Shimpaku junipers

[Si Nguyen]

Hi everybody. I worked on a few small junipers this week. Here's the first shimpaku. I had this little one for about 10 years. Didn't do anything with it except up-potting it once about 5 years ago. Finally got around to working on it this week. These are the before pics.

 

[Joedes3]

Don't forget the after photo.

 

[Si Nguyen]

OK, back on track now. Here's the plan for it. I usually do some thumbnail sketches first before any chopping. The first sketch is usually with just the one best branch, which is usually a bunjin style. Then the next sketch with more branches or trunks, and so on. Finally, I settled on a tripple trunk design for this tree.

 

[Si Nguyen]

On the next day I chopped off the excess branches.

 

[Si Nguyen]

Then I wired the branches; and finished for now. Finally took some pics this morning. All comments and critiques are appreciated.

 

[Si Nguyen]

And some more close up pics, and a side view. This tree has a lot of depth.

 

[Pine Barron]

Awesome. When I first saw that juni I honestly did not see a great future for it. I am amazed.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Thanks for sharing, good work with the material. My first thought was that it reminds me of an old Hatanaka Prostrata on Bonsai West's website: http://www.bonsaiwest.com/index.php/bonsaiwest/item/162

Looking at yours again, I'm conflicted by the main trunk moving strongly to the left, but everything else about the design moves right. The side view resolves this and is very pleasing, but it's hard to tell from photos if that is a viable front.

 

[Si Nguyen]

Thanks for your comments PineBarron and Brian.

That's a nice bonsai from Hatanaka! That's a much bigger tree. Mine is only about 8 inches tall. This tree has interesting views all around, because branch pads spread out radially to all sides. But there's only one true front, because of the root base.