Juniper chinensis 'Old Gold'

[rrgg126]

Hey guys,

Just picked up this Old Gold juniper from my local nursery. I chose it because of the trunk movement and the base of the trunk was decent (1.5"). I pruned it and will put in a bonsai pot before spring. I just want an opinion on shaping and styling. I want to add some jins but Im new to it so I will wait till I learn more. Any suggestions?

1. raw material with base cleaned
2. proposed front
3. back

 

[bonsaibp]

Unfortunately you made a very common mistake and removed all the foliage closest to the trunk. With this kind of material that is what we need to keep and encourage. I usually start out by looking for the smallest tree I can make so I start removing foliage from the tips of the branches in rather then the base out. You haven't left yourself much to work with. You can wait until the small green branches harden off and then wire them and bring down to use as your branching -though that makes all the branching coming from the top of the tree.
Or you can feed like crazy, put in full sun and encourage and keep new growth off the lower parts of the trunk and then use that growth as your branching.
Where is Union City? Northern CA?

 

[jk_lewis]

Yes. You took much too much off. It's going to be difficult to create anything that looks real. You can, of course, plant it out and let it be until -- hopefully -- something else forms nearer to the main trunks.

 

[sikadelic]

Like the others said, you have made a common mistake. I just wanted to drop in and say dont feel bad because I did the same thing with a juniper I bought last year. Buy another one (or 5) and try again. At least you got your hands dirty. Thats the first step to creating something worthy!

 

[bonsaibp]

The first tree in this blog post may give you some idea of what I was talking about.
The trick is to get another and try again.
http://bonsaibpsbonsaiblog-bonsai.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

 

[rrgg126]

Unfortunately you made a very common mistake and removed all the foliage closest to the trunk. With this kind of material that is what we need to keep and encourage. I usually start out by looking for the smallest tree I can make so I start removing foliage from the tips of the branches in rather then the base out. You haven't left yourself much to work with. You can wait until the small green branches harden off and then wire them and bring down to use as your branching -though that makes all the branching coming from the top of the tree.
Or you can feed like crazy, put in full sun and encourage and keep new growth off the lower parts of the trunk and then use that growth as your branching.
Where is Union City? Northern CA?

thank you for your help! yes union city is in northern cali. i guess its a waiting game now. hopefully something else pops up!

 

[rrgg126]

Like the others said, you have made a common mistake. I just wanted to drop in and say dont feel bad because I did the same thing with a juniper I bought last year. Buy another one (or 5) and try again. At least you got your hands dirty. Thats the first step to creating something worthy!

yeah i watch a lot of nursery stock transformation videos and its amazing. i cant wait till i develop that kind of vision! i guess its just practice and patience.

 

[Smithy]

yeah i watch a lot of nursery stock transformation videos and its amazing. i cant wait till i develop that kind of vision! i guess its just practice and patience.

Yes keep at it , it is practice that gets you there in the end. We have all gone through this at the beginning. I sometimes cringe when i look back at what i did to some of the material i got my hands on.

 

[Vance Wood]

What you need to do at this point is to start forcing this Juniper to produce new growth in the areas where you cut it all out. First you have to get this concept cemented in your head: It is important that there is some active green and growing items functioning in the area you plan on cutting the tree back to. Yes you need to cut back the branches you now see. If you cut the tree's branch/branches back to somewhere, where there is no functioning growth you are likely to have seen the last for that branch unless you like a lot of deadwood on a Juniper.

If you are interested in doing this let us know otherwise I really don't want to waste a lot of time posting a moderate amount of useless information. If you are interested let me know.

 

[edprocoat]

Judging from the first pic you did not really have a lot to work with down low to begin with. It seemed healthy, now that its opened up it may backbud well for you. I would not give up on it, something you might try next year is to graft some of the upper growth on the thicker bottom branches, you will probably want to get rid of at least one of the trunks anyway. Grafting is not hard and there are plenty of places online that give good info on how to accomplish it so it would be worth a shot and a great learning experience to boot.

ed

 

[sikadelic]

yeah i watch a lot of nursery stock transformation videos and its amazing. i cant wait till i develop that kind of vision! i guess its just practice and patience.

It definitely is. Don't be discouraged as all the greats have to start from somewhere. I would imagine there is a club somewhere near you. That would be your best resource.

 

[rrgg126]

Judging from the first pic you did not really have a lot to work with down low to begin with. It seemed healthy, now that its opened up it may backbud well for you. I would not give up on it, something you might try next year is to graft some of the upper growth on the thicker bottom branches, you will probably want to get rid of at least one of the trunks anyway. Grafting is not hard and there are plenty of places online that give good info on how to accomplish it so it would be worth a shot and a great learning experience to boot.

ed

I was planning on jinning one of the trunks later but Im still deciding on which one. Ill definitely look into grafting tho! This will be the last time I'll be using old gold tho because I keep hearing that the foliage is hard to work with.

 

[nathanbs]

I was planning on jinning one of the trunks later but Im still deciding on which one. Ill definitely look into grafting tho! This will be the last time I'll be using old gold tho because I keep hearing that the foliage is hard to work with.

When you shop for a juniper you shop for the trunk. The foliage can always be changed by grafting as mentioned by you above

 

[rrgg126]

What you need to do at this point is to start forcing this Juniper to produce new growth in the areas where you cut it all out. First you have to get this concept cemented in your head: It is important that there is some active green and growing items functioning in the area you plan on cutting the tree back to. Yes you need to cut back the branches you now see. If you cut the tree's branch/branches back to somewhere, where there is no functioning growth you are likely to have seen the last for that branch unless you like a lot of deadwood on a Juniper.

If you are interested in doing this let us know otherwise I really don't want to waste a lot of time posting a moderate amount of useless information. If you are interested let me know.

Yes I think thats true for all conifers right? Please give me more information I would love to learn more!

 

[Vance Wood]

Yes I think thats true for all conifers right? Please give me more information I would love to learn more!

I believe your Juniper is one of the Chinese Juniper strains. As such they do have the ability to back bud, the problem is how to get them to do it where you want them to. For now you need to concentrate at getting new growth to break in the areas where you have removed everything. The only way you are going to be able to cause that to happen is by cutting back a lot of the growth you have left. I know you will hear a lot about "well you can always graft a new branch here or there" which is true but, the reality of it is most people use that as a "it sounds cool" solution and never really ever do it. The best thing is to make the tree do what trees do and that is grow. Got interrupted, will continue latter.

To continue: Just to see what is going to happen chose one of the branches with the growth on the end. Cut back hard all that is on the end of the branch back to ACTIVE GROWING PARTS, and see what happens over the course of the season. If it starts producing new growth down the branch this is something you might want to continue with the rest of the branches.

 

[rrgg126]

I believe your Juniper is one of the Chinese Juniper strains. As such they do have the ability to back bud, the problem is how to get them to do it where you want them to. For now you need to concentrate at getting new growth to break in the areas where you have removed everything. The only way you are going to be able to cause that to happen is by cutting back a lot of the growth you have left. I know you will hear a lot about "well you can always graft a new branch here or there" which is true but, the reality of it is most people use that as a "it sounds cool" solution and never really ever do it. The best thing is to make the tree do what trees do and that is grow. Got interrupted, will continue latter.

To continue: Just to see what is going to happen chose one of the branches with the growth on the end. Cut back hard all that is on the end of the branch back to ACTIVE GROWING PARTS, and see what happens over the course of the season. If it starts producing new growth down the branch this is something you might want to continue with the rest of the branches.

how do i know if the new growth is good or if theyre hotheads as pictured here

 

[Vance Wood]

how do i know if the new growth is good or if theyre hotheads as pictured here

When the growth is new it doesn't matter till you get more of it and it becomes healthy and virogous.

 

[bonsaibp]

Save all growth that grows off the lower bare parts of the trunk. Let it grow out until you can choose and wire branches until then let it grow.

 

[jedge76]

The first tree in this blog post may give you some idea of what I was talking about.
The trick is to get another and try again.
http://bonsaibpsbonsaiblog-bonsai.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Very helpful and fun blogpost. Thanks for that