Scott’s Western juniper critique

markyscott

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This is my Western juniper after some summer work in preparation for nationals

BA06BAF0-7D3E-4754-BFB0-22975CC3FD78.jpeg

I have a thread detailing it’s development. In short, I purchased it as raw stock in 2013. It was likely collected in about 2009 or 2010. Here’s what it looked like at purchase.
750F2D57-D592-4DBD-B626-9BD6E2E1BF44.jpeg


Scott’s critique:
  1. This tree is still early in its bonsai journey. It’s come a long way, but its only 5 years in development and could use several more growing seasons under its belt to build more interesting and sophisticated branch development
  2. The interest here for me is the multitude of jin and large areas of shari. An overly refined canopy would compete with the story of struggle told by those jin and I’ll have to be careful to avoid an overly manicured look for the tree while at the same time improving its refinement.
  3. The main issue that I see is that the left side and the right side of the tree almost look like two different trees. Cover the right and the left side has the appearance of a conventionally styled tree. Cover the left and the right side is more sparse, wth branches interrupted by large jin features and lots of negative space. I think eventually I’ll have to make up my mind on this.
  4. The upper 1/2 of the trunk lacks taper. There’s very little that I can do about this without some major carving work. I don’t think I want to do this as it would destroy the natural deadwood on the tree. Best I can do is interrupt it with foliage. There’s a tuft in front, but I think that branch needs to develop further to provide a more solid visual break to that part of the trunk
Scott
 

Arcto

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Powerful tree. I see movement to the right at the base, then very rigid and nearly vertical to the top. Did you play with the idea of tilting to the right more and moving the apex further right? My eye repeatedly goes back to that bottom left vertical jin. But I could see losing something by shortening it. Those angled jins high on the right are in my mind wonderful.
 

coh

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Can't wait to see this in just a little over a month! Love the deadwood and jins. The "reverse taper" (or lack of taper) you speak of doesn't bother me, as it's mostly deadwood and you have to expect the unexpected with these.

I think the issue with the two sides is simply that the foliage masses on the left side are denser and more developed than those on the right. Once they fill in I don't think it will be a problem (have you considered thinning the ones on the left slightly to make the 2 sides more similar for the show?)

Edit to add - this is the native foliage, right? Looks nice.
 

markyscott

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Can't wait to see this in just a little over a month! Love the deadwood and jins. The "reverse taper" (or lack of taper) you speak of doesn't bother me, as it's mostly deadwood and you have to expect the unexpected with these.

I think the issue with the two sides is simply that the foliage masses on the left side are denser and more developed than those on the right. Once they fill in I don't think it will be a problem (have you considered thinning the ones on the left slightly to make the 2 sides more similar for the show?)

Edit to add - this is the native foliage, right? Looks nice.

Thanks Chris - yes, this is native Western juniper foliage

Scott
 

0soyoung

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When I look at this tree, I see a large old juniper that nearly died. It's original trunk is the prominent, taperless vertical upper half-trunk. I think such a devastated tree would live on only because of some foliage down low and not anything but deadwood from the devastation above. The foliage you've got low and toward the right is congruent with this story, the 'top hat', not so much.
 

coh

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Or, one could argue that the tree was big, alive, vibrant and suffered a cataclysmic event (boulder fell on it or something), killing most of it...but the living part has regrown and is slowly reclaiming its past glory as it reaches upward...
 

wireme

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Great tree and work of course. Not much critiquing from me. In the spirit of looking for a way to improve it right now I find my self wondering if some pads could be divided up into more smaller ones.
 

Vin

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Geeze, what am I doing even suggesting you do something different with your tees? They always look so damn good. Anyway, the heaviness of the trunk bothered me just a little so I wondered what it might look like if it was a bit lighter. Food for thought, nothing more.

Scott3.jpg
 
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