Guy_wires Collection

When doing a little hike, I found more people fixing up the woods doing maintenance work. As if we have any nature at all in this country, it's a hoax. We have culture and we have culture. Nature hasn't been seen in hundreds of years.
Anyhow, I have a Spruce and a new Scots pine. Too late in the season actually, parts of the forest floor were frozen. So I have no new spruce and no new scots pine until they show they've survived.
The scots pine has survived a fire, which blazed just 5 metres away from it, turning everything into ash, which somehow made it bud like crazy. 8 terminal buds per branch, on every branch. And backbudding on the trunk.

Picture this.. You've finished an education in plant science, with a specialization in plant science. You know how to handle literature and protocols. You know how to use those data in practical situations. You bring home 40 seeds of a super rare juniper. Then you donate 5 seeds to your father in law and proceed to try and germinate the other 35...
6 weeks later, you get a message with a picture attached "It's alive!" while your super scientific method and controlled variables yield exactly 0 germination. You then switch to the plain 'n dirty in-law-method. And within a week, there's junipers popping up.
I'll be damned!

This might very well be the first visually documented case of a germinating Juniperus Turbinata. And I'm going to say it.. If they survive into adulthood, turbinata junipers are the best looking junipers I have ever seen. No Japanese variety can compete with that. I have seen Brian van Fleet's case studies on japanese juniper foliage. Turbinata seems to go the extra mile. Not sure if that's a good thing, but I like it.
Garden peat + sand mixture, with added clay litter and perlite. A single dose of nutrients (accident) and letting the medium dry out between waterings has yielded a 2.8% germination rate. Until now. It might increase over time.
I have 20 or so seeds in the fridge, going for the exact study I'm copying. Which should yield around 5% germination. Hopefully in January.
For now, I need to find out how to keep this seedling alive, indoors..

Another thing. Someone once said: Get a lazy person to do a difficult job, and he will make it easy. Now I don't know who said it, and I'm too lazy to look it up.
Wiring branches horizontally before the big clip'n'grow coming this spring? Too much trouble. Spend 15 cents on paperclips. Good enough for government work.

Wires_Guy_wires said:

When doing a little hike, I found more people fixing up the woods doing maintenance work. As if we have any nature at all in this country, it's a hoax. We have culture and we have culture. Nature hasn't been seen in hundreds of years.
Anyhow, I have a Spruce and a new Scots pine. Too late in the season actually, parts of the forest floor were frozen. So I have no new spruce and no new scots pine until they show they've survived.
The scots pine has survived a fire, which blazed just 5 metres away from it, turning everything into ash, which somehow made it bud like crazy. 8 terminal buds per branch, on every branch. And backbudding on the trunk.

Picture this.. You've finished an education in plant science, with a specialization in plant science. You know how to handle literature and protocols. You know how to use those data in practical situations. You bring home 40 seeds of a super rare juniper. Then you donate 5 seeds to your father in law and proceed to try and germinate the other 35...
6 weeks later, you get a message with a picture attached "It's alive!" while your super scientific method and controlled variables yield exactly 0 germination. You then switch to the plain 'n dirty in-law-method. And within a week, there's junipers popping up.
I'll be damned!
View attachment 217889
This might very well be the first visually documented case of a germinating Juniperus Turbinata. And I'm going to say it.. If they survive into adulthood, turbinata junipers are the best looking junipers I have ever seen. No Japanese variety can compete with that. I have seen Brian van Fleet's case studies on japanese juniper foliage. Turbinata seems to go the extra mile. Not sure if that's a good thing, but I like it.
Garden peat + sand mixture, with added clay litter and perlite. A single dose of nutrients (accident) and letting the medium dry out between waterings has yielded a 2.8% germination rate. Until now. It might increase over time.
I have 20 or so seeds in the fridge, going for the exact study I'm copying. Which should yield around 5% germination. Hopefully in January.
For now, I need to find out how to keep this seedling alive, indoors..

Another thing. Someone once said: Get a lazy person to do a difficult job, and he will make it easy. Now I don't know who said it, and I'm too lazy to look it up.
Wiring branches horizontally before the big clip'n'grow coming this spring? Too much trouble. Spend 15 cents on paperclips. Good enough for government work.
View attachment 217890

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Paperclip 'n Grow...nice.

Please keep us updated on the Juniperus Turbinata sprouts, I can’t wait to hopefully see some seedlings. I searched for seeds.....nothing......how did you come across those? Or do need to read previous posts?

moke said:

Please keep us updated on the Juniperus Turbinata sprouts, I can’t wait to hopefully see some seedlings. I searched for seeds.....nothing......how did you come across those? Or do need to read previous posts?

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Found your post where you collected your seeds...Cool thanks for sharing

I found them on the Spanish island of Mallorca. I know a guy there and I'm trying to get him to the beaches and coves to get some more seeds for me.
They were offered on Ebay a while back, but since they're in a grey area between 'common', 'undocumented subspecies' and 'endangered' because of their likeness to Phoenicea var. Phoenicea junipers, they are hard to find.
Cuttings are rooting since the end of august, and chances are they will not make it. I have just 2 out of 15 left and no roots in sight.

Note to self: juniper sprouts are very auxin sensitive. I sprayed some cuttings near them, and it must have landed on the seedling. It's curling up due to stretching of the tissue.
If only the cuttings responded the same way..

LED grown juniper. This one received a little IBA which caused it to corkscrew.


This one did not receive the hormone.


Akadama junipers


Soil grown.

Quite the difference!

Punica granatum, seems to be hardy to at least -10 degrees C. I don't know the exact cultivar.
Survived the winter out on the bench. I brought it indoors - for who knows what reason - a week ago when it was frozen solid.
The only real damage was caused by me.

The extra hard akadama has turned into pulp in a single winter. I'm not touching the stuff again. I'll update the degradation process in the coming weeks. It's even worse than I expected.

Good to see your tree made it through the winter. Give me hopes for mine!

Sorry to hear the acadama story. wher are you in NL? east? West?
I have been telling this for years. A normal winter I can count on at least 10 frost-thaw cycles, typically when everything is soaked. The trees I lost in winter for the large part were does I had in akadama at some point. I tossed away 3 bags after that winter. Baked loam & artifical lava are my core substrate components now.

I totally missed your comment Leatherback. I'm in the southwest of the NL's. The akadama breaks down a lot on the surface, less inside the pots. But when watering top down, the sludge is being watered downwards too. So I've started phasing it out. It's too expensive anyways. I can get 180 liters of foetsieba for the price of a 40L akadama. I'm mixing foetsieba with vulcastrat and pine bark this year. The vulcastrat is awesome stuff, but it dries out a little too fast. I added very fine lava rock (1mm, DCM brand) to those pots to help water retention. This actually works pretty well. I have a spruce in pure 1mm lavarock, and that one is doing good too. It's compact and heavy stuff, but it retains water better than I expected and aerates pretty well.

Spring is early this year. If memory serves me right, we can expect cherry flowers halfway April. We have had them since last Thursday this year. Usually the plum is a bit slower, but this year it was one day ahead.


The prolonged drought last year has taken its toll on the cherry tree. It used to have so many flowers that it was hard to distinguish branches.


But the plum this year has exploded. It's in a more shaded location and the drought has actually done some good to it.



4 branches, 4 cuts were made last year. At least 20 buds formed. Ouch. This is going to be a mess. JBP by the way.


A variety of things. The pinus longeava in the front are still alive. I didn't expect that. That's year 1. Now let's see if we can make it past 2.


Scots Pine is in the same run for the backbudding championship. Shoots were cut in half, at the length you can see in the picture. Almost 20 buds as well.


I'm hoping this mugo pumillo back buds as nicely as the others did. A long way to go! Two root flares, that sucks. One above the soil line and one below. Time will tell which one will become the most interesting one.



This mean budding machine is doing it's part as well. The entire left branch will be replaced in 2021. It's budding closer to the trunk; 15 or so buds along the branch at the fist intersection, enough to start guessing that some will make it and will be able to replace the extended branch. Also a mugo pine, mughus variety. To the right is a picea glauca conica I'm rebuilding from scratch.


Everything got a nice chunk of good old cow dung today. In this picture are jack pines, JRP, JBP, Scots, halapensis, quercus robur, Fagus sylvatica, chestnut, quince, communis and chinese juniper, cherry and larch.

I found a stash of quercus ilex seeds, so those are germinating as we speak. They've started to send up shoots as well, so that's coming along nicely. Thank you ornamental flower stores! You guys saved me 20 bucks! A bushel of ornamental oak branches was 90 cents and full of acorns. A bag of acorns would cost me 15 bucks and 5 bucks shipping.

Have a nice day everyone!

Shaggy pfizer juniper


Going for some exposed roots on this JRP.


Root over rock in this one.


Some more red pines


Jack pine in the front, halepensis in the back.


Chinese junipers all twisted up. This is their second year.


Sacrifice trunk on this Scots pine 'norsk typ'.


Scots pine are the silly putty of bonsai.


After initial pruning this spring, this chinese juniper 'stricta' will be allowed to grow wild again. In 2 years I'll select some more branches to remove. Right now, I just want it to fill up.
Tip pruning works pretty well for these junipers, just twist and pull (doesn't leave a huge brown mark like with using scissors). Then closer to the trunk, usually a few buds pop up.


6 euro JBP.

Oaks are waking up.


Ground growing Cedrus and JRP. I put some colorado blue spruce seeds in there somewhere, but I believe they'll never germinate.


Black pines

Italian scots pines, all cut back at the seedling stage. Some have multiple low buds.

That's it for today, have a nice one!

This is the most expensive tree I own: 36 euros. I could use some more practice wiring, I didn't wire much this year since most of the trees in my collection are allowed to grow freely. Which kind of sucks, because you can't build skill by sitting still. This winter I'm going to redo this entire tree. It might be good for me to look up that pad building article as well. Anyways, there's a start. In 3-5 years this is going to look like something. Or not.

I've used the electrical wire once too, but if you want to practice wireing better buy aluminum wire instead it's much easier then, or strip the wire to bare copper and heat it up in a fire untill glowing red then cool it down so it's supple before aplieing but you probably know and just are eigenwijs

Tree has potention, first part is a bit straight tough

defra said:

I've used the electrical wire once too, but if you want to practice wireing better buy aluminum wire instead it's much easier then, or strip the wire to bare copper and heat it up in a fire untill glowing red then cool it down so it's supple before aplieing but you probably know and just are eigenwijs

Tree has potention, first part is a bit straight tough

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I have all types of wire. I try to use my electrical wire before stripping it and annealing it for the second use. So it's both eigenwijs as well as it's just easy and cheap.

The first part of this tree is straight indeed! And it doesn't have much taper either. I have been thinking about how to change that but I have no idea how to apply wire (and make it hold that position) without removing roots. It does have a decent nebari with a 360° root flare, and I think it'll be hard for me to restore that. I'm thinking about introducing a shari in 2021 to make the straight part less boring. But all input is welcome!

Wires_Guy_wires said:

I have all types of wire. I try to use my electrical wire before stripping it and annealing it for the second use. So it's both eigenwijs as well as it's just easy and cheap.

The first part of this tree is straight indeed! And it doesn't have much taper either. I have been thinking about how to change that but I have no idea how to apply wire (and make it hold that position) without removing roots. It does have a decent nebari with a 360° root flare, and I think it'll be hard for me to restore that. I'm thinking about introducing a shari in 2021 to make the straight part less boring. But all input is welcome!

Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother about the taper to much,
Rafia and wire will do the trick without pruning roots unless the nebari is like a pancake like you often see with old maple bonsai and even then there is a solution to get the wire into the pot and around the trunk

Just a crappy phone virt based on only this picture

Btw how are those Juniperus Turbinata doing?

Remember the shaggy pfizer juniper? Post #71.
It's even shaggier now!

Next year I'll be grafting new foliage on it.

The Turbinata junipers are doing great despite being in way too soggy soil.
Two more germinated this summer and I think they might not survive a harsh winter. But that's part of the experiment; I have phoenicea and phoenicea var turbinata. The phoenicea survived last winter, so there's some hope. If they don't survive the frosts, then they're just not suitable for my garden. They grow faster than any other juniper I own though. I'm expecting adult foliage next year.

nice color on the turbinata junipers.