Shohin Nana #1 (my first tree)

[HamburgerTrain]

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I did this in an afternoon outdoors with a really patient instructor I found from the BSOP site. He did a lot of the heavy lifting, I thought he was going to shoot me after I told him the top part of the tree we just got done wiring and styling should be removed.
Instead he got really excited and we stripped it, rewired and turned it into a flamboyant jin.
For what I paid for the afternoon I couldn't have gone out and bought a piece of starter material this nice, and I got to learn some really cool techniques.
If anyone cares to share any opinions I appreciate the input. I posted this here in hopes that I could learn something from the community. The first photo shows where the tree is marked as the front.
love-ham

 

[B.uneasy]

I like it! Off to a great start!!

 

[B.uneasy]

Seems to have had a good bit of work to it. After its done recovering, I would start working on individual branch depth.

 

[Cable]

Am I the only one who feels like it will be dead by spring?

 

[coachspinks]

Am I the only one who feels like it will be dead by spring?

Since it does not seem like the roots were touched it may have a shot. I've done a lot to young junipers and as long as I didn't do roots and foliage at the same time, I have been ok. Aren't Portland winters fairly mild?

 

[HamburgerTrain]

He said we can do this kind of work this time of year in Portland, but don't repot until next season spring 2022. Also said he has really good success starting cuttings this time of year.

 

[Cable]

Since it does not seem like the roots were touched it may have a shot. I've done a lot to young junipers and as long as I didn't do roots and foliage at the same time, I have been ok. Aren't Portland winters fairly mild?

Yeah I've beat the hell out of young junipers, too, but dang...

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Am I the only one who feels like it will be dead by spring?

I have the same feeling. But then again, some junipers can take an awful lot.
I'm staging bark-stripping myself just because I want to be cautious. I've killed junipers with less damage, I've recovered junipers with more damage.

You never know until you know.

 

[Graft]

Hmmm.....I wish my first tree looked that good

 

[HamburgerTrain]

Hmmm.....I wish my first tree looked that good

By first tree I meant something that could go in a pot. I have a few sticks and stumps as well.

 

[Graft]

By first tree I meant something that could go in a pot. I have a few sticks and stumps as well.

I have plenty of those!

 

[HamburgerTrain]

We had three days of winter. The weather was in the 50s for a while then one weekend it snowed followed by freezing rain. All my junipers were covered in a layer of ice before I had a chance to move them to shelter. This one doesn't have as many bright green tips as the others and one small branch died off.

 

[PA_Penjing]

Looks like you should wait another season to repot. I tried to be hands off this winter, with some of the material I worked on in fall, and lost a few small branches too. Guess I'll go back to being a little more cautious in the winter. At least your dead branch was an accident, mine was planned and bragged about haha.

 

[HamburgerTrain]

Not as vigorous as my other junipers but growth seems like a good sign. I won’t do anything to this tree until the local club is opened back up or maybe even 2023.

 

[HamburgerTrain]

I think about a week after my last post I discovered the wire was biting in quite a bit. I removed all the old wire and changed the design. I didn't remove any foliage and only half-ass wired it so it looked like trash for a while. Removed all that wire yesterday, straightened out the wire and reapplied today. Still a really weird tree, but at least the branches seem to be laid out a lot cleaner now.

 

[HamburgerTrain]

Still a ways to go with this one. Finally got it in a pot, will wire this fall mayb. I’ll probably tie the top branch down with some string until then.

 

[August44]

Sorry, I can't look at that tree very long. It's way to confusing and nothing flows.