Growing the thickest trunk possible for juniper

[Woodengun]

Hello! I’ve been growing pre bonsai for a few years and everything is healthy and happy.

The junipers trunk caliper hasn’t budged much and I was wondering if there were any techniques or tricks to help grow that out thicker as much as possible?

I fertilize from march to November with solid organic in tea bags and weekly seaweed feeds. They are all in wooden grow boxes in 100% pumice. The Shimpaku has some long running growth I’ve kept, and it gets full sun. I am also growing procumbens and squamata.
Any secrets or suggestions??

 

[bonsaichile]

Plant it in the ground and forget about it for years. Junipers gain thickness very slowly

 

[Esolin]

In ground will be the fastest, but still slow. Maybe an inch per decade. From my general observations, it takes about 40-50 years to get a 4-5 inch trunk on a garden landscape juniper, of course these probably weren't heavily fertilized. Heavy feeding will speed up growth, but only by so much.

 

[Shibui]

Grow some sacrifice branches to thicken the trunks of your junipers. Low sacrifice branches means you can control the main branches and apex to retain viable green for future branching while still allowing the long, unrestrained growth and bulk on the sacrifice branches needed for thickening. Lower sacrifice branches thicken the lower trunk to give trunk taper.

The others are correct about junipers starting out slow. It seems to take 2-3 years after repotting for them to really start to grow again. Seems to be the same in the ground or in a pot.

 

[SeanS]

Start shari on both sides of the trunk (opposite each other) and widen them annually. This causes the trunk to thicken out sideways in the direction where there’s still living tissue/live vein only.

Illustration taken from an excellent blog post on bonsaify.com, hope you don’t mind @Eric Schrader

 

[Woodengun]

Start shari on both sides of the trunk (opposite each other) and widen them annually. This causes the trunk to thicken out sideways in the direction where there’s still living tissue/live vein only.

Illustration taken from an excellent blog post on bonsaify.com, hope you don’t mind @Eric Schrader

View attachment 622388

This is really interesting thanks! I never know how deep to carve the Shari. It seems to grow over with bark every year.

 

[leatherback]

This is really interesting thanks! I never know how deep to carve the Shari. It seems to grow over with bark every year.

Deep enough to hit the hard white wood. THis is quite deep. As long as it is spongy, it is nto need enough.

 

[Woodengun]

Deep enough to hit the hard white wood. THis is quite deep. As long as it is spongy, it is nto need enough.

Thanks!
Is there a good season to create Shari that is preferred? How long after carving and ripping fibers are you applying lime sulfur?

 

[Brain Treez]

Thanks!
Is there a good season to create Shari that is preferred? How long after carving and ripping fibers are you applying lime sulfur?

Midsummer is a pretty great time to create shari & jins since the bark is so easy to peal at that time. Lime sulfur is partially for aesthetics for that high contrast look between live and dead wood, but juniper wood is naturally resistant to rot, so you can go years without applying any lime sulfur.

 

[SeanS]

Thanks!
Is there a good season to create Shari that is preferred? How long after carving and ripping fibers are you applying lime sulfur?

If you’re starting shari thin and expanding them progressively over many years you don’t need to peel fibres. The tree will grow new wood around the edges of the shari which will naturally create the striations that make shari/deadwood interesting

 

[WNC Bonsai]

If you’re starting shari thin and expanding them progressively over many years you don’t need to peel fibres. The tree will grow new wood around the edges of the shari which will naturally create the striations that make shari/deadwood interesting

My procumbens wasn’t gaining much girth until I started doing annual shari work and now it is fattening up and that is in a pot. I also let it push out a lot of growth making a cascade which is essentially being managed as a sacrifice branch. Now I am having trouble deciding whether to cut off the cascade branch or develop it—may just do an air layer. Procumbens are very aggressive about trying to close shari so creating striations is easy with the annual cutbacks.

 

[Woodengun]

My procumbens wasn’t gaining much girth until I started doing annual shari work and now it is fattening up and that is in a pot. I also let it push out a lot of growth making a cascade which is essentially being managed as a sacrifice branch. Now I am having trouble deciding whether to cut off the cascade branch or develop it—may just do an air layer. Procumbens are very aggressive about trying to close shari so creating striations is easy with the annual cutbacks.

Thanks so much. You’re right, I actually don’t see many thick trunk junipers that DONT have any deadwood!