First Juniper (Itoigawa)

[Bricker918]

Hey all! Ive been a member for quite a while and have yet to post so I thought I'd share my first Juniper. I picked it up a few months back from Maruyama in Sacramento and haven't touched it yet mostly due to work and school. Another reason is because I have honestly been a little unsure of how to handle juniper foliage. Ive done some research on bonsai nut and Mirai and I think I get the gist, but I'm still worried about doing something that will set the tree back or losing an entire branch. I have a general plan but would love to get some advice and any tips.

My plan:
Compacting the foliage on the right bottom branch, clean up the left bottom branch, wire some movement/bring down some of what is now the lower apex (when the time of year is right), and eventually when its ready for a repot slightly adjust the angle for a better trunk line and nebari.

I know it currently isn't the time to be removing foliage from junipers but should I clean some of the branches up a bit to preserve the interior foliage?(some is starting to die on the lower branches)

Current front:

Back:

possible new front:



Again, any advice on moving forward would be greatly appreciated!

 

[just.wing.it]

Welcome to the Nut House!
Nice little Shrimpaku!
Love the foliage on these!
Considering that you only have primary branches, I would recommend allowing it to grow wild for a year before trying to compact it.

 

[Shibui]

Older needles will eventually die. Nothing you can do to stop that. Individual needles have a life of around 2-3 years and the oldest ones are right in the interior. The key is to have younger replacement shoots available to replace the ones with too much dead foliage. That's why you need to thin out and let light get to the interior. Lack of light will hasten the death of interior needles because the tree will withdraw resources if they are not performing well but you still have the problem of finite lifespan of each needle.
I would ave thought early spring would be a great time to be pruning juniper. Wiring might still be OK if they have not really started to grow much. Light bending is usually safe most of the year but making severe bends can kill active branches when the bark separates from the wood. That does not happen so easy when the tree is not active.
This tree has plenty of secondary and probably even tertiary ramification and, provided you want to style and maintain a smallish, compact tree, is ready for work.
There's some nice bends in the lower trunk and lower branches. The upper trunk is a bit too straight I think but should still bend a little which should also lower the apex a bit which may solve the problem of it looking a little too tall and skinny.
There appears to be plenty on the lowest branch so it could be compacted by pruning with some wiring to arrange the remaining growth.
I think you will need to prune a few bits completely out of the apex and also shorten the others to lower the height and give the remaining shoots room to grow.

 

[sorce]

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

 

[Bricker918]

Thanks for the feedback! There is some secondary branching on the lower branches as @Shibui noticed, but not the apex. I will clean up the lower branches a little to let some more light in, maybe some light wire. The apex I’m going to let grow wild as @just.wing.it suggested
lower branches:

 

[River's Edge]

Hey all! Ive been a member for quite a while and have yet to post so I thought I'd share my first Juniper. I picked it up a few months back from Maruyama in Sacramento and haven't touched it yet mostly due to work and school. Another reason is because I have honestly been a little unsure of how to handle juniper foliage. Ive done some research on bonsai nut and Mirai and I think I get the gist, but I'm still worried about doing something that will set the tree back or losing an entire branch. I have a general plan but would love to get some advice and any tips.

My plan:
Compacting the foliage on the right bottom branch, clean up the left bottom branch, wire some movement/bring down some of what is now the lower apex (when the time of year is right), and eventually when its ready for a repot slightly adjust the angle for a better trunk line and nebari.

I know it currently isn't the time to be removing foliage from junipers but should I clean some of the branches up a bit to preserve the interior foliage?(some is starting to die on the lower branches)

Current front:
View attachment 292327
Back:
View attachment 292328
possible new front:
View attachment 292331


Again, any advice on moving forward would be greatly appreciated!

I would wire the trunk and primary branches for movement! This will open the interior and strengthen the interior while preparing to increase the girth of the trunk. Then I would allow to grow for a season without pruning. Gaining longer extensions will increase the response when cut back for maintaining the interior and producing further branching.

 

[Bricker918]

I would wire the trunk and primary branches for movement! This will open the interior and strengthen the interior while preparing to increase the girth of the trunk. Then I would allow to grow for a season without pruning. Gaining longer extensions will increase the response when cut back for maintaining the interior and producing further branching.

Thanks, will do!

 

[chicago1980]

Where are you located?
Here I'm Chicago you can still set the structure and wire foliage.

 

[Bricker918]

Where are you located?
Here I'm Chicago you can still set the structure and wire foliage.

I’m in Northern California

 

[Bricker918]

Wired the trunk and primary branches, going to fertilize and let it grow for the summer.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

It’s good to see you left it tree-like and didn’t make pom-poms from the branches. Nice little starter tree.

 

[Bricker918]

Early summer update:


Getting some mineral deposits on the trunk, I need to get a filter for my hose. Anybody have recommendations?

 

[Bricker918]

I’ve let it grow free for the spring/summer and I’m planning on pruning off the runners and cleaning up the foliage in the next few days. Is this a good time to wire as well? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[thomas22]

I’ve let it grow free for the spring/summer and I’m planning on pruning off the runners and cleaning up the foliage in the next few days. Is this a good time to wire as well? Any advice is greatly appreciated!
View attachment 317638

I think you did good letting the runners go all spring. I think cutting the runners and cleaning the foliage is fine right now. After that I would let it soak up the sun for a few months and wire around October. You can wire in summer if you don't have big bends but still better in fall. Nice little tree.

 

[Bricker918]

I think you did good letting the runners go all spring. I think cutting the runners and cleaning the foliage is fine right now. After that I would let it soak up the sun for a few months and wire around October. You can wire in summer if you don't have big bends but still better in fall. Nice little tree.

Thanks for the advice! I’ll wait till this fall to wire.

 

[Forsoothe!]

I'm an antagonist of let grow, cut back, let grow, cut back, ad infinitum, especially in the early days of a design. I prefer to limit growth on a continuing basis. If you want an area to be longer then let it grow to a little short of the destination and remove tips to force ramification and limit up & down growth. More than anything else bonsai creates space between branches and clouds. Space for the birdies to fly through. Especially with Shimpaku, you get a fine dome of whatever shape by picking tips. Eventually, when you have more dense ramification you make sure you tip breaks off just a little deeper than the top of the dome so the broken tip is below that surface and not visible. To get to that point you need to stop wasting growth on long extensions of twigs that you don't want. You want to retain as much green growth as possible and throw away as little as possible. Think of how much net weight of tips are contained in one twig that you cut back 3 inches. You can begin limiting growth by tipping until you have established the cloud architecture, then grow twigs in the plane necessary with air space above and below the cloud. You had a good start on Mar 30th. It still had clouds interfering with each other and you needed more open space, but the major branches were ~OK. Bringing down the 3 branches on the left side, maybe 20 to 40°, would have given you space for the birdies. And the same for the upper 2 right-hand branches. Then all the growth between then and now could have been tipped to keep within the boundaries of each cloud. I think you're further away from a finished design now than you were then. Maintaining open space makes it a bonsai. Keeping the growth within some imaginary boundaries makes it fulfill a design. "Making it look good today" is not the goal unless and until the tree is finished. Until then, the goal is to only allow it to grow where we want growth and maintain space for the birdies to fly through. That space is what allows sunlight to get to the lower clouds. The clouds arranged as a spiral staircase works best. And, you want to see the trunk. Something like this...

 

[Bricker918]

Got around to the deed. Need to do some wiring in fall to fix what looks like a big hook right on the apex (the photo angle is makes it look like the trunk line, it’s not) and let the second pad on the right get some girth and fill the space up a bit more, it’s not in the best position on the trunk but hopefully I can make it work.

 

[Bricker918]

Was planning on doing some wiring/light clean up this fall but I noticed a good amount of the new growth since I last worked on it is juvenile. If I’m not mistaken this usually means it’s stressed or kind of weak, right? Would holding off on fall work and letting it gain some strength a wise move?

 

[Shibui]

That is juvenile foliage and you are correct about it being a response to some stress, most likely as a result of the last pruning - looks like most is on a branch that was trimmed a fair bit?

There's not much you can do about it now. Cutting juvenile shoots off just triggers more to grow. The tree seems otherwise quite healthy and happy. Usually just wait for the newer growth to go back to scale and then slowly remove any obvious needle foliage a little at a time or let it go through the natural 2 or 3 year cycle when the oldest needles then fall off.

 

[Bricker918]

Thanks for the

That is juvenile foliage and you are correct about it being a response to some stress, most likely as a result of the last pruning - looks like most is on a branch that was trimmed a fair bit?

There's not much you can do about it now. Cutting juvenile shoots off just triggers more to grow. The tree seems otherwise quite healthy and happy. Usually just wait for the newer growth to go back to scale and then slowly remove any obvious needle foliage a little at a time or let it go through the natural 2 or 3 year cycle when the oldest needles then fall off.

Thanks for the insight! I removed a good bit of foliage this summer, that’s probably what triggered it.