Sarge—My Other First Tree...A Progression Thread

[cedarcanvas]

I picked up my first couple of trees after tons of research and some good advice here.

This is a nursery stock Juniperus chinensis var. viridis in a three-gallon pot.

Here it is the night I brought it home (April 29, 2020):


I quite liked the subtle movement in the trunk and that it appeared to me to have some softer scale foliage. It has a couple of scars from the nursery but nothing that seemed to me to be too substantial. It will be living on my south-facing, sunny balcony, likely in this pot for some time.

First steps are to keep it healthy, watered, then cut back the pot to find its base, clean it up and explore a possible front and design possibilities.

Nothing fancy, but I think this one really has some potential, if at the very least to learn a bunch from messing around. I’ll be posting updates here and lots of questions in the beginners’ and/or other appropriate threads as long as the tree is alive and workable. Any and all feedback is welcome.

BonsaiNut is a wellspring of wisdom! Thanks!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

When looking for that base, make sure you keep the roots on the branches that have been buried, they can make nice cuttings and usually they already have some roots.

 

[cedarcanvas]

When looking for that base, make sure you keep the roots on the branches that have been buried, they can make nice cuttings and usually they already have some roots.

Good to know. Did some cleaning. Only one of these branches had two or three very fine, hair-like roots, that didn’t seem substantial enough to be worth hanging onto. May have missed an opportunity, but cut before I saw your post. I’ll certainly remember this for future trees. I also had to dig down several inches to get to anything resembling the flair of a base. Pics to follow.

 

[cedarcanvas]

Okay, here’s my initial cleaning.

Before:



I was very surprised at how far down I had to go—around 3.5”—to find some flair. But I really like what I did find:



It came out looking much more bare than I anticipated. I admit I may have been a little aggressive, but I kept to only trimming underbranches, weak/dead growth and a few branches at the sites of whorls. I may need to encourage back budding as the growth seems more concentrated towards the branches’ ends.

The tree came with the scars seen in the last photo. I may turn this area into a shari feature down the line.

I was also surprised at how supple/fragile the branches felt...not so much brittle, but not as sturdy as my Sabina. Is this a species thing? I will have to keep this in mind come styling.

My dream was windswept and I can actually see some potential there. That being said, I’ve come to learn this is a very tricky style to pull off. Either way, I really like the movement on this little tree and it feels like a good, straightforward learning specimen.

My next step is to continue to monitor my watering and the tree’s health. And, since it’s been about a month since I brought this and my other beginner tree home from the nursery, I think it’s about time I consider fertilizing.

Tips, criticism and compliments always welcome!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I kept to only trimming underbranches, weak/dead growth and a few branches at the sites of whorls. I may need to encourage back budding as the growth seems more concentrated towards the branches’ ends.

So, you cut off weak growth, and now you want to put growth back in the same spot through unreliable backbudding? Growth that starts out as weak, and then gets stronger.
That's not a critique, it's an observation.

It sounds backwards doesn't it?
I advise people to do the wiring before trimming on junipers because I made the same mistake once and ruined a tree. The wiring helps both the design process for a structure but also shows you which branches will matter and which won't. And the wiring will cause you to knock off or kill a couple, so it already helps a you in decision making.

If junipers are healthy, and haven't been recently repotted, then you can easily take 30-40% off of the ends of branches and work your way to compact the tree.

For now, letting it grow is a wise decision.

Sabina should be less flexible than chinensis, so that's an odd observation. But then again, sabina spread their growth cycles over a longer period compared to the (relatively) fast flushes I know from regular chinensis. Could be seasonal, could be cultivar related.
I do know that sabinas usually snap before they bend, and chinensis should bend before snapping.

 

[cedarcanvas]

Thanks so much for the coaching, @Wires_Guy_wires. It totally does sound backwards. I would say about 80% of what I removed was brown/dead under-foliage. I guess “weak” was a bit of a misleading term. I was under the impression that this type of cleaning needed to be done prior to wiring, as well as to promote light and airflow to the inner branches. It certainly would have been unreasonably difficult to wire had I not taken some off.

All that said, I’m in no place to know what too much/not enough trimming might be...not trying to argue or make excuses, just explain what I meant. I’m still trying to figure out what’s appropriate for this initial “cleaning” stage and what constitutes a cleaning vs. a pruning vs. a chopping, etc. I have no intention of any more significant work, unless necessary, through the growing season.

I also like the sound of your wiring philosophy of letting the design reveal itself as I wire, especially as a total beginner. If things go well I hope to give it a try in the fall.

Perhaps I was unclear in my previous post regarding sabina vs this sargentii. My sabina does indeed seem more likely to snap than this sargentii, which is much bendy-er....that bendiness just makes this tree feel like the branches are softer and less robust, if that makes sense.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

No worries man, I've been there, we've all been there.
It's a curve, and you're climbing it.
Other noobs like me have done way worse to trees.
You're doing good in my book at least.

I've made the point more than once that the veterans on youtube tell us to remove weak inner foliage, and that that might not be the best approach in my opinion. Those guys outrank me by miles, but the bare branches with foliage on the ends, which happen a loot with newbies, make me think that those veterans might forget that we're playing with rough stock while they're working on very pricy bonsai grown material. The bonsai education currently being offered on those channels has basically two things: cuttings and established material. There's a huge gap in between. That's where both you and I are at.
Peter Chan and Peter Warren seem to fill those gaps to some extent, but Chan isn't very much of a design guy and Warren can be a bit unstructured.

Air flow and light are always good, and you can expect some budding this or next year.

But it's weird, right? To remove tiny foliage and then hope it grows back from a dormant bud. Why don't they advise us to keep those parts and make them stronger?

Still, plenty of options left for this tree! I bet it'll be a nice one in five years or so.

 

[cedarcanvas]

Thanks!

...those veterans might forget that we're playing with rough stock while they're working on very pricy bonsai grown material.

This makes sense...though didn’t even occur to me. I’ve seen videos from Mirai and Bjorholm specifically pertaining to nursery stock and the hack that stuff right back...but like you said, I’m nowhere near their caliber. I’ll have to do some reading on the pertinent differences between cuttings/bonsai stock and nursery stock.