Remaking a Juniper Procumbens
By Thomas J.
As I noted in an earlier article, many people who
get started in bonsai, do so by
acquiring a procumbens juniper as their first tree.
Many of those will acquire
their tree and immediately put it indoors on the coffee
table or some other area of display,
and in a short time the needles are turning brown,
and the bonsai tree is all but dead.
There are also those who think that because the juniper
procumbens is such a common
type juniper to use for bonsai, that it must also be
an easy species to work with, and
one that would be referred to as "low maintenence". Both
not necessarially true.
Unless you are constantly keeping an eye on the shape,
by doing your routine pinching,
and keeping on a routine insect and pest schedule,
along with a fertilization and iron
program, your juniper will start to show signs of being
nothing more than an unhappy
shrub in a pot.
This article will show how I brought back one of these
junipers, from a good looking bonsai
to a shrub in a pot, and back to a good looking bonsai
again. I might add that none of
this happened from neglect on my part, but was something
that at the time was unavoidable.
Let me explain. Two years ago I purchased this procumbens
at a bonsai nursery, that had
been somewhat styled I guess you could say, and put
in a bonsai pot for sale.

I knew exactly at the time of purchase what needed
to be done to make this tree look like
something that would be very appealing to the eye.
The main reason that I
purchased this tree, though, was for the mature rather
than juvenile foliage that it had. Little
did I know at the time, that this also would be a hindrance
to my plans.
Below is a picture
of the restyling work I did on the tree showing the
mature foliage, which is scale looking,
almost like that of a shimpaku juniper.

I was really happy with what I achieved, and
was hoping that it wouldn't be long before
some of the bare spots near the top would fill in,
and all would be well.
But then the inevitable happened, the tree started
to revert back to juvenile foliage, and
there went my design and future plans. As you can see
from the picture below, the tree
is losing not only its shape, but its attractiveness
also.

Putting it in a different pot, hoping to do something
that might give it a boost in appearence,
was a good try, but not much help. There was only one
solution hopefully, and that would be to
start over, and hope for the best.
Starting over with a tree this young, is not an easy
task, to make something that would be
convincing as a bonsai that you would want to have,
and something to hold your interest in.
The hardest part about starting over is the part where
you just do nothing and just let it grow.
The picture below shows what I mean.

This is also where patience comes into play. To have
to look at something like this every day and wonder
if you'll be able to make something good again, or
whether it's just a waste of time. For those of you
who
don't have a teacher, or know someone with an eye for
styling, my only advice to you is to look at as
many pictures of world class bonsai as you can
for inspiration. I'm not talking about copying
someones work, only see how the artist did what he
did, and try and develop your own eye for
styling. You can view the Bonsai
Gallery here on our
site for this. Also, try to surf the bonsai forums
and find some before and after pictures of other artists
work.
Here's some links to get you going:
Bonsai
Site Forums
Bonsai Talk Forums
After doing a major clean
up of the branches, I knew excatly what needed to be
wired to bring this tree back to something that would
be acceptable as a bonsai, and something that I would
continue to be interested in along with all my other
favorite trees. Below is a picture showing
the only two branches that needed to be wired on this
tree.

And finally I have my bonsai back, remade over again,
and even put back into its original pot,
which I feel really compliments this design.

One very important thing to remember when doing any
kind of styling, is to always keep the
tree at eye level when doing this, and not looking
down at it as seen in the picture below.

Even though sitting in its usual position on your
outside bench, you'll probably always be
looking down at the tree, this is not the position
to do any kind of maintenence work such
as pinching to shape. Always work the tree at eye level,
because that is the way you will
photograph your tree for any type of show or contest.
And yes there are some of you beginners
out there reading this, who in due time will be entering
their trees in world class bonsai contests.
No better time than now to prepare.
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