No more wire on procumbens?

[Vance Wood]

Once you've got the branches set on a procumbens, what is there to wire?

It depends on what branhes you are talking about, Pimary, Secondary, tertiary, or what? I don't mean to be difficult but we have so much foggy thinking around here sometimes. It is one thing to suggest something but give no information as to what you mean. That is why we have this discussion right now.

 

[0soyoung]

It depends on what branhes you are talking about, Pimary, Secondary, tertiary, or what? I don't mean to be difficult but we have so much foggy thinking around here sometimes. It is one thing to suggest something but give no information as to what you mean. That is why we have this discussion right now.

Okay. One has wired everything that is brown stems on a procumbens. All have fixed into these positions and maybe the wire even bit in before the wire was removed. These brown procumbens' stems don't need to be wired again to stay in position - they will stay where they are for at least half if nor more than a decade.

So this leaves the leaves --> wiring green foliage runners. I'm sure you've had a procumbens, Vance. Do you wire individual foliage stems within the foliage pads? I think not. I certainly don't. Hence my question (somewhat rhetoical, maybe, but serious nontheless).

But I am really asking, to @MichaelS's daring to let his procumbens go without wire,

Once you've got the branches set on a procumbens, what is there to wire?

This is the third year without wire for my procumbens. Runners get snipped after a while and causes back budding. I thin foliage where it gets too dense, and effectively 'pinch' a few locations just to maintain pad/canopy shape. No wire (not that there is anything wrong with that).

 

[bonhe]

Okay. One has wired everything that is brown stems on a procumbens. All have fixed into these positions and maybe the wire even bit in before the wire was removed. These brown procumbens' stems don't need to be wired again to stay in position - they will stay where they are for at least half if nor more than a decade.

So this leaves the leaves --> wiring green foliage runners. I'm sure you've had a procumbens, Vance. Do you wire individual foliage stems within the foliage pads? I think not. I certainly don't. Hence my question (somewhat rhetoical, maybe, but serious nontheless).

But I am really asking, to @MichaelS's daring to let his procumbens go without wire,

This is the third year without wire for my procumbens. Runners get snipped after a while and causes back budding. I thin foliage where it gets too dense, and effectively 'pinch' a few locations just to maintain pad/canopy shape. No wire (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Very nice tree you have.
I agree with you. I only use wire to set the basic shape for either the trunk or the branches; the rest will be clip and grow.
P/s I recently got over 10 old procumbent nana to which I grafted Itoigawa shimpaku on some.
Thụ Thoại

 

[Adair M]

Oso, Procumbens junipers are not really trees, in that they generally don’t grow “up”. The are ground covers. They grow “out”, maybe even “down”. Which is why everyone makes cascades and semi cascades out of them.

Michael’s tree was staked up at some point. Then, when the branches grew out, they grew down.

Your tree, was confined to a nursery can for a couple decades. These cans were placed side by side, packed in like sardines. When the trees grew out, beyond their can, they competed for sunlight with their neighbor. So they had to grow “up” a little to cover over their neighbor. Or, the parts that got shaded, died. So, that’s how you got your major curves. By fighting with the neighbor.

Now, you have removed the competition, and the tree is reverting to its genetics. It’s trying to grow down. Look at your pads. They are green underneath the actual branch.

We use Procumbens to look like the mountain junipers, which grow up. Not down. Mountain junipers have their foliage on top of or above the supporting branch.

I’m assuming you want your tree to look like a mountain juniper with lots of dead wood. If so, you need to get under all those branches and remove the downward and hanging foliage.

 

[Vance Wood]

I know. I don't think anything I say will change that going by your comments re wiring, contrivance etc.

You're right I did not read your original post as carefully as I should have and should not have called into question your wiring skills, my bad and I'm sorry. However you choice to let the tree do it's own thing is not the best choice in MHO.

 

[0soyoung]

Oso, Procumbens junipers are not really trees, in that they generally don’t grow “up”. The are ground covers. They grow “out”, maybe even “down”. Which is why everyone makes cascades and semi cascades out of them.

Michael’s tree was staked up at some point. Then, when the branches grew out, they grew down.

Is this an obtuse way to say you think the trunk of Michael's tree is going to revert to horizontal if it isn't wired? It seems to me that the design incorporates downward growing branches. Procumbens won't need to be wired to keep those branches going downward, unlike 'upright' junipers.

Your tree, was confined to a nursery can for a couple decades. These cans were placed side by side, packed in like sardines. When the trees grew out, beyond their can, they competed for sunlight with their neighbor. So they had to grow “up” a little to cover over their neighbor. Or, the parts that got shaded, died. So, that’s how you got your major curves. By fighting with the neighbor.

Actually this was dug from my yard - huge sprawling ground-cover thing that my wife and I decided we didn't want a few years after moving into this house. I bet it had been in the landscape for at least a decade before that. None of this happened in a nursery pot.

Now, you have removed the competition, and the tree is reverting to its genetics. It’s trying to grow down. Look at your pads. They are green underneath the actual branch.

We use Procumbens to look like the mountain junipers, which grow up. Not down. Mountain junipers have their foliage on top of or above the supporting branch.

I’m assuming you want your tree to look like a mountain juniper with lots of dead wood. If so, you need to get under all those branches and remove the downward and hanging foliage.

That may be (competition with my potted neighbor) but, I beg to differ. Yes, it does tend to produce a bit of growth that dangles down underneath, but I've removed it.

Actually, I rather like mine in pretty much the state it is in. I have no interest in spending another a decade or two making it into a pogo stick because that is what you or anybody else expects (junipers are always an upright stick with a lampshade, should I say?). I have the juniper 'Arlene' that definitely grows upward, though not quite like a 'mountain juniper'. I have a couple of small sabina 'Broadmoor' and a little shinpaku that I fiddle with (styling exercise, grafting dummies, foliage 'management' play) but my interest in junipers has largely abated. I'm satisfied with this one being as good a juniper bonsai as I'll ever make. I've got 52 other species to play with. So, no, I don't want it to look like a mountain juniper.

btw, I always hated that prickly juvenile foliage that procumbens has but it does have its advantages in bonsai, One spring (maybe two) of mowing the foliage and then letting it grow is about all it takes to make pads. The only challenge afterward to avoid turning them into Brillo pads (and maybe that really is impossible). Sabina and shimp foliage is a lot more of a challenge, yet not all that different from thuja. But now I'm getting off into '50 species of grey' .

 

[Adair M]

Uh, no. You totally mis-read what I was trying to say. Once the wood is lignified, that’s the way it will stay. I’m just saying that having an upright procumens, like Michael’s is as artificial as having a single trunk azalea. Neither is “natural” for their species. So, we use these materials to make it look like something it isn’t.

I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, Muchael’s tree doesn’t look like a procumbens would look like all on its own. It looks like an upright growing juniper. And that’s ok!’

On your tree, I think you should remove more of the growth under the pads. That’s all. Your tree does look more natural, for a Procumbens, than Michael’s since it is much broader.

 

[Japonicus]

It is fantastically possible, and applaudable to NOT let the procumbens do its own thing...without wire at this point.
For years I have grown most of my procumbens without much, if any wire. I've never fully wired a procumbens head to toe.

It is commendable to pinch and prune the desired direction and keep the shape this way.
It is in my book a slower, more natural pure approach I would imagine was in play a thousand years ago.
It seems to me that todays Westerners often take a fast food approach to bonsai and "surpass"
in 5 years what may take me 15 years to accomplish. Perhaps I'm too patient there for many.

Wire may be needed now and then hereafter, but for the most part you'll probably go 4 years without easily.
It's where you cut and pinch MichaelS. You deserve a pat on the back for a fine job thus far.
I'm eager to see where this goes in 5 years from now then 10 and so on.

 

[MichaelS]

Okay. One has wired everything that is brown stems on a procumbens. All have fixed into these positions and maybe the wire even bit in before the wire was removed. These brown procumbens' stems don't need to be wired again to stay in position - they will stay where they are for at least half if nor more than a decade.

So this leaves the leaves --> wiring green foliage runners. I'm sure you've had a procumbens, Vance. Do you wire individual foliage stems within the foliage pads? I think not. I certainly don't. Hence my question (somewhat rhetoical, maybe, but serious nontheless).

But I am really asking, to @MichaelS's daring to let his procumbens go without wire,

This is the third year without wire for my procumbens. Runners get snipped after a while and causes back budding. I thin foliage where it gets too dense, and effectively 'pinch' a few locations just to maintain pad/canopy shape. No wire (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Do you have Murata's ''Four seasons of bonsai''? Towards the back he has pictures of pines and junipers. One in particular, a shimpaku, has obviously not been wired for many years. When I first saw this picture I was amazed at the natural beauty. I had not really seen others (it was the first book I bought and pre-internet). Later I saw all the others. The manicured, ultra worked trees and thought that this was the obvious pinnacle of the art. They blew me away. They had the WOW factor Now after a couple more decades, I look back on this tree and understand it. It was the wisdom of leaving the constant intrusion behind and allowing the tree to decide what to do. Pruning and pinching is obviously still necessary but he has left the bark (not peeled or polished) has left the ''untidy twigs'' showing here and there, refrained from smoothing out the silhouette etc. Now looking at this tree I can see nature much more easily than I can with the ''superstar'' bonsai. He was a true master IMO. That's what I want to do with my juniper and indeed all my trees eventually. On page 145 there is a ''formal'' upright needle juniper. Again, shaggy bark and completely natural branching. No wire. (or perhaps very little) I believe it's something you need to learn to see and now that I see it I can never go back. But, for what it's worth, I also believe you have to want to see it. It's not for everyone. For anyone interested, you should buy this book and study it intensely.
I think it was Kato that said the most difficult thing in bonsai is to remove one's desire. It always get's in the way. I think he was right. Of course envy is part of it too.

 

[TN_Jim]

After looking at hundreds of images of trees and trying to decifer them into some semblance of my thoughts, that is a beautiful fucking tree...can see why you wouldn’t want to wire it

 

[0soyoung]

Don't have a copy of 'Four Season's of Bonsai' but I think I'll get a copy, @MichaelS. I want to see those pics.
Believing that you will follow thru, I'm looking forward to seeing your tree 'au naturel'.

 

[MichaelS]

Went out for a drive to take some pics today. This Pinus radiata is growing down the road from me. Three apices making one crown, This is common in this species. After studying the branches more closely I notice that the change in direction is almost always caused by one side branch dying. Usually the one headed towards the inside of the tree. With this growth habit you get angular branches. You cannot get this effect with wire no matter how sharp you bend it. You can only get it with scissors. That's just one example of a reason not to wire too much. Everything is overly smoothed and sanitized.

 

[Adair M]

That’s why you use both wire and scissors.

Both are good tools to use.

They are used to achieve different effects. Why limit yourself to just one or the other?

 

[Vance Wood]

That’s why you use both wire and scissors.

Both are good tools to use.

They are used to achieve different effects. Why limit yourself to just one or the other?

It seems that reason and common sense have no place around here any more. It is one why or the other and in some people's eyes never the twain shall meet.

 

[Saddler]

That’s why you use both wire and scissors.

Both are good tools to use.

They are used to achieve different effects. Why limit yourself to just one or the other?

If nothing else, making it more difficult on yourself will make you better at a task.

Everybody should be cheering Michael on, not trying to dissuade him. What does it cost you if he tries to only use scissors? Only the time it would take you to read about it. What do you get out out of him doing it? Possibly the reinforcement that wire is needed or possibly something better, maybe an idea, tip, trick or just something merely interesting. It’s not your bench space or water or anything else that is costing you. Just your time reading about it and that choice was made by you when you click on the thread.

I’ll bet that there was someone in very similar shoes in your opinion here when it came to letting spruce grow out and then trimming the branches.

However you choice to let the tree do it's own thing is not the best choice in MHO.

Could easily be said about not pinching the new growth.

The world needs experimenters. The world has almost nothing to lose and everything to gain from it.

 

[Saddler]

It seems that reason and common sense have no place around here any more.

Ain’t that the truth.

 

[Adair M]

If nothing else, making it more difficult on yourself will make you better at a task.

Everybody should be cheering Michael on, not trying to dissuade him. What does it cost you if he tries to only use scissors? Only the time it would take you to read about it. What do you get out out of him doing it? Possibly the reinforcement that wire is needed or possibly something better, maybe an idea, tip, trick or just something merely interesting. It’s not your bench space or water or anything else that is costing you. Just your time reading about it and that choice was made by you when you click on the thread.

I’ll bet that there was someone in very similar shoes in your opinion here when it came to letting spruce grow out and then trimming the branches.

Could easily be said about not pinching the new growth.

The world needs experimenters. The world has almost nothing to lose and everything to gain from it.

Well, MichaelS has some degree of influence. I don’t care what he does to his trees, but he seems to take the approach that whatever he does is right and all the rest of us are too stupid to understand why.

Michael “experimenting” is an misnomer. What he’s saying he is going to do now is called “Lingnan style”. To be fair to Michael, it was YOU that said he was experimenting. I think Michael said he was just going to do it.

It’s been around for centuries. If you like the results, go for it! Anthony’s trees are styled that way, too.

Everyone who does bonsai cuts back. It’s wiring that is the more modern development.

 

[Saddler]

I'm going to try to stop using wire on this tree. It will be hard to resist but I want to see what happens.

ex·per·i·ment
verb
gerund or present participle: experimenting
ikˈsperəmənt/Submit
perform a scientific procedure, especially in a laboratory, to determine something.
"she experimented on chickens as well as mice"
synonyms:conduct experiments, carry out trials/tests, conduct research; More
try out new concepts or ways of doing things.
"the designers experimented with new ideas in lighting"


This thread comes across as; not using wire is new to Michael.

but he seems to take the approach that whatever he does is right and all the rest of us are too stupid to understand why.

Growing up in a very small and very isolated town in the far north and believing there was a lot more to the world then what my community believed, I can empathize with him if that is how he feels, moving to the city has definitely softened that stance for me though. Coming from a background and perspective that few, if any here would understand, I can say I usually agree with Michael and see him as the open minded one while most everyone else has their heads buried in the sand. Not always everyone and not everyone always of course, but in this case you nit picked semantics and avoided my actual point that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by this.

What is so wrong about a thread that is about NOT USING WIRE?!? Other then almost two pages of people telling him he is essentially making a big mistake? Threads like this make me question if his (by extension my) mindset was/is not justified because I am falling very short on seeing the wisdom of the reasoning against what he is doing.

 

[Saddler]

Now, back to the tree...

@MichaelS are you just hoping to maintain the shape of tree or are you going to be cutting some secondary/tertiery branches to try and bring the silhouette more into line with your vision of the tree? How much and what do you want to change?

 

[Vance Wood]

My opinion and it is just my opinion: When and if the tree gets to that point where perfection can be seen starting to materialize I would think wiring or not wiring if either of the two choices is what would push the tree over the top principles would be trumped by pragmatism. He who is adverse to wiring would be wiring and he who is adverse to clipping and growing would be clipping and growing.