My Before and Afters

Create

In an earlier post titled Bonsai in Taiwan I mentioned that I had purchased 20 small juniper trees and I promised to upload some of my efforts trying to improve them a little.  Well, today I had a spare hour so decided to attempt my first of 20.  Today I really should be doing something else but right now I can't think of what it should be.

The is the juniper tree we will be working on today.

The first step was to remove the wire.  These trees are a few years old and have been trained with bonsai wire.  I am not sure exactly how old this juniper is but my guess is around 3 or 4 years.  This tree was grown from a cutting.  Most juniper trees are grown from cuttings as they respond well to this treatment and grow at a much faster pace compared to beginning from seed.
It would have been wired quite quickly without too much thought.  The nursery where I bought this tree has thousands so a few bends here and there is all they have time for.  I thought I might be able to put some more time into this tree and see what happens.

After I unwound the wire the branches held a little.

I now looked at what could possibly be a good design.  I didn't exactly know what I wanted but I did know that I wanted movement in the trunk and branches.  Having movement in trunk and branches depicts a tree of great age.  In bonsai try not to have a trunk or branches too straight, especially when dealing with junipers.  The natural juniper tree grows in the mountains where snow and wind are aggressive.

As I was taking off the wire you can see how it was biting into the bark. This is regarded as a good time to remove the wire for juniper trees.  The trunk will grow and the scar will heal, leaving an interesting bark texture.  

As you can see in the above picture the wire was inserted into the soil and then wrapped around the trunk.  That is one method for wiring a trunk.  I prefer sticking the wire up through the drainage hole at the base of the pot and coming at the trunk that way.  I find you have more support.  Just make a little L shaped hook at the base with your wire so as it holds in place.

Next, I did a little clean up job by removing the small branches at each juncture. By doing this simple cut, the tree takes on a much older appearance.

Made some more decisions.  Once I start I have trouble stopping!  I have a basic idea of what I want to do but I am still not convinced . I looked at the tree for a while playing out different shapes in my mind.  I was tilting the tree in its pot, moving branches carefully with my fingers, and imagining what I could do to the trunk.  If you get stuck, move off to find a bonsai book with great pictures.  Find a tree that could possibly match and COPY the design.  This will give you some confidence.

Eventually, I decided to create a wind swept style bonsai, where the strong wind would be blowing from the right which makes all the branches bend to the left..  I wanted the foliage to come back to the left to again create more movement.  I thought wiring the branches that way would give it some character.

I have now wired the tree and have attempted to create what was in my mind.  You will notice that I also took the bark off a few sections of the tree.  This is again to give the viewer the illusion of a tree that has endured hardship, and hence, age.
  

I wriggled the tree out of its training pot and placed it on a red dish.  I then scrapped the old soil from the roots and dipped it in a bucket of water.  You need to keep the roots wet as you do this procedure. You can still see some of the old clay soil which was really sticky and hard.  I'm not sure if that soil was the best for the tree - although it was growing quite well in it.  Next, I mixed my river sand with granular soil.  This soil mix was around 50/50.  I want the water to drain freely out through the drainage hole at the base of my new pot.  I ended up cutting a few of the older roots and leaving the smaller ones.  These smaller roots are ideal for the health of the tree.  It's these smaller roots that do the bulk of the work.  The older roots can be cut and eliminated as these are less important.

 A mix of river sand and soil.  An excellent medium for clean water drainage and most importantly quick root growth.

I then secured the tree in the pot by using more wire.  I pushed wire up through the pot's drainage hole and secured the tree around the root ball - (sorry I don't have any picture of this - I will post some at a later stage).  It is very important to do this because new roots will only grow if the tree isn't moved around too much.  When the tree establishes itself in the soil after a few months you can then remove the wire.

The final result.  All in all I am reasonably happy with how this tree now looks.  I will now place this juniper in a shaded area for a few weeks and then release it back into full sun.  It is Spring in Taiwan at the moment.  Spring is the perfect time to wire trees, change soil, and cut some roots.

Before

After