Deadwood work on younger juniper

[CrippyFreaky24]

Hey guys. I got a younger juniper from a nursery, a few old or so/near 10 I’d say, and I’ve started the process of adding deadwood, so far just on a side of the trunk. I trimmed a few branches too but I am not sure to trim more because I don’t want to shock the tree too much and possibly kill it. The main idea for the tree would be to have a large living vein/one big alive branch, the biggest branch, with branches that come off of it. However im not sure you can do a living vein with a tree that didn’t have much original deadwood. I was thinking that I could deadwood around half the trunk, which is already done, and just deadwood on the other branches/cut them off. Sorry if this idea is confusing, but is this too much work for one time? Should the deadwood on half the trunk be all for now?

 

[BonsaiDTLA]

Could we see a picture of the tree you're referring to? It'll better help the other members gauge exactly what you're describing

 

[CrippyFreaky24]

Could we see a picture of the tree you're referring to? It'll better help the other members gauge exactly what you're describing

I do but it’s not very good quality. I’ll try to get a better one later. This is the part where I started the deadwood. It doesn’t look very good because I just carved out a spot to have deadwood instead of making it looks nice. I also haven’t done deadwood. This was also after watering.

 

[BonsaiDTLA]

From the pic, looks like you could trim the tree back. Is it growing well for you? Not sure how long you've had the tree for.
A lot of that foliage bushed together will kill off the interior foliage and it'll get even more leggy and long.
Are you trying to grow out the trunk? If so, can wire up a leader and let it grow out

 

[GGB]

I add dead wood a little at a time. like once a year I'll add a new sliver to it. If I'm not mistaken you can lose big branches and roots if you do too much too fast. Regardless of tree health, if you do it a little at a time the dead wood will have more depth and layering which looks cool

 

[BonsaiDTLA]

I add dead wood a little at a time. like once a year I'll add a new sliver to it. If I'm not mistaken you can lose big branches and roots if you do too much too fast. Regardless of tree health, if you do it a little at a time the dead wood will have more depth and layering which looks cool

Doing a little year by year also adds to the character of the deadwood!

 

[CrippyFreaky24]

I add dead wood a little at a time. like once a year I'll add a new sliver to it. If I'm not mistaken you can lose big branches and roots if you do too much too fast. Regardless of tree health, if you do it a little at a time the dead wood will have more depth and layering which looks cool

This is what I’ve added. I was wondering if I should go up the trunk more or keep it this little bit for now. I was thinking of making the left branch the leader, wiring it, and cutting the rest of the top branches/making them deadwood. But that may be too much work as of now. However if I wanted to trim the tree more, since I’d want to carve those branches I would have to do that now too instead of trimming the branches to give the tree a new leader. However I think that’s a lot of work for 1 time. Plus I could wire the branches that I would carve now, give them a nice shape and then I could deadwood them when they grow out. Kind of indecisive between those 2 choices.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Possibility of loss of one or both big bottom branches and/or root immediately below dead wood as mentioned above. This is Juniper, Bristlecone Pine idiosyncrisy due to sectored architectecture .

 

[GGB]

I’ll answer the questions in order, I am not an expert and a lot of your questions depend on your end goal. But my opinion is…
-I would keep the Shari where it’s at for now. I like doing that work slowly and looking for die back as time passes.
- nothing wrong with your styling plan, that’s completely personal taste. It’s hard to style someone else’s tree from one photo BUT…. Two things.
- wiring a juniper this time of year can kill branches
- your tree seems a little young and thin for carving and branch selection. If you want a tall thinner juniper that’s fine, but trunks and branches those sizes will be very skinny after you strip the bark off so the detail will be limited.
- your thinking is correct, I’d wire the future jin branches this fall so they are more interesting when you strip the bark in the future. You can wire a freshly jinned branch but I have no experience doing it in that order.
- as for your general plan, it’s a lot of work. Remember with juniper, they will grow steadily and surprisingly quickly when they are vigorous (those long runners on branch tips). Which is why a lot of us like doing a little bit at a time with younger trees. I find you can work them very heavily but the tree slows down growth for years. And you are left with what you did, for better or worse. Styling a truly grown out juniper really is as close as it gets to instant bonsai, but over working a young juniper is setting yourself back many years

 

[GGB]

I hope that was at least somewhat helpful. Many YouTube videos about juniper growth, worth some research since they are kind of unique. If you’d like to see photos of my junipers and my plans/reasoning I’m happy to share.

 

[CrippyFreaky24]

Possibility of loss of one or both big bottom branches and/or root immediately below dead wood as mentioned above. This is Juniper, Bristlecone Pine idiosyncrisy due to sectored architectecture .

Well I expected that from adding some trunk deadwood there could be losses from it. I was planning on seeing what may get lost during the deadwood process and work from there.

I’ll answer the questions in order, I am not an expert and a lot of your questions depend on your end goal. But my opinion is…
-I would keep the Shari where it’s at for now. I like doing that work slowly and looking for die back as time passes.
- nothing wrong with your styling plan, that’s completely personal taste. It’s hard to style someone else’s tree from one photo BUT…. Two things.
- wiring a juniper this time of year can kill branches
- your tree seems a little young and thin for carving and branch selection. If you want a tall thinner juniper that’s fine, but trunks and branches those sizes will be very skinny after you strip the bark off so the detail will be limited.
- your thinking is correct, I’d wire the future jin branches this fall so they are more interesting when you strip the bark in the future. You can wire a freshly jinned branch but I have no experience doing it in that order.
- as for your general plan, it’s a lot of work. Remember with juniper, they will grow steadily and surprisingly quickly when they are vigorous (those long runners on branch tips). Which is why a lot of us like doing a little bit at a time with younger trees. I find you can work them very heavily but the tree slows down growth for years. And you are left with what you did, for better or worse. Styling a truly grown out juniper really is as close as it gets to instant bonsai, but over working a young juniper is setting yourself back many years

Thank you. The trunk with the bark stripped is still fairly wide, however still thinner than it should be. I stripped it a little too much though because I did this without a dremel to get a rough idea. I know I shouldn’t wire the branches this time of year and was planning on doing it at the right time, but wasn’t sure if the tree would be recovered enough to have more work done on it then. Never heard about the wiring a jinned branch though, that’s interesting. I may try that out of a branch I plan to cut off/one that I don’t really have a plan for. I’ll maybe work with a bit more deadwood on this tree and see, but I agree with you. I don’t want to slow down the growth of this tree by overworking it while it’s still small, Especially with deadwood.

 

[Mike Corazzi]

Is your goal to create a tree that looks like it was sideswiped by a runaway car?
When I was a kid, a drunk driver ran into our front yard Modesto Ash and it looked a lot like that.
IMO, I see deadwood as jinned branches adding to a look of age.

 

[Deleted member 47471]

I do but it’s not very good quality. I’ll try to get a better one later. This is the part where I started the deadwood. It doesn’t look very good because I just carved out a spot to have deadwood instead of making it looks nice. I also haven’t done deadwood. This was also after watering.

Looks neat. I was under the impression deadwood (especially the gnarly swirling stripe style winding up the tree) is aesthetically suited for thicker and wider tree bases/trunks. I don’t think I’ve seen this feature on thin trees yet. Interesting, I have much to learn!

 

[CrippyFreaky24]

Is your goal to create a tree that looks like it was sideswiped by a runaway car?
When I was a kid, a drunk driver ran into our front yard Modesto Ash and it looked a lot like that.
IMO, I see deadwood as jinned branches adding to a look of age.

The drunk driver probably knows more about deadwood than I do. I was gonna experiment with this juniper to see how artificial deadwood looks on a younger juniper. Attempting half alive and half deadwood trunk, then Jinning the branches. That’s gonna take a while though to do without killing the tree.

 

[CrippyFreaky24]

Looks neat. I was under the impression deadwood (especially the gnarly swirling stripe style winding up the tree) is aesthetically suited for thicker and wider tree bases/trunks. I don’t think I’ve seen this feature on thin trees yet. Interesting, I have much to learn!

Yea same here. I’m not really sure what I’m doing half the time. But just seeing where this could go on this tree. It already had a large swipe taken out of the trunk so I decided to add more to it as it would just look bad anyways. Usually though the deadwood is natural, which is why it swirls and is on larger trunks, because the tree is very old and is exposed to the elements. However I don’t have an old tree like that so I did a little experimenting. I want to see if this guy survives half the trunk being taken off before I can do any more work.