Planning ahead for spring - grow boxes

[Arizona_Alex]

Hi! I have a few newbie questions that I am hoping someone can help me with here. I have two junipers, a procumbens nana and a San Jose, that I purchased in late summer. The nana is only 6" tall and the San Jose is about 14". I repotted both, sans root trim, into clay pots and used some diatomaceous earth around the sides of the root ball for drainage. I removed unnecessary branches and overgrowth to give them the appearance of wanting to be bonsai. It was not until later that I did some reading about proportion of trunk width to tree height that I realized I needed to thicken up the trunks some. I have decided to put them in grow boxes in the Spring until I achieve the desired trunks.

The grow boxes I have seen are fairly shallow which is not an issue for my 3"x3.5" root ball on the nana, but the San Jose had a pretty decent root ball when I bought it and it measures 8" wide x 11" deep. Most grow boxes seem to use the 6" wide planks. If I chop 5" or more off the bottom half of the root ball, wouldn't this be too much root loss for a juniper?

Could I pull the root ball in half (gently of course) and flatten it out in the box? Would that damage too many roots?

Stay with me, a few more. I read Vance Wood's On Bonsai article regarding grow boxes and he said the goal of the box is to build fine feeder roots and not a large root ball. How does this affect my particle size in a grow box? Should I use 1/4" for my San Jose or scale it back to 1/8" to develop the feeders?

My nana is going to stay a shohin so I will be using the 1/8" and don't foresee any issues, but if you all can think of any, clue me in please.

Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[benw3790]

Hwy there, I'm a newb too (about 18 months in) this awesome hobby, but I'd say just plant them in the ground man. Its the easiest fastest way to get those trunks to fatten up! Especially for junipers. When I first got mine I put both of them in the ground for a year and it made a lot of difference. They're both procumbens and I'm gonna make them as shohin, too. That's why I only left them for a year. Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong. And also, if the San Jose needs a root prune it should be ok to take some more of the football off as long as the ratio between foliage and root mass are the same. Just make sure you do it at the right time! Good luck man!

 

[Eric Group]

Yeah, get them in the ground. Juniper are not fast growers. You can plant them in larger pots but nothing is going to get you growth- with any tree you are growing out- like putting them in the ground. If you post some pics people can give you better advice!

 

[Arizona_Alex]

The ground isn't really an option for me here in southern Arizona, lots of hardpan and generally not very conducive to good growth. Native species grow okay, but anything non-native can be an uphill battle. It can be done, it just requires extra work. I opted for the grow boxes for better soil conditions and portability as I may not be in my current home long enough for any type of ground planting.

I will post some pictures tomorrow.

 

[Anthony]

Alex,

Neli, has shown an idea using 3 colanders. The first would build the junipers' core, the second would allow the plants to grow and the thrid would probably go towards ground growing.

Neli is a member here, ask her to show the image.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[Arizona_Alex]

This is the top view of my San Jose. I left a lot of branches I probably didn't need to give myself options next year after it has grown out a bit. I have two branches I am considering for the top (I couldn't decide which would be better) and so the plant probably looks a bit crazy right now.



This is the front view. I left some cut branches to jin later on. As you can see, I left some long tips which will be cut back next year. I didn't want to take off too much since I did the pruning right at the beginning of fall.


And the rear view.

There are also some nice roots, but nothing to write home about yet. Since I didn't root prune, the base of the trunk is up higher than is probably ideal. I didn't want the feeders to get scorched in the sun so I covered them with some 1/8" sand. Also, I did some rough wiring to create space and get things more or less where I wanted them. What I don't like I will later cut off as I have some handle bar branches and some too close to each other.

 

[Arizona_Alex]

More photos


The Nana. This was obtained in late summer as nursery stock before I bought the San Jose and had time to research styling more thoroughly. As a result of ignorance and the earlier time of year, I cut this one back a bit severely. It started getting new buds after a month, so all is well I believe.

I have the two bifurcating branches that are real low to the top of the pot; they will likely get cut off later and the stump will be turned into a jin. I attempted to start a top by bending the little branch upwards. This also alleviated some of the shading it was creating on the neighboring branches. Not so much a problem now, but as it fills out it seems like it would become more of a problem.


Another view from the other side. Still a little hard to see how the low hanging branches in the front attach to the trunk. It grows up from the trunk, take a 180 degree turn down and the two branches are flared to either side. Not ideal, but for the time being I didn't want to take too much foliage off and have the plant croak on me.


Here you can see the two low hangers at about 4:30 and 8:30.

I had wired just about everything out after the initial pruning but the wire began to cut right around the beginning of fall. I took it off and just rewired a few key branches.

I am thinking this is going to be a semi-cascade or windswept design. I am still too iffy about my design choices at this point.

 

[Vance Wood]

Hi! I have a few newbie questions that I am hoping someone can help me with here. I have two junipers, a procumbens nana and a San Jose, that I purchased in late summer. The nana is only 6" tall and the San Jose is about 14". I repotted both, sans root trim, into clay pots and used some diatomaceous earth around the sides of the root ball for drainage. I removed unnecessary branches and overgrowth to give them the appearance of wanting to be bonsai. It was not until later that I did some reading about proportion of trunk width to tree height that I realized I needed to thicken up the trunks some. I have decided to put them in grow boxes in the Spring until I achieve the desired trunks.

The grow boxes I have seen are fairly shallow which is not an issue for my 3"x3.5" root ball on the nana, but the San Jose had a pretty decent root ball when I bought it and it measures 8" wide x 11" deep. Most grow boxes seem to use the 6" wide planks. If I chop 5" or more off the bottom half of the root ball, wouldn't this be too much root loss for a juniper?

Could I pull the root ball in half (gently of course) and flatten it out in the box? Would that damage too many roots?

Stay with me, a few more. I read Vance Wood's On Bonsai article regarding grow boxes and he said the goal of the box is to build fine feeder roots and not a large root ball. How does this affect my particle size in a grow box? Should I use 1/4" for my San Jose or scale it back to 1/8" to develop the feeders?

My nana is going to stay a shohin so I will be using the 1/8" and don't foresee any issues, but if you all can think of any, clue me in please.

Any insight would be appreciated.

If you are thinking about a Shohin size it is probably not a good idea to fatten the trunk by putting it in the ground if you could. I don't know for sure how large your tree is but I suspect it is about 6" tall and the trunk about 1 to 1 1/2" in girth. For a Shohin I would just over pot it. It will develop fast enough without providing you with a harvest of top growth problems.

Developing or fattening a trunk is dependent on stimulating vegitive growth, the more branches the more the trunk develops to provide support and nutrients. If you are not careful in the end of the process you have to cut the tree back heavily leaving a lot of stubs in the hope for a lot of back budding. If you are not comfortable or familiar with this process you are better to develop it in a container where you can control the growth a bit more. The trunk will thicken a lot more than a lot of people will realize. I would consider the colander method or a pond basket though most of them are quite a bit larger than I think you might want.

 

[Arizona_Alex]

Thanks for the responses. I guess I should have pointed out the thickness of the trunks earlier on. The San Jose is 14" (after trimming back the long shoots, about 12") with the trunk at about 1.5". The nana is at 6" right now, but the trunk is only 1/2".

 

[Arizona_Alex]

Ben W,

Thanks for the reply. I was re-reading the posts and saw this "the ratio between foliage and root mass are the same." I must have overlooked it earlier. How do you determine this ratio and what it should look like?

 

[sikadelic]

Ben W,

Thanks for the reply. I was re-reading the posts and saw this "the ratio between foliage and root mass are the same." I must have overlooked it earlier. How do you determine this ratio and what it should look like?

I'm not sure where it originated, but the ratios are commonly found in critical reviews and literature written by bonsai masters. I have always read 6:1 and 4:1.

 

[edprocoat]

The San Jose juni in the first pic posted has a great little trunk for the size with fantastic movement in it already, nice start. I would consider chopping that lower branch that grows to the left at the first bend up the trunk from the soil line. Too much more growth on that and you will have a fat area grow there causing reverse taper that will be hard if not impossible to correct.

ed

 

[Arizona_Alex]

I'm not sure where it originated, but the ratios are commonly found in critical reviews and literature written by bonsai masters. I have always read 6:1 and 4:1.

I haven't heard about ratios of root ball to foliage, but the ratio of the height to trunk thickness, the standard being 6 units of height to 1 unit of trunk width (6:1). I'll have to hunt around for information about the root mass ratio though. Yet another thing I have to learn about bonsai.

 

[Arizona_Alex]

The San Jose juni in the first pic posted has a great little trunk for the size with fantastic movement in it already, nice start. I would consider chopping that lower branch that grows to the left at the first bend up the trunk from the soil line. Too much more growth on that and you will have a fat area grow there causing reverse taper that will be hard if not impossible to correct.

ed

Now that you point it out, you're right. Visualizing it without that branch does open some possibilities that I hadn't considered. It's starting to get cold here in Arizona so I think I'll wait until early spring though.

I'm happy with the movement also. Even more so since it was the only non-Dwarf Garden Juniper that I could find in Tucson at the time that I bought it. The stores don't get into a lot of evergreens around here other than Cypress. I miss the east coast.

 

[Vance Wood]

Ben W,

Thanks for the reply. I was re-reading the posts and saw this "the ratio between foliage and root mass are the same." I must have overlooked it earlier. How do you determine this ratio and what it should look like?

I'm not sure what what Ben W had in mind with this quote but if you read the entire post you will find he has only been doing bonsai for 18 months. You should at least pay attention to posts from individuals who have a bit more experience.

 

[sikadelic]

I haven't heard about ratios of root ball to foliage, but the ratio of the height to trunk thickness, the standard being 6 units of height to 1 unit of trunk width (6:1). I'll have to hunt around for information about the root mass ratio though. Yet another thing I have to learn about bonsai.

My apologies. I thought you had questions about trunk thickness and height. I have no idea about the root mass and foliage.

 

[Vance Wood]

I'm not sure where it originated, but the ratios are commonly found in critical reviews and literature written by bonsai masters. I have always read 6:1 and 4:1.

The ratios you are referring to are not the ratios you think they are. The ratios refer to the height of the tree compared to the girth or thickness of the trunk and have nothing to do with the root mass. These ratios are what it takes to make a believable looking bonsai out of raw material. In short if you find a nice pine growing in the woods and it has a trunk that is two inches across you can make a believalbe bonsai out of it if your tree is made to be six to twelve inches tall.

 

[fore]

Vance, been coming up with grow box plans. I see you taper the box down so it's narrower on the bottom and wider at the lip. If you don't mind sharing, how much narrower did you make the boxes? Like 2-4" smaller? I don't think it matters that much but thought I'd ask.

Thanks Vance
Chris

 

[Vance Wood]

Vance, been coming up with grow box plans. I see you taper the box down so it's narrower on the bottom and wider at the lip. If you don't mind sharing, how much narrower did you make the boxes? Like 2-4" smaller? I don't think it matters that much but thought I'd ask.

Thanks Vance
Chris

It depends on the depth of the container. I cut everything at 72*. The difference between the top and the bottom depends on the distance between them.

 

[fore]

It depends on the depth of the container. I cut everything at 72*. The difference between the top and the bottom depends on the distance between them.

Perfect! Thanks Vance.