Will My Plant Recover?

[Noob@33]

Hi all!

First post here. I really enjoy working on my plants and learning about bonsai.

Trying to keep a long story short, I had a decent dwarf jade for a few years, I live in New England, and I left it outside for too long in the cold. Branches died and I pruned them off, trunk and bark waisted away and chuncks of the root came off. Fast forward a couple years, I had let it just grow wild and then recently cut it back significantly, also cutting back the root. I bought a giant pot for it and the plan is to let it grow for about 3 years or so, before I begin to bring it back to bonsai status. My questions are, is it really a lost cause here? Will the bark ever look "good" again? Should I be doing something else? Thanks for any advise! Let me know of more/better pics are needed

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

imho Jades are rarely a Lost Cause! …. unless one has root rot!

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Noob@33]

My questions are, is it really a lost cause here? Will the bark ever look "good" again? Should I be doing something else? Thanks for any advise! Let me know of more/better pics are needed

Any other feedback?

 

[Shibui]

The plant looks well considering what it has been through.
Jade wood is soft but I have seen some with dead wood treated and featured as shari on the trunk.
Assuming the second photos shows a dead section of the trunk, consider scraping off what remains of dead bark and treating the bare wood with wood hardener and/or lime sulfur to make a feature.

Trunk and branches look a little long to me so for better proportions also consider shortening all round and regrow to develop branches and apex with more ramification. It looks like you have started to develop some reasonable ramification and small branching on some branches but appears too far out from the trunk. Choices are to continue with long branches or start again and rebuild further back by chopping all branches by at least half.

The wiring police will probably be round soon to slap your wrists so probably time to check out how to wire neatly and effectively. Not sure how effective wiring is on Jade as they are pretty stiff from the start. Note that wiring is only useful when you need to change the shape of something. Wiring itself does not make a bonsai so if the wiring is not doing anything it is not needed.

 

[Noob@33]

Thanks Shibui! Sounds like have alot to do here but it gives me some hope. I appreciate the time for some detailed advise!