Small Collected Utah Juniper

[Eric Schrader]

I collected this tree in the fall of of 2005 from the mountains of Eastern California. I dug two small trees on that trip and both survived and are doing well.

Utah Junipers have a coarse foliage compared to Chinese Juniper, the needles are something like 10 times the size and thus branch refinement is quite a bit more difficult. I've been told that they're closely related to RMJ but I don't have any experience with RMJ.

2007, looking at what is currently the back of the tree:


2008, tree growing out and then trimmed and wired a little:


2010, wired and ready for show:


March 2013, I've let the tree grow freely for the last couple years and the canopy has gotten quite a bit larger. Most branches have about 5 inches of growth since it was last trimmed. The foliage is floppy and almost gives the tree a weeping look.



I spent most of a day wiring and trimming the tree. I don't shear the tips or trim back all the shoots. Instead I remove longer branches in favor of shorter ones and leave the growing tips intact.

 

[Smoke]

Really natural foliage. We just had David Nguy at our club today and I wrote about his work on C. junipers at my blog. I think the tree he demo'ed and then raffled could look this way in a couple years under the right next few years growth.

Do I see some John Wang influence here?

Really nice bunjin tree.

 

[Eric Schrader]

The tree has an interesting natural reverse taper in the trunk:



The back, slightly to the left of the exact back, and a potential future front for the tree. I like this side because it shows the reverse taper and also shows better movement in the trunk. I'll probably wait another year before repotting it to a different angle so that I can use this as the new front:


Left side, reverse taper clearly visible:


Right side:


I've had the tree in this pot for some time and am thinking a pot that is slightly shallower and with a more flared lip might be better. Tree measures about 15" high.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[Smoke]

Wow! It seems much larger than 15".

 

[0soyoung]

I am of like mind with Smoke:

Really nice bunjin tree, Eric.

 

[Brian Underwood]

Great little tree! The pictures are also awesome, good job.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

That's beautiful! Great work with the foliage pads, looks like the coarseness could be challenging.

 

[PaulH]

Very nice! Utahs can be a challenge to style the foliage as I've found that they often respond to wiring by reverting to juvenile foliage. Looks like you've got the right touch.

 

[Eric Schrader]

Do I see some John Wang influence here?

Hi Smoke,

I've only seen John's collection once, and then I saw him selling a few trees at the Bonsai-a-thon at the Huntington last year. I like his collection and I think he is indeed a good artist, nice fluid and complimentary movement in the branches and good control of the shape of the trees. He and I both seem to emphasize (exaggerate?) the branching to make the flow of the tree strong.

I'm not sure I've been influenced by him as much as we've likely both been influenced by some serious exposure to Japanese books, magazines, shows and teaching. I took a workshop a few weeks ago from Daisaku Nomoto while he was here in the Bay Area (I moved in December from Thousand Oaks back to San Francisco) and I think exposure to his work is currently coloring my Juniper and Pine work. I was interested to see him take a bushy, well-grown Kishu and strip it back to thin but elegant bonsai.

Jim Gremel had Nomoto working on a tree in the lobby of the Lake Merritt Garden Center during the Bay Island Bonsai show and watching him work was quite interesting. I have a tendency to form the crown of a juniper by taking a long whip or branch and bending it up and then over to one side with movement such that when the small branches growing out of the top side of it elongate you get a good rounded crown. Nomoto instead would take the shoot to form the top and bend it first backward, and then side to side coming generally forward toward the front of the tree and downward. It's nearly the same thing, just at a different angle to the front view of the tree; but the result is visually quite different.

Jim on the other hand likes to make his junipers really twisty and carries that into the small branching, which looks good but tends to give the branches a slightly chaotic look.

 

[Deshi]

Let me know if that ever becomes for sale.....

 

[Tona]

Nice job Eric. Thanks for the post!!
Tona

 

[yenling83]

Looks great! really love what you've done with that long primary branch and you made the large Utah foliage look really nice. It's kind of refreshing to see a small tree, all detailed out like this with it's natural foliage. Not that I don't like Itowigawa and Kishu on small trees, but i'm glad you kept it all natural. I have not seen many good Utah's which have progressed this much. I often wonder just how tight we can get our native junipers? I've seen Akio take some of the Westerns pretty far. But I wonder about Sierra, CA and Utah. This one is doing very well in that department. Do you think this is about as tight as you can get them? Or would you even want your tree any tighter?

I also love your observation about how Daisaku forms the apex, very interesting. And fantastic job with the photo of this tree, I like the backdrop you picked. So basically just awesome all around!!!

 

[tmmason10]

I don't shear the tips or trim back all the shoots. Instead I remove longer branches in favor of shorter ones and leave the growing tips intact.

I like this little nugget of wisdom. Very nice tree it looks really good in the natural foliage

 

[Eric Schrader]

Do you think this is about as tight as you can get them? Or would you even want your tree any tighter?

I'd love to see the foliage smaller or tighter on this tree. There is a lot of natural variation in the density/quality of foliage among native species. This is also true in the native Junipers in Japan, it's just that they graft almost everything to either Kishu or Itoigawa foliage. Once when I was talking to Peter Warren at Kobayashi's place he expressed frustration with one of their largest junipers because the foliage had not been grafted and was so hard to control compared to others. (it was over a 3' high and had a 18-inch trunk, so lots of wiring!)

My little Utah has nice looking foliage for the species - some of them are so loose and floppy that they fall apart when you try to wire them. I only lost a few shoots while wiring it. The foliage on this one doesn't seem to want to get any tighter - it's been in a tiny pot for 5 years now; I don't pinch it (which would not be advisable for the long term health of the plant) but I think it's about as tight as it will get.

 

[october]

Very, very nice tree. I wouldn't be concerned with getting the foliage any tighter. I love the different natural image that this tree portrays.

Rob

 

[NewWorldBonsai]

Nice progression! You've managed to balance the foliage with the gentle trunk line to produce a very natural feeling tree.

More please

 

[drew33998]

Very very nice bunjin. I love the fine branching and foliage. Great tree