Done a lot of reading and now starting with a JWP - first time wiring - critique welcome

[astras]

Been loving all the content but figured it's time to get my hands dirty. Picked up a few young plants from the nursery - a JWP, a hinoki, and 3 japanese maples (Kiyohime, Shindeshojo, and Mikawa). The Maples need a bit more time with the trunk so I've put them in ground, and the hinoki cypress i'm still thinking about. The JWP though looked like it was ready to work with so I've started wiring it - any critique is welcome!

Planning on keeping them all around shohin size but I'm not planning on doing any repotting this year for any of the plants, since they all have some work to do still with trunk development. Will reassess next year to see where they are, does this make sense? Or should I be repotting them into a non-compost based substrate when they're younger so they adapt?

I am thinking the maples are 2 years out to satisfy what i'm looking for but the JWP and Hinoki is looking like there's some nice movement in my eyes.

Plan for the JWP:
Done: Initial wiring
Next year: Repot / wire more


Plan for the hinoki cypress
Done: initial trimming
Left to do this year: Do some trimming to see the branch structure better, a bit of wiring, leaving most the larger branches to thicken trunk as sacrifice
Next year: repot?



Plans for the 3 maples:
none really - leave them in ground to grow thicker - still need to plant the shindeshojo. Depending on it looks, may leave them as mother trees and air layer for bonsai

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Critique on your JWP wiring:
(1) You are underwiring the trunk. You need thicker wire so that your bends can be sharper.
(2) Try to avoid soft curves in your wiring (which makes the tree look young). When you bend the trunk or a branch, try to make the bend dramatic and abrupt.
(3) Avoid an "S" shape in your design, which looks artificial.
(4) Increase the frequency of your bends as you move up the tree or out along a branch, so that they tree gets more "jagged" at the top, and out along a branch. Avoid the opposite - where you bend the bottom of the trunk, and then have long straight sections of trunk/branches above the bend.
(5) Your tree design will look more natural if you wire so that there is always a branch at the outside of your curve.

Be creative!

Option1 - Better, but boring


Option2: More interesting, particularly as the tree grows

 

[rockm]

The advice above is great. However wiring takes some finesse and skill not only to get good angles but also in considering the health of the tree. Done wrong too much force can snap a trunk. Especially with deciduous trees. Conifers are more bendy BUT you might consider trying wire on some lesser examples before trying it on a tree you really like.

FWIW I wouldn’t jump right into wiring a pine the first year I have it. I’d take at least a year to learn how to care for it. Same for maples. To get any decent thickening with maples requires at least four years in the ground. Two years and the root system is just getting started. They’ll be much the same two years from now. The old saying with newly planted trees for their first three years is “sleep, creep,leap”. Meaning first year no real active growth of any consequence, second year things get started, third year trees root system has taken firm hold and active growth takes off

 

[astras]

Thanks for the tips - I'll try it again with some thicker wire. I'm not super concerned about the trees - I'd obviously love to take good care of them but I've accepted that I'll kill some in my journey. I'll try to be patient as much as I can especially on some of the ones in ground.

 

[Paradox]

I dont know if its the lighting but that pine looks a bit off to me.
The needles seem a bit off color.