Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
I truly believe there is no such thing as a bad tree - it just needs someone with the vision or skill to turn it into a good bonsai. However if there WAS such a thing as a bad tree, this would be it. I got this tree about 10 years ago at a Harry Hirao workshop. It was one of the California junipers he had collected years ago in the desert. When I originally received the tree I considered it one of the least promising pieces of material I had ever worked on 
It was a perfect slingshot with almost no secondary branching. I didn't even know how to approach it without killing it. I spent the majority of the workshop tracing live veins and creating shari... but not much else.
I took it home and investigated the roots and the situation was worse than I feared. There was no nebari to speak of and the few roots that survived were at least 6" deep below the surface. So I did with it what I do with all my "problem" trees - I potted it up to try to let it gain some foliage while I waited for inspiration. A couple of years later, in a fit of frustration, I decided to cut the tree in half - in the hopes that if I was lucky I would end up with two trees, but if I was unlucky I would at least save the left trunk, which was the more interesting of the two and had some movement.
For three years after the cut, both trees thrived. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the left trunk died. The right trunk was growing so I did some initial wiring and waited again. Years passed, and then one day when looking at the tree and deciding my next move, I saw a small hole in the top of the deadwood with sawdust in it. Yup - the tree had termites.
At this point I was about to throw in the towel. However because this was one of Harry's trees I decided to try one last time. I killed the termites and repotted it last year and planned to do major styling in the Spring.
In December, when I was visiting @Smoke , he asked me about this tree. I didn't really have a good response for him other than to mumble something about it still being alive but "there were termites" and "it doesn't look too good". So channeling my inner Harry and Al, I took on the "California Juniper Slingshot Challenge" one more time.
Here is what it looked like when I pulled it out of the nursery pot this morning. Lots of roots, but they were really deep. No nebari to speak of. I wasn't too excited at this moment. The only plan I could come up with was to plant the tree at a steep angle with the live vein at the back, and then carve false roots into the front of the deadwood - to visually create a fake nebari.
Once the tree was leaned over, things didn't look so bad. My earlier wiring had at least given me some material to work with. Time for some deadwood work.
As soon as I started to tear into the wood I found exactly what I was expecting - massive termite damage. No worries - I didn't want that deadwood anyway!
I continued to clean out the damaged sections of the trunk. Moving on to the old jins and stubs revealed that they were also hollow and damaged. (The stub in the lower left of this picture I am not planning on keeping - it was left only to help me stabilize the trunk as I tore the deadwood. At one point I was stepping on it )
The upper trunk was far too heavy and straight. As I reduced it I was going to try to introduce some movement.
The upper trunk had been devastated by termites.
At this point the deadwood was starting to look pretty cool. I was trying to make it look like a nice trunk flare with old dead roots going down into the soil.
A few hours of wiring, and here's where we are today. I tilted the tree to give a better idea of my planned final potting angle, so my wiring looks a little off, but at this time I just hope to get a lot of strong inner growth because I reduced the foliage by a good 75% or so. I did not trim the roots, so I believe the tree will have plenty of strength going into the summer.
The tree is far from finished, but at least now I see a path forward! And now Al can know what happened to it!
It was a perfect slingshot with almost no secondary branching. I didn't even know how to approach it without killing it. I spent the majority of the workshop tracing live veins and creating shari... but not much else.I took it home and investigated the roots and the situation was worse than I feared. There was no nebari to speak of and the few roots that survived were at least 6" deep below the surface. So I did with it what I do with all my "problem" trees - I potted it up to try to let it gain some foliage while I waited for inspiration. A couple of years later, in a fit of frustration, I decided to cut the tree in half - in the hopes that if I was lucky I would end up with two trees, but if I was unlucky I would at least save the left trunk, which was the more interesting of the two and had some movement.
For three years after the cut, both trees thrived. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the left trunk died. The right trunk was growing so I did some initial wiring and waited again. Years passed, and then one day when looking at the tree and deciding my next move, I saw a small hole in the top of the deadwood with sawdust in it. Yup - the tree had termites.
At this point I was about to throw in the towel. However because this was one of Harry's trees I decided to try one last time. I killed the termites and repotted it last year and planned to do major styling in the Spring.
In December, when I was visiting @Smoke , he asked me about this tree. I didn't really have a good response for him other than to mumble something about it still being alive but "there were termites" and "it doesn't look too good". So channeling my inner Harry and Al, I took on the "California Juniper Slingshot Challenge" one more time.
Here is what it looked like when I pulled it out of the nursery pot this morning. Lots of roots, but they were really deep. No nebari to speak of. I wasn't too excited at this moment. The only plan I could come up with was to plant the tree at a steep angle with the live vein at the back, and then carve false roots into the front of the deadwood - to visually create a fake nebari.
Once the tree was leaned over, things didn't look so bad. My earlier wiring had at least given me some material to work with. Time for some deadwood work.
As soon as I started to tear into the wood I found exactly what I was expecting - massive termite damage. No worries - I didn't want that deadwood anyway!
I continued to clean out the damaged sections of the trunk. Moving on to the old jins and stubs revealed that they were also hollow and damaged. (The stub in the lower left of this picture I am not planning on keeping - it was left only to help me stabilize the trunk as I tore the deadwood. At one point I was stepping on it
)The upper trunk was far too heavy and straight. As I reduced it I was going to try to introduce some movement.
The upper trunk had been devastated by termites.
At this point the deadwood was starting to look pretty cool. I was trying to make it look like a nice trunk flare with old dead roots going down into the soil.
A few hours of wiring, and here's where we are today. I tilted the tree to give a better idea of my planned final potting angle, so my wiring looks a little off, but at this time I just hope to get a lot of strong inner growth because I reduced the foliage by a good 75% or so. I did not trim the roots, so I believe the tree will have plenty of strength going into the summer.
The tree is far from finished, but at least now I see a path forward! And now Al can know what happened to it!
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