F B S	Shimpaku Juniper Redux

   By Al Keppler          From Topiary to Bonsai

The story always starts the same. The ardent bonsai enthusiast goes to a fine bonsai nursery and sees some great junipers and immediately has to have one. I bought the tree with the idea that I would restyle the tree at a later date. The tree had some very nice things going for it. The trunk was rather large, for a tree of this size, and had great taper from bottom to top. The trunk had a natural Shari and seemed to flare into the soil line. I thought it may have a nice surprise when it came time to repot. The big problem with the tree is that the crown was shaped like a bowling ball. I bought the tree from Chikugo-En nursery. Mas Ishii has benches full of the same size and shape juniper. This tree was around $80.00. It was about 9" tall.

Time to re-style the bowling ball

The time had come to put my creative skills to the test. I had tried to get in the mood to tackle this tree on previous occasions, but could not come up with a design element that really suited the tree. After sitting in front of the fireplace one night, I seen something that gave me an idea. The club meeting was coming up and I decided that I would bring this juniper as the subject of my undoing. I started by cutting out all the under growth that would not contribute to the final design. I left the stub a little long to turn into jins if needed. I began working up the tree, pruning out undesirable branches, always keeping in mind my final view of the tree. This is the part that becomes the most time consuming. Picking out branches before their wired can be a real challenge. This is where the "art" part comes in. 

Howard Latimer; " are you sure you know what your doing"

I was sitting across from Howard Latimer. Every few minutes he would look across, as the pile of green trimmings was getting larger, and ask, " are you sure you know what your doing". I assured him that I had a plan. I don't think Howard was as sure as I was. At this stage I began to add the first coils of wire. The trunk had some great curves already, and I concentrated on the branches. I began to bend the branches into the desired positions, and found out that my best laid plans had taken a turn for the worst. This tree still had too many branches for the design I had in mind!

Howard thinks I have lost my mind!

I make the decision to take some more branches off, and the green trimming pile starts to grow into a larger mass than the tree. The tree is really starting to look like a scarecrow, and the skeleton is almost scary. I now reach the point that I must stop or ruin what little chance I have of producing anything remotely resembling a bonsai. It is at this time that Howard takes one last parting look at the poor hapless tree and walks off shaking his head. He wanders over to where John Roehl is repotting a Chinese elm cascade he bought at the convention in Sac. Now I have reached a crossroads. Do I wire the tree here, or do I take it home to ponder. Steve DaSilva asks me to give a report on this vary website. I let everyone know that it will be up and running in a few days. I decide to take the tree home and wire it in the privacy of my own backyard. The only ones that laugh at me there are the stray cats and scrub jays.

Uh..oh..Had I made a mistake?

I let the tree sit till Tuesday. That was the day I decided to start to wire what remained of the tree. I wired all the branches first. I wired every branch down to the last detail. This is the only way to achieve maximum beauty in the stock at hand. If one waits till another day to do detail wiring, shape will be lost, branches may grow too thick, and the original design may never be captured again. I began by bending the first branch. At that moment, I saw the final form for the tree. The rest of the branches just seemed to fall into place. I separated the foliage at the apex of the tree and wired that last. With all the wiring and branch placement out of the way, I was able to introduce some subtle bending of the tertiary branches. These are the final details that will bring the tree into top shape, and help the tree hold it's final shape after the wire is removed. The tree has finished out at 7" tall. I would like to repot this in the spring. I have done some virtual repotting of this tree, and would like to show them here. First a small formal pot. Then I tried a small unglazed drum style pot. I like the drum style pot, and think I will go with a round type pot even if it does not fit the regular drum category. I feel that the tree had a real slow start, but picked up speed once the branches were out of the way to really see the lines of the trunk. I like the finished tree, and feel that this represents one of my better efforts at a scratch design. I am excited about the prospect of bringing this tree back to the next meeting for Howard to look at. I feel it is even better in person.

I have included a side by side shot, just to show how the tree used to look compared to the final form. Quite a transformation to say the least.

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