Restyled Juniper With Shari

gilbycantu

Ok, this is a tree that I had styled earlier this year and was happy with it at the time. Now, months later, I thought I would revise it.

I began to cut and cut and cut and cut. When I was finished I said, what the hell did I do. My wife said I ruined the tree. I began to think so until I thought about adding dead wood to the trunk. This ended up being an experimental tree for shari and I said if it lives, then it lives. Well, within the last month is has begun to put out new healthy buds everywhere. I will now leave it alone til next year.

What do you think about where I've gone with it?

Here is a berfore pic...

Attached Images

before.jpg (36.3 KB, 214 views)

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Gilbert Cantu

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gilbycantu

It's about 13 inches tall with an almost 2 inch thick trunk.

Here is the after....

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shari juniper.jpg (41.9 KB, 212 views)

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Gilbert Cantu

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bonsaial1

The job you have done at carving the shari is a good one. The dryed wood looks like it was done years ago. For what is left of it, it's not bad, but the before tree looked like it had amazeing potential. I'm not sure you improved it very much. Of course you already said that

One thing about junipers that is hard to fix. The trees are very slow to thicken, and do not do so systematicly. The large trunk coupled with the extreme narrowing of the single branch at the top will always seem out of place, since both will grow fairly equal from now on.

Try some wire and try for a shaped apex with whats left and re-post. We might all be surprised. Let's hope for a surprise!

Bonsai-al

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Gajin

I agree with bonsaial 1

I liked the before picture also.

This happened to me too one time,maybe it's better to make a sketsh or a virtual before you start cutting away.
anies way this is what i do before i start doing a job like that.



Greets Patrick.

Adrian_Moss

Good idea Gajin, I never thought to do so, before i normally saw something in the wild or done on another bonsai and copied that style but sketching allows you to do so many different things and see first if you like or should discard the idea. So back to the drawing board I suppose...

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Keep us posted Adrian !

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soonami

Gilby, material was great to start with and although I would not have taken the direction that you did, none the less I think you did a very good job with the shari and you really found the essense of the tree. I think that once the apex starts filling back in now that it has the entire root system's resources to itself you will have a very nice tree

Here's a rough virt of your tree, Walter Pall style

Attached Images

sharijuniperedit.jpeg (34.4 KB, 43 views)

zen

I don't have adobe on this comp so I will try to explain with words alone,...you could mask the drastic taper change by carving an elongated sideways V into the trunk just under the "spot"where the trunk curves into that lil "new apex" trunk to make it look as if there WERE another branch there once that died back,this would also add a peice of jin kinda pointing in the direction of the flow at that point. I think this would thin up the trunk taper in much more controlled way,and allow you to have a peice of artwork MANY years sooner then waiting for that lil guy to catch up by itself or just curving it over to hide this spot. Just one possible solution. Oh and by the way ,...where in the WORLD do you guys muster up the GUTS to make such drastic changes to your material,...ya'll are really causing me to realize that I am just a scaredy-cat !!! Well I do have those two elms in my parents yard that were about 10-12 Ft. now they are just under 2 ft. ,...but that's just a trunk chop,...what you guys do actually refines a tree from a mass of bushyness(hey we can make up words,bonsai isn't that big yet LOL)!!! Thanks for helping find my inner WUSS!!!

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Arnie

Gilby,

Positive: You don't a great job with trunk, deadwood and movement look cool.
Negative: you scalped it!!! Looks like you lopped a lot off useful bits in your eagerness. But, the framework of a good bonsai is there with the exisitng trunk. I would pull the remaining branches down lower with wire, feed it heavily and let it grow unchecked for 2 years+. Then your trunk will look even more mature and you'll hopefully have enough foliage to create a design.

Also don't put it in a bonsai pot for a few years, if anything go up a pot size.

Best Regards
Arnie

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