Crappy juniperus chinensis spartan practice

[Beanwagon]

I picked up a spartan juniper out of boredom to practice/experiment on. I have heard that they are not good for bonsai?

I do not care if it dies so i was very rough with it.

Does anybody have experience with these?

 

[Vance Wood]

I picked up a spartan juniper out of boredom to practice/experiment on. I have heard that they are not good for bonsai?

I do not care if it dies so i was very rough with it.

Does anybody have experience with these?
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I don't know what you want us to say----that they were right about this tree and bonsai and you proved it. Let me ask you what did you expect to learn from this experiment? Here is another question: Have you ever tried to do something with a Juniper of a larger size and greater age? At least here you would have been working with techniques that would have served you better than anything you learned here.

 

[Giga]

I don't know what you want us to say----that they were right about this tree and bonsai and you proved it. Let me ask you what did you expect to learn from this experiment? Here is another question: Have you ever tried to do something with a Juniper of a larger size and greater age? At least here you would have been working with techniques that would have served you better than anything you learned here.

Have to agree

 

[Beanwagon]

I don't know what you want us to say----that they were right about this tree and bonsai and you proved it. Let me ask you what did you expect to learn from this experiment? Here is another question: Have you ever tried to do something with a Juniper of a larger size and greater age? At least here you would have been working with techniques that would have served you better than anything you learned here.

I don't necessarily want you to say anything. I did not expect to learn anything. I wanted to play around with a tree its that simple. Forum's are for discussing and sharing information. I have yet to find much info about spartan junipers as a bonsai subject, that is more than likely for a good reason. One of my main reasons for the thread was to add to this knowledge so that maybe when somebody is in a similar situation they can learn.

I must add you come across as a miserable old bastard in the majority of your posts, what is up with that?

 

[Vance Wood]

I was honest with you and as you will find out I am more than willing to help anyone I am able to help. So--- I am a miserable old bastard with over 10,000 posts and you 111. You have not been around long enough to come down on anyone. If I called you names or I was wrong you may have a point. However that does not invalidate what I said to you. Find a larger and older piece of material and let's make bonsai.

 

[Handsome John]

Well one thing I can say about spartan junipers is that their foliage isn't compact enough for smaller tree sizes so its going to be tough to create really nice branch pads. Now if that trunk was way thicker it would look more convincing and have more room to develop into that cloud shape that we try to achieve, that's why alot of times we graft a more compact foliage onto junipers to work around the issue. Lots of really nice looking balanced shohin shimpaku junipers, not many nice looking spartan junipers even though they are closely related haha. I could also be wrong so any one with a super refined spartan can chip in and blow me out of the water. Also I find that there is no point in buying a tree that you will never love even if its for practice, at the end of the day you could have applied that time to a tree that you want to succeed and over time see the tree develop. And at the end of the day its something you can be proud of, don't make bonsai into work, make it into something you can enjoy!!

 

[Handsome John]

Also Vance you may come across as crusty but damn you know your shit better than anyone

 

[M. Frary]

I do not care if it dies so i was very rough with it.

Great attitude!
I would have used a saw.

 

[augustine]

Seriously you want to choose material that has horizontal woody branches. You can find good gnarly junipers esp in the old mom and pop nurseries, most times inexpensively.

 

[BrightsideB]

Here is one that I messed with. I hadn't done any research on using them for bonsai. But had an idea it'd have to be somewhat large. I didn't want to cut all the foliage or branches off in hopes it'd still grow well and recover. Guess I'll see what the future will hold for it.