New Chinese Elm and Shimpaku, Opinions Welcomed!

Crawlings

Hello all, today I went to my first bonsai work session with my local bonsai club and I must say I had a great time. If you are not in a local bonsai club, join one!

Today I picked up my first real trees for bonsai, a chinese elm and a shimpaku. The chinese elm is about 4 years old and today we got it pruned and wired up. We are thinking moyogi (upright informal right?) style for it.

The Shimpaku is 15 years old and has had no pruning or styling yet. I think next weekend I will attempt to get it pruned back some then think about styling. However from the many well placed branches on this one, there will be NUMEROUS possibilities. I tried to take as good of pictures as I could of the Shimpaku for some suggestions, but it was just hard to get in there and get some good shots of the inner branches and apex before it gets pruned some.

I'm open for some ideas on both, particularly repotting angles, and on the shimpaku especially, Im debating whether or not to cut right about the first branch there and maybe go for a Shohin.

*Opens the floor for debate*






-Chad

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andrew lenden

hi, there, thats a nice healthy looking juniper! if you are after a shorter term project then in my opinion probably shohin is the way to go. (check where the roots start below ground though!) but if you want a larger tree i would wire a lot of movement into the trunk, wait till its set and removed then grow in the ground pruning only when neccesary to keep the growth low down and close to the trunk. and aim to style in maybe five years? for your elm to be informal you,ll need some curves in the trunk, either using wire or chopping to a branch and repeating a few times. elms grow quick so almost anythings possible in a realistic time frame, regards andrew