Chinese Juniper ? - Where to go.

Hello,

Here I have a Chinese juniper variety unknown that has been growing freely for 5 or so years. I decided to give it a haircut and figure out what to do with it. I can feel the potential of this tree but I cannot seem to see it yet. Tree has a 2 inch base and is about 30 inches tall.

I am thinking of maybe reducing the size down to about 10 inches and shift the planting angle to the right about 15 degrees. I could also do some severe bending on the main trunk.....just not sure. Hoping to get a little feedback from the community here.

I know you guys have been seeing a lot of my trees lately and giving me advice and I greatly appreciate it. I have been very intrigued by the art of bonsai and have been growing trees specifically for this reason for years. I just recently started getting deeper into the art and am now trying my hand to create my own. This is the reason I am kind of flooding the forum with my trees.

Included are before and after pictures of the haircut.

Thanks again in advance.

Aaron

Defect said:

Hello,



I am thinking of maybe reducing the size down to about 10 inches and shift the planting angle to the right about 15 degrees.

Click to expand...

That's where the future of this material lies. I would cut it back, leaving enough green to ensure continued health, and re-evaluate as it fill out again. Spend particular attention examing the base and lower trunk, as this will dictate where your front will be. Have fun!

OK, let me start this with a really obvious caveat: I am WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too novice to even attempt to give you advice on something like this. What I'm suggesting here...I don't know if it's a good idea, or a design you'd be interested, or something that's even possible. The more experienced members here will have to advise you on that. So consider this merely a theory that struck me as I was looking at what you had.

So in looking at it, something kept creeping into my head...it would make a KILLER windswept juniper, but it's at at all planted in the right position for that right now. So here's what I'd propose: if possible, you could essentially turn the tree 180 degrees and tilt slightly the way it's planted; this would likely leave some of the rootball exposed, but that might make for an interesting look. You could then wire it further to the right to achieve that "fighting against the gale" look. The branch on (what would now be the) left of the tree could either be excised or wired and allowed to thicken before you turn it into some kickass jin.

I'm attaching a really rough vert so you can see what I'm talking about; obviously, you can't plant the damn thing on its side, but I bet there's some way to reverse it position and then bend it to this form. So imagine the trunk underneath and not as a side ponytail

Hope you understand what I'm getting at. I never see this particular 6:30 on the clock so I'm a little delirious.

I don't see a windswept.

I do see a drastic possibility. It's almost all that is possible because when you gave it a haircut, you overdid it in many areas and only left tufts of foliage at the ends of LONG branches.

This is the part of the tree that still has enough foliage for you to make something of. Note: I show the trunk cut entirely off; you could as well leave a short jin at the chop site. That would make healing faster.

Dav4- I figured that was what was going to need to happen

Goose- I do see where you are going with that.

jkl- I like the virt that you did.

This tree was very leggy and was not in its optimal spot for growth unfortunately. I think the angle and shadows of the before pictures give it an appearance of more compact foliage then it actually had. Most of the cutting I did was taking out very leggy branches.