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.

A Tree with Dramatic Curves - 19 Months Later

Shortly after I started my blog I wrote about a little Acacia Burkei which started life as mallsai. Over a period of four years its trunkline had been changed dramatically, but it had little branching.

Some of my readers were very critical of the lack of branches and with the benefit of hindsight I probably did remove too many. Regardless, what's done is done, and I had no choice but to move forward with what was left.

September 2015

Over the last 19 months I've largely allowed this tree to do its own thing, letting the branches grow long, resulting in some significant thickening to the trunk.

March 2017 - before pruning

When I have pruned however, I've cut back hard because this tree has nasty thorns and in the limited space I have to keep it, it tends to get caught up in my other trees. My March pruning was particularly dramatic.

March 2017 - after pruning

I hadn't planned to prune it again before winter, but its growth over the past month was strong, and some of the upward growth was unnecessary.

April 2017 - before trim

While I was trying to organise my greenhouse ahead of winter, I decided to give it one more minor trim.

April 2017 - after trim

Here's a 360° view:



Ideally I'd like one or two more branches between the first and second branch.

After the March pruning the tree put out one new branch here:

Unwanted new growth

Unfortunately it was in an unsuitable position, so I was forced to remove it. However it gives me hope that a better option will present itself next summer.

A Tree with Dramatic Curves

I love visiting garden centres and scratching around to see if I can find any suitable bonsai material. I always visit the bonsai section, but prefer not to buy trees that somebody else has styled, so once I’ve seen what’s on offer, I usually move on to the regular trees and shrubs in the hope of finding raw material that I can style to my own taste.

The tree I’m discussing today is an indigenous South African tree, species Acacai Burkei (Black money thorn).  It was bought on a rare occasion when I broke my own rule about not buying ready-made bonsai. This one didn’t come from a garden centre though, it came from a supermarket. Although I wasn’t planning to buy anything, when I saw it I knew I had to have it.

This photo, taken on 13 December 2011, shows what it looked like when I bought it.

On close inspection, I soon realised that my tree wasn’t all it could be. That nice curvy trunk wasn’t being shown to its best advantage lying flat on the ground. On the advice of a bonsai friend I moved the tree into a bigger pot and gently pushed a small rock under the trunk to prop it up in the desired position.  I also wired a couple of branches to prevent everything from growing straight upwards. After that I left it to grow wild as its structure adapted to life at a strange new angle.

Then in December 2013, almost two years to the day since I bought the tree, I cut back a lot of new growth to reveal the beginnings of the structure I was after.

In April 2014, after another period of uncontrolled growth, the tree was in serious need of another pruning.

By this time the trunk had set at the desired angle and I was finally able to remove the rock. I also removed a low branch which was spoiling the design. Judging by the photo angle it appears I also had a temporary change of heart as to what was to be the front of the tree.

By January 2015 the tree had grown bigger than ever.

It was at this stage that I made the cut which will define the tree’s future, removing the straight part growing upwards and making the new trunk grow back over itself. I also reverted to my original choice of front.

This is how it looks now, in September 2015, after another haircut and a bit of wiring. The final structure is starting to show. It’s not ready to go back into a bonsai pot yet, but it’s getting there.