Signs of Life

It's been almost a year since I published my last blog post. The pandemic has been bad for my motivation and my blog hasn't been the only thing I've been neglecting. My trees have suffered too. For 5 months, while shut up at home, I did little more than what was required to keep them alive. Then, as lockdown regulations were eased, I started going to those workshops that were available.

Sometime over the last few months I came to the realisation that, more than growing bonsai, I've been hoarding trees. To a large extent that was true even before the pandemic. Yes, I'd been trying to reduce the size of my collection, but I hadn't been trying hard enough. Now I'm trying a bit harder. But that's not so easy when new waves lead to meetings being cancelled. Figures are low right now, so we're able to meet but as winter approaches, there's the risk of a third wave with more meetings likely to be cancelled.

With that in mind priority number one is to reduce a lot of the trees I'm keeping to a more manageable size so that it's not so difficult to keep the sensitive ones protected during the cold nights ahead. And every branch I remove brings temptation, so priority number two is not to propagate any more trees for the foreseeable future.

The Shrinking Juniper

One of the trees I bought in April as a candidate for Reddit's nursery stock contest was a rather large Juniper Mint Julep. I've already discussed its first styling in an earlier post.

As it was winter in South Africa, the tree has grown very little since then. I hadn't done any further work on it either - until today, when I decided to take it to my club's meeting for some "expert" advice.

April 2018

I wasn't expecting to do much more than remove the unwanted branches that I'd left uncut in April for fear of removing too much in one go and killing the tree. But Junipers are outside my comfort zone so I was looking for confirmation that it was safe to cut them now. With the benefit of hindsight I'm starting to wonder if I'd have been better off if I'd stuck to my original plan and removed those branches at home.

Instead, when the tree went up for critique, everyone seemed to have different ideas, and people soon started bending branches into different positions. One member even shortened the leader (which I was trying to thicken) without asking if I was happy for him to do so.

By this time the tree was already looking quite different from its appearance in the above picture and I was no longer sure where I was headed, so when today's speaker asked if I wanted him to turn it into a dramatic tree,  I agreed. On one condition - that he wouldn't kill my tree.

Before I knew it all the branches were gone and the leader was pulled downwards, leaving me with this:

September 2018

Is there enough left to keep it alive? If it was a Ficus I'd say yes, but with a Juniper I'm not sure.

Plans for the future are a repot as well as carving and bending the jin. For now, however, my major concern is the tree's survival.

Not My Competition Tree

Despite my doubts about my ability to create a decent looking bonsai tree from nursery stock during the South African winter, I was determined that this year I would enter Reddit's nursery stock contest.

Although my plan was to go for a small tree, my first purchase was everything I hadn't planned - a Juniper (a species I usually stay away from) and a rather large one by my standards.

Juniper Mint Julep - March 2018, as purchased

My doubts about the wisdom of this purchase began when I started looking for information about Juniper Mint Julep online and discovered that it wasn't the best candidate for bonsai.

They only increased when I realised that most of the decent branches were near the top of the tree - possibly useful for literati for somebody else, but not for me! Working with its full height wasn't really an option as I found it a struggle to move the tree around. Besides, I wasn't strong enough to bend the trunk!

It soon became obvious to me that if this tree was to be used for bonsai, it was a long term project.

Over the next couple of weeks I removed the apex and several branches and also did a little wiring (after wrapping the trunk and new leader in bandages to prevent damaging the bark).

However I left one unwanted branch low down as I was afraid to remove too much at once. Not being accustomed to working with Junipers, I already fear that I may have removed more than the tree can handle.

Juniper Mint Julep - April 2018

I'm anxiously waiting for spring to see whether it survives my brutality.


My second purchase was closer to what I had in mind when I started my search, though I still wasn't totally happy with it.

I foolishly went tree hunting on a rainy day and had to inspect trees using one hand while holding an umbrella with the other. Most probably I'd have come away with something different if the weather had been better, but having braved the rain I was determined not to leave empty handed.

As it happens that was the tree I finally entered in the contest, so for now I won't discuss it any further.


I bought one more tree which is quite small and has some potential, this skinny little privet.

Privet - April 2018- as purchased

My initial intention was to create a literati with this one, but once I got to work I wasn't sure. While that was a viable option, I could see enough potential for a mame to make me reluctant to remove the low branches.

Lower trunk - July 2018

 As a result I stopped work half way, leaving my options open. The introductory photo to this post shows the half-styled tree in April 2018.

In hindsight I made the right decision when I rejected this one as my competition tree because it still looks pretty much the same three months later.

I'll leave the final decision over its future until spring, but I'm almost certain that I'll go for the mame option. Once the weather warms up I expect the young branches low down will develop pretty quickly.

I'm really curious to see what I can achieve with this one in six months once it's actually growing.

Sixth Month Challenge - the Wrong Tree?

Around the time that Reddit opened entry for this year's nursery stock contest, I decided to challenge myself to see whether, during the period of the contest, I could create a bonsai from one of the cuttings I'd propagated but hadn't yet started working on. I confess that I was a bit impulsive in announcing my plan before I'd looked for candidates for this challenge. Once I looked through my trees I realised that the ones most suitable for this project were deciduous, so I couldn't use them for a winter challenge.

In the end I felt my only option was to try to create a literati bonsai from one of my Ficus burtt-davyi cuttings.

My chosen candidate was growing so vigorously that it had sent a root into the neighbouring pot. This was how it was growing at the beginning of April - the two trees moved into a clear container for the photo as it was the only way to keep them upright.

April 2018

After cutting the problem root and removing a few dead branches on the lower trunk, the tree was still unable to stand upright without support.

April 2018

Clearly a bigger pot was required.

As we were headed into winter I repotted the tree very carefully, making sure not to disturb any roots.

Then I did a little wiring, leaving an unwanted apex and several excess branches as insurance in case overaggressive styling killed the ones I wanted.

First styling - April 2018

A month later everything was looking good. The roots were growing into the new soil:

May 2018

The tree was showing no signs of die back, so I removed the unwanted branches.

Second styling - May 2018

However it was already showing signs that it might want to be something different as all the new growth was lower down the trunk.

Now, a month later, those buds are growing well and I'm starting to rethink my plans for this tree's future.

June 2018

Perhaps I'll remove the top and try to root it as a smaller literati. For now I'll just let it grow.

Happily one of the trees I bought for the Reddit contest is showing a lot more promise and I've entered the competition. But I'll discuss that one when the competition is over.

And perhaps I'll make another attempt with one of my propagated trees in spring.