Smoke and Mirrors - 002

[Smoke]

Shimpaku Juniper

This is another Ed Clark pick up, and I bought it with the other juniper. I did some preliminary work on it also but not as much detail as the other. This tree is much more rough and open for ideas. I know where I'm gonna go I think but I do like hearing what others have to say. I do that in real life with a group of people and we spit ball ideas make fun of the material, wonder what it would look like in a thong, you know cool stuff...

The tree is a little larger than the other in outline , but the trunk is about the same and no real branch selection had been made simply because there were not many choices for branches then.

So here is the material as it looks now. You get these four views. Simple right. Just make a tree.





Ok so its not much to go on. I get it. How about a couple pics from three years ago. This is all I have done to it. Have fun!

 

[It's Kev]

Yay, something right down my alley. I love the drastic trunk bends. I’ve only owned a Shimpaku for 2 months now, in a giant pot, getting full sun. Gonna watch this thread VERY closely

 

[Smoke]

So this is the side I chose for the front. Mostly because the spring windings I cranked in three years ago showed better from this side.



I started like usual by cleaning up all the small crappy dead stuff and looking at the tree carefully from all sides. One only gets one front in a session so if this gets screwed up its back in the back for three years to hide it.

There is one thing I wish to emphasize very much here. The two junipers I am showing are two trip wonders. I bought them, did some initial work and then they say undisturbed for three years and then I spent an evening making one and an evening on the second. I do not have years of work, nor clipping and pinching every couple of months. That is the beauty of a juniper. Now a deciduous tree, thats another matter. The initial work part will last for years and sometimes its almost futile to see improvement. Of course it does when looked at in photos, but seems painfully slow.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and what I have always said on this forum is that buy a decent piece of material works it on weekend and set it up for the next procedure. Let it grow a couple years and come in in a day and complete the task. This is not hard stuff to do. This is the back side. I think my original thought was to use this side. The shari is cool but the trunk is just too in your face.



More cleaning and now I start removing the stuff I don't want to use. Small tufts at a time. Not too much because there is always a chance for jin.

 

[Smoke]

There was a pretty long tail that can be seen in one of the original photo's. The main trunk split in two like most junipers and I bent one up and one rather horizontal. The up one was bent into a loop and squashed ala Jim Gremel, then twisted the other way just for good measure. I decided after some thought and much looking that the tail was just not going to figure into the design.

...at least alive!!

I decided to jin the whole thing and make it a feature and then stack the live part on top of it. By building a dead bottom I felt it would add interest to have a dead branch over grown by the juniper refusing to give up.








The first live branch is wired and placed on top of the dead one. I wanted it to parallel the dead branch with just a little separation.



This is the part of the tree that made up my mind about which side would be the front. I wanted to see that whirlpool of movement deep in the middle of the tree. To hide that would have been a shame.

 

[Smoke]

So now I have two principle branches and now I need support. The crown! The hardest part.

On a juniper there is nothing that three miles of wire won't cure. This tree will undergo a complete restyle in about three years again just like the Itowigawa did. That tree had a little more to work with and I was able to get an acceptable result with two go arounds. This tree will require three , but thats OK. probably have a lot more to jin next time!

The rest of the tree is just tedious wire and twisting and bending to get what I need where. What do I mean by that. On a juniper if you don't have branches where you need them, put on some heavy wire and gently twist the trunk to turn a branch from as much as 180 degrees from where it was. You put the branches where you want them, don't let the tree bend you! Please take notice of the long jin I salvaged and wired and bent into the design. That thing stuck out of the canopy like a chop stick.



A little more work, more fine wire, weighs about 27 pounds now, and some bending and placing. Now I have a plant that has a future on the bench.

Go get a juniper and get to work, $35.00 on this one!

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

nice tree, it will be really good in the future
thank you, really helpful for when i think about my junipers