Trees for Today and Tomorrow

Juniper Parsnoni
(Juniperus chinensis)
Style: Informal Upright

Just finished styling this tree, tonight... still needs to be fine wired, wanted to let it grow out in some areas, so for now I am at a standstill with it. Next year, I will start beginning to get it in a pot at is new planting angle. Good thing is that this tree was collected some time back and has be allowed to grow and establish a lot of finer roots, so changing the angle should not be to big of a problem. Shari on trunk, will also need to be extended down the trunk.

More info regarding this tree can be found here
http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/choose-your-own-adeventure.19975/

sawgrass said:

These ficus are often referred to as "Ginseng", mainly due to the fact that they have big tubular roots that look similar to that of ginseng.

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But yours isn't one. It doesn't look at all like the dreaded IKEA Ginseng

jeremy_norbury said:

But yours isn't one. It doesn't look at all like the dreaded IKEA Ginseng

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Mine was from Home Depot... with these Ginseng Ficus, one needs to understand that their real purpose is to use as a base, for building an awesome trunk out of in a very short time. Often nice roots are either grafted over the top of them, or Ariel roots are allowed to grow over them. So, that in the end one does not actually even see the Ginseng roots, yet they allow for a quick trunk bulk for a foundation.

Fukien Tea
(ehretia microphylla)
Style: Upright Informal

Restyle of my Fukien Tea. Just finished wiring tonight. Decided to go a totally different route than one normally goes with Teas... Was examining the tree after I defoliated the tree, and most of the new growth was shooting straight up, which reminded me of the style often chosen for Cherries and Apricots... and I thought it might work here!

Teas are one of the few trees I will go through and defoliate to wire if I am planning on doing the whole tree and a big tree such as this one... reason being they will often grow like a rats nest, which not only makes it very hard to wire, but one also finds branches shooting out in all directions. With the foliage on, it makes it very hard to see, sometimes a branch that is growing weird and needs to me wired differently, or removed in it's entirety.

Sorry, guess I should add the before picture of my Fukien Tea. I like this initial style, however, when I originally styled the tree in this composition, I didn't really take into account the tree's further growth and how the style could be maintained... I also didn't like the front that was chosen and how it felt that the tree's curves in the trunk were flattened out... which felt kinda forced, as though I, the artist, was purposely trying to somehow mask them.

Suspenseful, I know! Just defoliated the Tea two days ago and already beginning to send out new leaves... They are awesome trees and don't really miss a beat here.

Will post follow-up when tree fills in.

Climate zone envy, for a minute, wait, it will pass.
Wish I could grow tropicals as quickly as those of you living in Florida can do. Even with a good under lights set up, they move slowly for me. But then again, I don't need central air conditioning. (I live in cooler by the Lake country).

They are an absolute nightmare here. I can't keep them alive and they are dirt cheap - but I won't buy more.

So we make up for it with Larch

08299017 by Jerry Norbury, on Flickr

jeremy_norbury said:

They are an absolute nightmare here. I can't keep them alive and they are dirt cheap - but I won't buy more.

So we make up for it with Larch

08299017 by Jerry Norbury, on Flickr

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Very Nice tree! Thanks for sharing!

Juniper Parsoni
(Juniperus chinensis)
Style: Call it what you will!

This is a new project that I picked up a close to a month ago... finished it's first style a couple of weekends ago, but just now getting around to photograph it and post it up. First image is the of the completed first style, second, is about half way through this process, last is the piece of material when I first got it!

Plans for the future of the tree, are that I will be building a grow box this weekend, so that I can plant it at it's new angle. I will not be disturbing the roots in the process... Just literally taking the plastic pot off, and transferring it to a built container that will filled in around the root-ball with a bonsai soil. So, the tree will be allowed to grow into the new design and allowed to easily be watered as well.

Update to post #76

Was starting to sort out my "Split" Torulosa Juniper tonight... Got all the main branching set, still need to do fine wiring and a bit of thinning out of the foliage in some areas, but starting to shape up nicely! There is a link on post #76 to a thread I started sometime back regarding the whole transformation of this tree, including the whole process of the splitting of the trunk and the bending... it is quite amazing how far this tree has transform from where it first started.

Juniper Parsnoni
(Juniperus chinensis)
Style: Informal Upright

This juniper I got 2 days ago as a gift for doing a Juniper Workshop, which turned out to be quite a success... I didn't waste any time getting to it and yesterday did all the rough styling, and setting of major branching. The 5th photo is how I left it at the end of day one. The last photo is what it looked like before I began. Today I finished all the fine wiring and finished the first styling. First photo is front, third and fourth are the rear of the tree.

Trunk size is 2-3 inches wide at base depending on which side you are viewing and tree tops out at 17 inches tall.

Nice trees Stacy. You wear that hat well too, I could never pull that off!

Ross said:

Nice trees Stacy. You wear that hat well too, I could never pull that off!

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Thanks, I appreciate it!

Update to post #44

Had my camera going tonight, and threw this Wild Tamarind up on the work bench to get a progress photo.
I have been really pushing this tree this year with a couple of hard cut backs of the foliage and finer branching, to really try and push a whole bunch of back budding, and it is working. The past couple of years letting it go helped. I have more than tripled the amount of ramification of the tree in a matter of months, which is extremely awesome on a compound leaf tree. The foliage has reduced in size quite nicely... Next spring I plan on working on the pot, which will be smaller and should help reduce foliage size even more. Now that I got quite a bit of ramification going, I will allow a couple of branches here and there to grow to help work on the shape, which still needs a bit more tweaking on the right side. Lastly, I will be doing some more carving on the deadwood his fall/winter.

Update to Post #91

Finished wiring this Juniper Torulosa that I split the trunk on a year ago. Just gotta let some areas grow in. Next spring depending how the tree is doing, I might see if I can squeeze it into a better and smaller cascade pot. Some of the dead wood needs some carving seeing that I quite literally took a jigsaw and cut the tree right down the center before bending... However it will probably be a year or two before I will be able to address these areas seeing that for the moment they are much to brittle. Once the live vein gains strength and puts on some more growth I will be able to continue...

Plans for next year, other than a repot, are just to continue working foliage. First pic is front. Second the back. Third the side, and Forth is a close up of the split trunk and the deadwood and live veins.

Update to Post #5

This Bougie has been movin' right along this year!

In my original post I said I have had this tree for over a couple of years now, and was looking through some paperwork on Friday and came across the receipt where I paid for it, and realized that I have had the tree just now two years... and it has come quite far in that time. The first year was pretty much spent trying to force new growth to pop on the trunk. When I got, the tree, a lot of the growth was at the top and on the right side of the base. Towards the end of that year, the tree really started to slow down... It needed a repot badly, but I didn't want to do it going into winter. The tree's health being jeopardized, didn't help it get through the winter well and I ended up losing quite a few of the branches I managed to of obtained.

This spring, I repotted it, removing about half the roots, removed all the dead branches leaving about a 1 inch stub, so as to not have the dieback protrude any further into the trunk of the tree. This was in July... Which in the original post #5 one can see a picture shortly after repot, with the tree defoliated, and me beside it. In the past three months since then, the tree has sent out tons of new branching off of the trunk. A lot, of them were at the base of the stubs I left... The bottom left branch with the rather large leaves is a totally new branch, that sprung from the trunk in the past month. It has been raining so much as of lately...

This type of rapid growth could really be a pain if one is not careful. Why? Biggest problem with such fast growth is that the tree produces very long spacing between nodes, Which if this growth was in an area where one needed very short spacing between nodes, such as at the apex... one then would quite literally end up removing the good majority of the branch and starting over. Seeing however, the branch is at the base where one would want a much looser branch structure, it works.

Plans moving forward are that I need one more main branch right below the apex on the right side. I will be working on thickening branching and establishing finer branching. Nowhere, near being worried about leaf size.

Update to Post # 84

Tea filling in...
Eventually when I go to display this tree, I will be reducing the amount of branching, to give the tree a light and airy feel to the canopy... for the time being, I am just growing out and establishing what I can, so when I do begin the elimination process, I will have more options to choose from.

sawgrass said:

Update to Post # 84

Tea filling in...
Eventually when I go to display this tree, I will be reducing the amount of branching, to give the tree a light and airy feel to the canopy... for the time being, I am just growing out and establishing what I can, so when I do begin the elimination process, I will have more options to choose from.

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I'm just going to say "DAMN NICE"!

Ditto And the Bougie is fab too. Great to read your progression notes. Very valuable.