CA Juniper Styling Feedback

symbiotic1

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I recently acquired this CA juniper and I've been perplexed as to how to style it. I'm totally new to styling a collected tree of this size, everything I've had so far was nursery grown. So far I've been told I should graft some shimpaku onto it to get it's more dense foliage, but where to graft it is the tough question.

I was also advised to try to pair the form down to one main trunkline and either remove or jin the rest of the branches. What initially drew me to it though was that it looked like a multi-trunk tree and not like several different trees in a forest, so it would be nice to develop that with the grafts, but if an elegant form can be found with a single trunk I'm open to it. Could some of the branches be given more movement through channeling/splitting, etc?

I've posted photos that show it at 8 different angles as I spun it around and some more detail.

I also noticed there is some newly mature foliage growing. I'm guessing that's a good thing and the tree is happy?

What does everyone think? It's coming up on grafting season soon so I'm trying my best to develop a good preliminary vision for the tree so the grafts are placed in the right spots.
 

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a few more detail shots
 

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I think you have a huge challenge there.

I don't remember a piece of raw Yamadori looking quite like this one. Off the top of my head I cannot see a future in this tree that is evident right now. Having said that I would be tempted to make sure the tree was planted in a decent medium to ensure it's future health and development and let it grow for a few years.

Sometimes trees will develop to a point where of a sudden they start giving you ideas and inspiration. Sometimes it is you that will develop and of a sudden you will see ideas and inspiration. Which ever the source it is the kind of material that you are kind of obligated to give it your best effort, its not like it is a piece of junk from Wally World. You shouldn't just start arbitrarily hacking on it just because you think you have to.
 
2nd picture. Rotate about 45 degrees to the left. Yay or Nay?
 

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I think...in a way we are all saved from this conundrum because first you must transfer it to a manageable soil and get it zouped up--more green stuff--no need for styling now, after all, things often radically change when going through this phase, so will your perspective.
 
I have to agree with Smoke. This is difficult material. Multi-trunk trees are not easy to pull off. Having branches going off in all different directions does not make for a pleasing image and it doesnt make sense. Believe me Ive tried to make sense out of a few multi trunks. They all ended up as 1-2 in the end.

Intrigued has a good idea in the virt he posted. Gin the right side and maybe pull the straight one in the middle down toward the left some to give it some movement. That might give you a bit more convincing image with this tree.

Good luck
 
I don't remember a piece of raw Yamadori looking quite like this one. Off the top of my head I cannot see a future in this tree that is evident right now. Having said that I would be tempted to make sure the tree was planted in a decent medium to ensure it's future health and development and let it grow for a few years.

Sometimes trees will develop to a point where of a sudden they start giving you ideas and inspiration. Sometimes it is you that will develop and of a sudden you will see ideas and inspiration. Which ever the source it is the kind of material that you are kind of obligated to give it your best effort, its not like it is a piece of junk from Wally World. You shouldn't just start arbitrarily hacking on it just because you think you have to.

This is perfectly natural growth habit for a California juniper. Most of them grow exactly like a yucca, with a burst of small trunks growing from the ground. The secret is to not dig material like this. With a little patience, one can find suitable large trunked specimens looking more like traditional single trunked junipers. I have sold a few California junipers that were even single trunked and still could not find a suitable tree in it.

here is a tree I sold a few years ago...
 

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The angle of the trunk, the turn of the deadwood, tried laying it over into a cascade sort of thing and everything I tried I didn't like. I thought of carving down the thumb shape of deadwood, but the trunk lacked taper and was just a terrible little tree to play with.

It is so easy to just put a price on it and divorce oneself from such dilemma's.
 
Finding a huge trunked/single trunked speciman is hard to do soemtimes. Trees like this are rare.
 

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More often they will look like this speciman which looks like a huge octopus, with hundreds of very small trunks eminateing from a central point near the ground.

The top view tree with all the deadwood is a spitting image of what this guy has. Lots of pain and suffering trying to turn this into a tree.
 

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Everytime I run into one on my nature outings, it's as big as a horse. :|
 

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Everytime I run into one on my nature outings, it's as big as a horse. :|

Looks like someone is putting in some GPS markers for a comeback?

That is a great example of a large juniper that is so old that moving one of those branches is impossible and all the foliage is out on the tips. A Patriarch, best in the wild for sure.
 
Wow thanks everyone for the input and comments! :) Call it beginners "luck" that I picked out the most difficult/unsuitable tree the seller had!

I think you have a huge challenge there.
I'm up for a challenge, though.

2nd picture. Rotate about 45 degrees to the left. Yay or Nay?
I'm liking this look. I should follow your lead and spin it around at all angles in Photoshop and see if anything jumps out.

I think...in a way we are all saved from this conundrum because first you must transfer it to a manageable soil and get it zouped up--more green stuff...
What should I transfer it to? The soil its in now looks pretty much like where it would have been pulled out of. It very well could be the surrounding soil. The tree did have more foliage and a few more secondary branches. I took the tree in to Roy Nogatoshi and he suggested to trim off some of them to focus the plant's energy on fewer areas. He was also the one to suggest grafting shimpaku onto it. To give it thicker foliage.

Man, I gotta say, this is a plant I would love to just grab ahold of one of those
long branches and quite literally bend it back on itself allowing it to break and
rip on the outside... Then just wire it so it would not move and seal the wound up
with some sphagnum moss and wrap it with a cotton rag so as to be able to breath...

EDIT*** You don't want it to stay to moist that it rots, but sphagnum moss is really
good with helping junipers not dry out. Also, I felt the need to add, that I think your
tree has very straight lines, and a curvy bend would not suit the tree. The action I
have mentioned here, would appear as though the trunk had broken but still survived.
If you do this plan on letting it heal really well for quite a few years, so take precaution
on how you wire it for support, you don't want to have to move it because the wire is cutting
in...

If it didn't survive, you have 5 more you can play with !!!
:cool:
Are you talking about making the main base rip or one of the outer branches? I'm certainly not opposed to going to more extreme measures to adjust the branches but I agree I don't think I would do a super tight bend. Maybe bending one brach over so its near another, fill out the foliage on that one so it intertwines the first trunk and Jin that first trunk? I'm also not against using the base as a scaffold to build grafted plant on to in order to make it more interesting.
 
@Smoke
If it were smaller, and not in a conservation area, then most definitely.

@symbiotic1
From what I understand, if you're completely new to styling, that is something that would require some outside help. Maybe invite a club member over to assist if they're willing.
 
Also, since the trunk probably won't be the showcase of this tree like other, older CA junipers, couldn't this be developed to look like a multi-trunk tree with an almost deciduous-like (with the foliage on) canopy of small clumps of foliage?
 
@symbiotic1
From what I understand, if you're completely new to styling, that is something that would require some outside help. Maybe invite a club member over to assist if they're willing.

I'm currently taking classes from Roy Nogatoshi here in LA so he will be the one to ultimately show me how to do the styling techniques on it. Even he was sort of perplexed with it, but we trimmed it back a bit and left as many branches as possible so we had grafting options if I decided to go that route.
 
Also, since the trunk probably won't be the showcase of this tree like other, older CA junipers, couldn't this be developed to look like a multi-trunk tree with an almost deciduous-like (with the foliage on) canopy of small clumps of foliage?

Junipers do grow in a multi-trunk deciduous- like form sometimes. With some grafting maybe you could pull it off with this material.
 

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