Juniper plans

[Willster]

Hey everyone. Last spring I purchased a juniper procumbens nana from the seller “small forest bonsai” on eBay for around $50. After looking at local nurseries, and various online sellers this one seemed like the best material at the time. I plan on repotting it this spring and then leaving it to grow for a year or so. So my questions are does this tree seem like decent material to work, do you think I should repot it this spring, and what ideas does anyone have for styling when the time comes? Below are pictures from this summer, I can’t really get any good recent once’s since it’s covered in mulch and snow right now in Minnesota.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

The photo isn’t the best to offer design help, but it appears to have a trunk with good movement and some taper, so that’s a good start.

The branches appear to have foliage out in the ends without much interior growth to work with. Because of that, I’d be inclined to prune and wire it in the spring without repotting it. This way, the roots are stronger and it may respond with some growth closer to the trunk that you can incorporate into the design.

I’d feed it well next year, plenty of sun and plan on getting it into a bonsai pot in spring ‘27.

 

[Willster]

The photo isn’t the best to offer design help, but it appears to have a trunk with good movement and some taper, so that’s a good start.

The branches appear to have foliage out in the ends without much interior growth to work with. Because of that, I’d be inclined to prune and wire it in the spring without repotting it. This way, the roots are stronger and it may respond with some growth closer to the trunk that you can incorporate into the design.

I’d feed it well next year, plenty of sun and plan on getting it into a bonsai pot in spring ‘27.

Thanks for the advice. I know the picture isn’t the best, so sorry about that. I had another picture but it’s not letting me upload that one. The trunk is a little under an inch thick at the bottom and about a half inch at the top and the tree is about 7 inches tall. There isn’t a lot of interior growth as you mentioned so I’ll probably plan on cutting some of the branches back this spring and start wiring, and wait to repot for another year. But there are a couple sprouts of growth off the trunk that started in the summer after the picture was taken so I can try to work with some of those as well when they grow out a bit more.Thanks for the tips!

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

If you crop down your photo a little bit, you might be able to upload it. I have to do that with a lot of my own photos.

 

[Willster]

If you crop down your photo a little bit, you might be able to upload it. I have to do that with a lot of my own photos.

Thanks! Cropping it worked. Here’s another picture at a different angle taken around the same time.

 

[shimbrypaku]

Nice juniper, an Anderson flat and a few guy wires would help , if you have never attempted large trunk bending.
Bending and twisting large trunks and branches is a skill best practiced on smaller stock.

Just my experience.

Thanks

 

[Willster]

Thanks @Brian Van Fleet , @Desert O'Piñon , and @shimbrypaku for the advice so far. In terms of styling it seems to me that there are two potential styles I could go with, an informal upright or semi cascade. If I went informal upright I was thinking I could remove the bottom 3 branches in the spring and hopefully push out more interior growth and growth along the middle of the trunk and then wire the top ones in the late summer/fall. Or if I went with semi-cascade I could maybe trim up the top growth and grow out one of the bottom branches for the next several years. Would any of you with far more bonsai experience than me agree with those options, or would you do something completely different? I know it’s difficult to give styling advice from a couple pictures, and maybe I can take some better ones this spring, but any ideas and advice you can give would be greatly appreciated!

 

[shimbrypaku]

One note, if you are going to eliminate a branch, don’t cut it off, strip the bark, cut off the flexible green growth, if possible stick in a pot, rooted cuttings, and use the dead branch as Jin. You can always remove it later down the road if you don’t like it.

Thanks

 

[Willster]

One note, if you are going to eliminate a branch, don’t cut it off, strip the bark, cut off the flexible green growth, if possible stick in a pot, rooted cuttings, and use the dead branch as Jin. You can always remove it later down the road if you don’t like it.

Thanks

Thanks! Great idea. I was planning on planting as many cuttings as possible from branches I trim assuming the cuttings are big enough. For creating jin (I think I’m leaning toward informal upright) do you think it would be a good idea to let the larger branches (like the front one in the second pic) back bud and branch out more for more detailed Jin?

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

From my inexperience, I don't see this tree to have any natural cascade tendency, but it's not my tree. And I'm only looking at some 2D photos, so I don't have the insight you have. But personally, it has a strikingly aesthetic movement in that trunkline. I would simply try to complement or improve its current form. It's not a generic mallsai; it's unique and natural looking.

 

[Willster]

From my inexperience, I don't see this tree to have any natural cascade tendency, but it's not my tree. And I'm only looking at some 2D photos, so I don't have the insight you have. But personally, it has a strikingly aesthetic movement in that trunkline. I would simply try to complement or improve its current form. It's not a generic mallsai; it's unique and natural looking.

Yeah I think your right about the cascade that’s why I think I’m probabaly gonna go with informal upright and use its trunk movement because it would take a lot drastic changes and years to grow out that bottom branch. Thanks. Also, not sure if you have any experience with creating Jin, but would you have any tips for the adding that into my tree? If not that’s ok. Also I really like the trunk movement too. This was one of the only online sellers I found that didn’t sell sticks in a pot and charge $80. The seller name is “small forest bonsai” and he sells on both Etsy and EBay if you want to check out his stock sometime. I believe his store is temporarily closed, but he just had a clearance sale recently, so there might be some nice trees still when it opens up again. I’d buy another tree myself if it weren’t winter in Minnesota shipping from Florida right now.

 

[shimbrypaku]

Thanks! Great idea. I was planning on planting as many cuttings as possible from branches I trim assuming the cuttings are big enough. For creating jin (I think I’m leaning toward informal upright) do you think it would be a good idea to let the larger branches (like the front one in the second pic) back bud and branch out more for more detailed

Pruning the branch you want to back bud and allowing more sunlight into the interior will help, but theirs no guarantee it will produce back budding on the branch in the location you want.

Thanks

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

My experience with jins is essentially zero. I have put a couple jins on one tree still in the ground. I would suggest you first determine the final size of your tree before doing any deadwood work. Two things that stood out the most:

1. How much thinner the jin is vs the diameter of the branch + bark. In the future, I'm not creating deadwood from any branches narrower than my pinky. Even then, it loses about 20% of its diameter once the bark is stripped off.

2. How quickly the shape is set vs live branches. If you wire deadwood in the desired direction/design, it will stay where it is by the time it completely dries out, rather than weeks or months with living branches.

But I strongly recommend researching other threads where more experienced practitioners have chimed in to answer these or very similar questions.

 

[shimbrypaku]

My experience is, dead wood will not set in a shape.

You need to set the shape of the branch before you kill the branch.

Just my experience.
Thanks

 

[Bonsai Nut]

When evaluating your tree, always start at the roots and base of the trunk and work upwards (with your eye). It is an easy tendency to start at the top and look down the tree - and get distracted by the apex or the top half of the tree - either of which is less important and can usually be changed much more quickly and easily than the base.

Often when I start with small nursery junipers like this one, I try not to think about styling (much) until I get the roots cleaned up and the tree moved into decent soil. I can't see what is going on at the soil level in your photo, but at the bare minimum the bottom branch is not going to be used long-term, so you can eliminate it now, or leave it for a couple of years as a sacrifice branch to thicken the base of the trunk (making sure you don't trim it at all). Repot, see what the roots are giving you, and ignore that lowest branch and you will have a better clue how to move forward.

Procumbens junipers are a weeping cultivar. The tree will have a strong tendency to throw long horizontal running growth, and the apex will want to lay over and grow horizontally. You see these trees being sold frequently as mall bonsai because they will look bonsai-ish even without any styling. If you want a taller tree or an upright apex, make sure you plan for it and wire that upright growth - while working to constrain the horizontal growth and the thick/awkward branches that will have a tendency to overgrow. Watch also that you keep the fine inner branching. The tree will want to push all of its foliage to the extremities of the branches, and it easy to find yourself with a poodle/pom-pom tree. Keep opening up the foliage mass, wiring out the growth, and jin any branches that are coarse and thick - making sure you give the tree time to recover.

Finally, try to style the tree so it looks like a large tree in nature versus a bonsai. As soon as I hear people start with "what style should I use" I like to steer them in the direction of "what tree in nature do you think this looks like in miniature?" Look at photos of trees in the wild and use them as inspiration for your design. I will often print out a photo of a tree and keep it by my bench for inspiration - not as a literal plan for my design, but rather to remind me how old trees look. Doing this will steer you away from having a cookie-cutter design of "left, right, back branch" and a juniper that ends up looking like an oak tree.

 

[Willster]

When evaluating your tree, always start at the roots and base of the trunk and work upwards (with your eye). It is an easy tendency to start at the top and look down the tree - and get distracted by the apex or the top half of the tree - either of which is less important and can usually be changed much more quickly and easily than the base.

Often when I start with small nursery junipers like this one, I try not to think about styling (much) until I get the roots cleaned up and the tree moved into decent soil. I can't see what is going on at the soil level in your photo, but at the bare minimum the bottom branch is not going to be used long-term, so you can eliminate it now, or leave it for a couple of years as a sacrifice branch to thicken the base of the trunk (making sure you don't trim it at all). Repot, see what the roots are giving you, and ignore that lowest branch and you will have a better clue how to move forward.

Procumbens junipers are a weeping cultivar. The tree will have a strong tendency to throw long horizontal running growth, and the apex will want to lay over and grow horizontally. You see these trees being sold frequently as mall bonsai because they will look bonsai-ish even without any styling. If you want a taller tree or an upright apex, make sure you plan for it and wire that upright growth - while working to constrain the horizontal growth and the thick/awkward branches that will have a tendency to overgrow. Watch also that you keep the fine inner branching. The tree will want to push all of its foliage to the extremities of the branches, and it easy to find yourself with a poodle/pom-pom tree. Keep opening up the foliage mass, wiring out the growth, and jin any branches that are coarse and thick - making sure you give the tree time to recover.

Finally, try to style the tree so it looks like a large tree in nature versus a bonsai. As soon as I hear people start with "what style should I use" I like to steer them in the direction of "what tree in nature do you think this looks like in miniature?" Look at photos of trees in the wild and use them as inspiration for your design. I will often print out a photo of a tree and keep it by my bench for inspiration - not as a literal plan for my design, but rather to remind me how old trees look. Doing this will steer you away from having a cookie-cutter design of "left, right, back branch" and a juniper that ends up looking like an oak tree.

Thanks, I’ll definitely be sure to spend some time looking at photos of life sized junipers and try to focus on the base of the tree for thinking of a design. @Brian Van Fleet recommended doing a bit of styling and cleaning up the branches while the roots are strong, and then transplanting it in the spring of 2027. It sounds like you would recommend transplanting it this year. I should note that I think the tree is in pretty decent soil, it’s an organic soil but it’s very fast draining and required me to water nearly every day in the summer to keep the soil from drying out too much. The seller labeled the soil it’s in as bonsai soil but I know that doesn’t mean it’s ideal soil. Either way would you recommend doing a repot still to examine the roots and maybe get in some better soil? I’ve heard mixed things when doing research about whether it’s better to repot or do an initial styling first as well, but you have quite a lot of experience with bonsai, so if you’ve found that that’s generally better then I should probably take your advice.