Professional bonsai and suiseki from Peter Warren. Japanese bonsai educated by well known bonsai master Kunio Kobayashi.
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Bonsai Juniper
Itoigawa Juniper
Throughout my time in Japan I fell in love with many trees, but not many Junipers, I am difficult to please when it comes to them, but this tree was one of the first and we had a great, but stormy relationship.
At first sight I was captivated by the thin but twisting trunk, the strong branching structure and the overall balance of the tree. The life line twisted round and round, perfect for a yamadori juniper which it undoubtedly is. However, soon after I arrived it was sold to a customer who was renowned for being a pro-active enthusiast, he took a hand on approach himself and worked his own trees, as opposed to many of the big customers who pay to have their trees maintained. When we sold it, the foilage was the luscious itoigawa green and it was in healthy condition, but in need of a repot. "No problem" he said and took the tree away and out of my life for the next 18 months.
We were reunited but it was not a pleasant experience, the customer brought it back in a sorry state. It was slightly over grown when it was bought and the customer had set about cutting back a lot of the growth to make much more compact foliage. Unfortunately he pruned back too hard and didn't want to repot at the same time, despite being told that this was essential for the development of the tree. By not doing so caused the tree to become unbalanced between root mass and foliar mass, which is one of the quickest ways to stimulate juvenile growth. You can see on the picture the difference between the two types of growth, juvenile "scale" growth on the left.
There are many schools of thought about what to do with such unsightly growth. I tend to remove all the growth that is obviously unwanted and leave anything else that may be of use in the future. By constantly removing it then the balance between roots and growth will always be difficult to obtain and the problem will continue.
Soon after taking care of the tree I repotted it into an antique Chinese Udei pot which has a glorious patina, perfect for the age of the tree. It was a "kowatari" pot, signifying that it is over 400 years old. Repotted in Autumn, it responded well the following year and grew very well. I would work on the tree every week, going through removing all unnecessary foilage, cleaning and generally just getting a feel for the tree. After less than a year of growth it was photographed.
You can see that the bottom branches are still very weak compared to the very strong growth around the apex.
After it was photographed I was asked to wire and style it. I had discussed with the customer what he wanted to do in terms of the cutting of major branches and stylistically. The personal objective for me was to cut off as little of the lower foilage as possible so that it would continue to strengthen whilst simultaneously reducing the foilage in the apex. It was around this time that I began to experiment with black electrical tape in place of raffia and also with using less wire that I had previously. I finishedwas determined to not wire every single branch but to create foilage pads that would naturally fill out rather than being forced to with wire.
Unfortunately I was under pressure to finish in a very short period of time and I was unable to take any pictures of the creation of the tree. After a long night and following morning of wiring, cleaning and a little bit of work on the dead wood it was ready for another photograph.
I removed quite a lot of the apical foilage and many of the branches inside to attempt to lessen the mass and compact the foilage. The trunk is thin and although it has a lot of character it is incapable of holding a large mass of foilage without losing its elegance. I was happy with the results of my work, although I would have prefered to have removed a few more branches which the customer insisted on keeping. Although it is difficult to see in this two dimensional picture, I was particularly pleased with the way I managed to add depth to the tree, particularly with the strong characterful branch that drops down to the left.
After another spring season of growth it looked much better, having filled out exactly as I had hoped, and the bottom branches had strengthened almost to satisfaction. It will be one of my greatest regrets that I couldn't complete this tree and see it exhibited in Kokufuten. Given another year of growth and a re-wiring to just tidy up and refine the foilage pads it would have been a certainty to be accepted.
I prefer the Junipers I style to reflect the harsh natural which creates them, not the geometrical perfection which is enforced upon them by many contemporary artists. This is not an excuse for poor workmanship, quite the opposite, it is much more difficult to create something that will grow as you want it to rather than growing as you told it to by wiring every single branch.