My Juniper is Half Dead

The internet is full of stories of dead Juniper mallsai, many of them victims of the mistaken belief that they can be kept indoors. This is not one of those stories. I found a way to kill half my tree even though it was living outside.

Despite my reluctance to work with conifers, I currently have three Junipers in my collection - two small Juniper Procumbens Nana which I tend to neglect and a much larger Juniper Mint Julep which I foolishly bought as a candidate for Reddit's nursery stock competition though that tree was totally unsuitable for use as "instant" bonsai.

My younger Procumbens Nana is a tree which I propagated from a cutting when I entered my club's new talent competition a few years ago.

April 2018 - unstyled

Until recently I'd never done any work on it at all. Then in April I saw a lovely little Juniper bonsai on Reddit. When I heard that it had been styled without wiring I was inspired to see if I could create a small Juniper bonsai the same way.

Unfortunately when I examined my tree I discovered that its structure was totally unsuited to clip and grow, so I did a little pruning and some relatively heavy wiring. Then, extremely embarrassed by the result, I returned the tree to its home, determined that I was not going to write about the mistakes I'd made.

April 2018 - after bad styling

Over the course of winter I noticed some browning on the foliage and after a while it became obvious that something had gone horribly wrong. As you can see here, one side of the tree had died.

August 2018 - half dead

Luckily the other side is still alive and showing signs of new growth.

August 2018 - new growth on surviving trunk

Today I removed most of the dead trunk, leaving a little behind for a possible jin, while leaving the other side untouched aside from removing the wire.

August 2018 - cut back

So what went wrong?

Looking at the base of the dead trunk, there is a ring where the bark looks different from the rest. I suspect that while wiring it I accidentally stripped the bark and cambium, cutting off all life support to that trunk.

So now what?

Perhaps I'll let it grow back for a year or two before trying again. Or perhaps I'll finally accept that I'm not a Juniper person and put it on my club's raffle.

Willow Leaf Ficus - 18 Months Later

When last I wrote about my willow leaf ficus, I was undecided on the way forward.

February 2017

Although that long branch was never part of my plan for the tree's future, I was unwilling to cut it off and let it go to waste. One of my readers suggested I keep it and turn the tree into a cascade, but I wasn't too keen on the idea.

After giving it a bit of thought, I decided the best way forward was to air layer that branch the following spring, and with that plan in mind I wired some movement into it shortly after the previous post was written.

Aside from a little pruning I did nothing further until November 2017.

November 2017 - before the chop

By then I was impatient to start work on the tree, so I abandoned the idea of the air layer, cut that branch off and planted it as a cutting instead. Happily it rooted.

November 2017 - after the chop

Shortly after that I took the tree along to a meeting to discuss its future.

I'd just started giving it a trim when I was called away. When I returned a few minutes later it had received an unexpected and rather severe haircut.

After repotting and changing the angle, this was what was left:

November 2017 - pruned and repotted

Since then I've just let it grow. This is what it looks like today:

August 2018

Here's a 360° view:



Now it's time for decisions. All that new growth has given me a lot of options.

I'm seriously considering going for a shorter tree, but I'm undecided where to make the next chop.

Perhaps it's time to take it to another workshop.

My Flea Market Find

After several weeks of searching for a candidate succulent to create a mame bonsai, I was starting to think that I wasn't going to find what I was looking for. Sure there were lots of tiny succulents available at all the nurseries and supermarkets, but the foliage was far too bit to create a convincing tree.

Then last Sunday I was at a flea market when I came across a table full of tiny succulents. Most of them had relatively large leaves, but then I spotted this baby:

Sedum - July 2018

It's actually far smaller than it appears here (if you're viewing this post on a computer monitor, anyway) - the pot is a mere 2 inches square.

According to the seller, it's some type of Sedum, but he didn't know which and I haven't been able to identify it yet.

Now I'm really glad I decided not to chop the variegated Portulacaria I bought a few weeks ago. It's huge compared to the Sedum:

Portulacaria and Sedum - July 2018

Meanwhile, despite the fact that it's still winter here, the Portulacaria is already budding all over the place.

I can't wait to see what these little guys do when summer arrives.

Ginseng Ficus gets a chop

It's been five years since I started growing out my first Ginseng Ficus.

In November 2017 I felt it had finally fattened up enough to shorten the trunk and start developing branches.

A week ago I decided it was time for the second chop.

July 2018 - before pruning

At the time I bought the tree the graft ensured that there was only one possible front. After five years of healing, however, that was no longer the case. After examining the base of the tree, I realised that there was a better front.

old front

new front

Unfortunately the tree is planted too low in the pot for the photos to show the difference accurately, but the gap between the two trunks is much less obvious from the new front.

July 2018 - after pruning and change of front

Next step is to repot the tree and carve away some of that long root that is just visible on the left side. That will have to wait until spring though.

You can see photos of the full progression of this tree here.

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.

An Indoor Disaster

No, I don't keep any of my trees indoors. I learnt a long time ago that even trees which can survive in my house will never thrive there. But that didn't stop me wanting a few house plants. And given my love of ficuses, Ficus Elastica seemed like a good choice.

For the last couple of years I've had two of them living opposite an east-facing window in my kitchen, not the ideal spot, but a lot better than my big Schefflera's previous home in an area which never sees the sun.

They've been growing... really slowly. Having started out as straight trunks with no branches, in time each grew one thin branch, though the dark one is showing signs that it may soon grow a few more. However the variegated plant has been looking quite fragile for a long time.

Perhaps some of the variation in their performance is down to genetic differences because variegated plants often seem to be less vigorous than their plainer counterparts, but I suspect that the main cause is the soil they've been growing in. The dark one, which I grew from a cutting, is in my club's bonsai soil while the variegated one is still in the soil it was living in when I bought it. That soil is a lot finer and probably retains a lot more water.

Seeing their poor growth I've been planning to move them to a shady spot outside. Just as soon as spring arrives.

In the meanwhile I recently bought a couple of spouts with tiny holes which, when screwed onto a bottle of water and inserted into the soil, work as a form of drip irrigation. I thought they'd simplify my life a bit as I wouldn't have to water my house plants as often, nor have to empty run off water from their saucers.

Bad idea!

I first tried "planting" my bottle of water in the pot with bonsai soil and within minutes water was pouring out of the bottom, filling up the saucer. This was not supposed to happen.

I moved the bottle into the other pot. Success. It took a few weeks for the little bottle of water to empty. Then it was time to refill it.

That's when disaster struck.

After a small knock to the shelf on which the plants were standing, the weight of the water bottle caused the variegated plant to overbalance and it went crashing down onto a lower shelf beside it. In its weakened state a fall of a mere two feet was enough to cause the apex to snap off, leaving a straight trunk with one branch low down. The plant also came out of its pot, along with half its soil. Clearly there weren't enough roots to hold it all together. Maybe some of the roots had rotted from all that water.

Within days the remaining leaves were wilting and I really feared for its survival.

Variegated plant in serious trouble

In a last ditch effort to save it I moved it into my greenhouse, hoping that better light would help it to recover, but even then I had my doubts. Now, less than three weeks later, all the remaining leaves have fallen off, so I've lost all hope.

As for the dark plant, I've started taking it outside on warm winter days so that it can build up its tolerance to the sun while it's not too harsh. Then in summer it will become a permanent outdoor plant.

Dark plant looking reasonably healthy

Let It Grow

I shouldn't be buying more trees right now. Well not unless they're really special anyway. I certainly shouldn't be buying young sticks in pots that are nowhere near ready for styling. And that certainly wasn't my plan when I started looking at the tiny succulents that all the supermarkets are selling.

What I was hoping to find was a candidate for an "instant mame", something like the one I saw in a recent Reddit post.

Yesterday I found this little guy at a flea market.

Although the stem is far from woody, it wouldn't take very long to turn it into a tiny tree about half its current height.

I've never seen a variegated Portulacaria before though, so I've decided to let this one grow.

For now the search for a tiny mame continues. I have my heart set on a succulent only because I'm terrified to put my smallest tree into a smaller pot in case it dries out.