Kishu Shimpaku with nine lives

[Smoke]

In 2001 I purchased a Kishu from Gary Ishii. It was beautiful. It was at the time one of two trees that I had paid more than $200 for.
In 2003 the Fresno and Hanford bonsai Societies teamed up to host the GSBF Convention in Fresno that year. For that convention I was asked to do a display of shohin trees. No one in Fresno at the time was much into the smaller trees and they looked to me to provide a display since I had more than one. Not especially because they were great, just numerous.

This is the oldest picture I have of the tree and even at this time it had already lost some of its Ishii luster. That's it on the top of the stand. It was shown with a trident ( of course) and a boxwood and a stone. I built the stand for the display.



Over the years I have battled dreaded spider mites and they have taken their toll on the tree. each year it withers a little more. Here it was almost dead and I nursed it back showing green foliage again after taking off all the grey foliage.




Then it got a little worse, and more sparse.


Then the tail was completely dead and I cut it off making deadwood of what was left. This was around 2010.

 

[Smoke]

So the poor thing looked pretty bad in 2013. Most of the foliage was removed that was dead and wire removed.



In 2014 I repotted it into the semi cascade pot and rewired it. Once again I was able to get it pretty healthy but not thriving. Spider mites can devastate a juniper over night when the infestation is big.



In looking for suspects to take to the beach, this one looked well enough to try once again for a restyle. This thing has been changed so many times it looks like a teenage girl getting ready to go out. So this was tonight while watching reruns of Big Bang. Sheldon always inspires me. I almost jumped the gun and I already had a wire stuck in before remembering to take the before shot.



While working on the tree, since it is so small I used another pot as a dish to work out of while I laid it on its side to get to some difficult wire areas.



So now the money shot. 15 years later and it's still not all the way dead. Maybe I'll name this one Garfield I'm dedicating this one to Mr. Trump and his win. You know, king of the comb overs. Notice that the tree is now reversed and back to the original direction.

 

[JoeR]

Garfield is a very suiting name.

It almost looks like the deadwood is a copy of the foliage to the right of it

 

[aml1014]

Garfield is a very suiting name.

It almost looks like the deadwood is a copy of the foliage to the right of it

I definitely agree that Garfield is a great name!
I also was looking at the Deadwood thinking how it is a near exact image of the foliage.
Very cool tree smoke, it almost dying every year sure has given it some character.

Aaron

 

[Dav4]

I hate spider mites. Are you using a miticide at this point? There's a newer one...Sultan?...I hear effective but super $$$. Glad the tree is growing again instead of dying.

 

[augustine]

Smoke,

As always, very, very nice. The container is fantastic. My best wishes of an easy and speedy recovery for Mrs. Smoke.