Itoigawa Juniper

A while back I acquired this imported Itoigawa Shimpaku Juniper. It wasn't the best of trees but I saw a cool tree in there, one that would require some good bending and hallowing out of a main branch or sub trunk. So for a year or so this has been sitting on bench waiting to be worked on, but first I had a ton of other trees to get to....
At first glance the subtrunk, main branch on the left needed to be bent, it is just to straight and will always be a huge flaw. Problem is it is about 3" tall and is over an inch in diameter. A little to short and thick to bend. I hallowed it out with my dremel and put some heavy gauge copper wire inside. Now we were able to bend it and add a bit of movement that mimicked the main trunk a bit
Before photo


After sub trunk on left is wired and bent


Now there is a major void that needs to be filled in the top to the left of the shari in the apex. This will require bending another short and fat branch. This branch will need rafia and lots of copper. It is right on the edge of the shari so I need to make sure it doesn't split from the trunk.
Starting to come around....



Now it is pretty much inplace. I started to thin and remove branches on the lower right and left.... lots of foliage removed!!!

Lower branches wired and starting to get put in place

Now I find that there is a more dynamic front that I prefer better and is better suited for the tree....

With the new front all I have left to do now is thin, wire and set the apex.
Here are 2 photos of the new front with the re-style almost done.


While this tree has seen a pretty good re-styling, I am not finished yet. I will update this when I am finished tweaking. This coming spring we will get a better suited pot for this little juniper.

The Pot Parade!

Here are some Erin Pots that I recently got from brother inlaw Rich over at obpots. Check the link to the right....

Enjoy!
First Pot By Charels Gluskoter. Next year we will have more of his pots available. The glazing is second to none....looks like was dug out of the ground after hundereds of years. Excellent!!

Eris Pots Below

This little Crescent is a killer pot, one of my favorites! Can't wait to get a little collected pine or juniper in it!

Below, 10" round. Looks small in the picture.

Below....Big semi-cascade pot, 12" opening! One of my favorites!

Killer accent pot!!!

Cool pot for some rare grass' that I have!

These Erin Pots are excellent pots and the pricing is really good for imported custom pots. I am a fan of Erin Pottery, the accent pots are killer, and his bigger pots are very natural and rustic making a nice fit for old yamadori.... I thank OregonBonsaiPots.com for going out on a limb and bringing killer pots to the NW area. I expect that once people find out about obpots Rich will have a hard time keeping pots on the shelves. Oh, they ship too!!!! Tell him Jason sent ya!

Rich's Ponderosa

A few years ago Rich got this ponderosa from Oregon Bonsai because it some very cool deadood sub trunks that are no longer part of the tree. He had us over for a bbq yesterday and worked on this tree. Once we started looking at it and noticing that most of the front of the trunk was dead. So we pulled out the pcoket knives and started looking for the live vien, pictures show that most of the inner side is alive, everything else is dead! Cool!

Initially we wanted to pt a few bends into the trunk....however since we found all the deadwood we had to re-evalute the plan of attack. Here is what we came up with.....

Using the branch bender we would just squeeze this section together and go from there. I wanted to seperate the live vien from the deadwood all along but Rich wanted to go the safe route is possible...

Above you can see the deadwood starting to split from the pressure of the bender....it sounded like "Snap, Crackle and Pop"!!

Below, Rich using a cheater bar to keep turning!

After Rich added this last turn I looked and seen that it would be real simple to seperate the live from the dead and continue like I originally wanted to do. Picture below shows after we seperated by hand...

Adding some wire....then raffia and more wire.

Final images for now. Next year when the rafia and wife come off Rich will be able to clean the deadwood that is under the rafia to make it look a bit better. He may also pot it in a round pot or more suitable pot at that time. The trunk is pretty straight and kind of boring so we wanted to hang the foliage in front of the trunk to make a smaller tree and use it to distract from the tall straight trunk. For an initial styling it isn't too shabby!

Virtual Potting of the killer RMJ

Walter Pall was kind enough to do 3 virtuals of the tree in the post below. Here he put the tree in 3 different pots....kinda cool to see what the future looks like.....
I am a year or 2 away from potting so I have time to find the right one....I will start buying a few pots of this size asap so I have a few to try on for size when it comes time to pot this tree.
Which one do you like best?

Pot 2, my choice so far....

Ofcourse my favorite picture of the weekend....My wonderful wife and child!!

Walter Pall's Visit

A few times per year we here in NW Oregon are lucky enough to have Walter Pall come for a visit. Most of the time it is very casual, I will set up some workshops to offset his travel cost's then the rest of the time is working on trees, eating good food and drinking good adult beverages! But mostly, it is working on trees in my back yard while Walter looks on to make sure we are doing the right thing!
For these 2 days I had Randy Knight and Rich List over for some good ol' tree work. Each of them brought quite a few trees to work on, and I had this big monster juniper to play around with.
Rich and Walter look at my project tree....

Walter looking at how healthy this juniper is. Also wondering why he didn't buy it for himself :)

Going over last years carving. I now have the right tools, the right bits and better know how to get it done. Walter did one branch and I tried to do the rest.



After carving with the die grinder and then fine tuning with the dremel it was time to fire the wood.... one can tell that is was burnt very much then lightly brushed.

The next few shots show thinning of the foliage.....



The apex and right side of the tree are thinned and starting to come together

I think he likes what he sees!!

Now the overall image is starting to come together....never mind "Muscles of spun steel" in the background!!! haha

Back side of the tree as is for now.....

Front side for now

Possible 2nd front????

Deadwood final and right side of tree.

Me and my Baby!

While this tree just had its initial styling it still has a long ways to go. It does have a good start to what is considered by many in the know to be one of the best Junipers around. Once in a pot and the rest of the styling is complete it will be a tough tree to beat. I look forward with great anticipation to continue to develop this tree and see it to be the best it can be.
To see more pictures please visit Walter Palls blog http://walter-pall-travelogues.blogspot.com/