should be pretty obvious. Note that the first branch had a good shape already, it just needs some refinement.

Any tilt should be correctable with wire and/or planting alignment.

Regards,

Matt

Attached Images

danieltree.jpg (28.2 KB, 62 views)

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