In the video we make a literati style / semi cascade juniper from the ‘bonus tree’ that we got when we split the complicated juniper material.
Bonsai Complicated Juniper Part 1
This is the other half or the bonus tree as it were so it came literally half the root ball so i have absolutely no doubt that it will survive and what can we do with this so let’s look at it because of the beautiful curves in the trunk there is a lot of potential most of you will know by now that i like the literati style and literati style is a very esoteric style meaning very few people understand it because it is not just esoteric but enigmatic it is hard to explain what literary feeling is i’ve seen many people try to do literary and all they do is a long-based term and they call it literature but literature has got that chinese or japanese calligraphy characteristic with it so the sweep of the curve and the line has to have that quality if it doesn’t have that quality then it is not a literary and usually tall bare stems whether it’s tall or hanging down they all add to the literati character they don’t have to just be single trunk it can be twin trunk because this has got almost like a twin trunk but let’s see what we can get out of it it’s very hard to do much else you could get a tree like that but usually a cascade has to have a head if it doesn’t have a head it’s not so interesting well that is a possibility whenever you try to devise a design you always have to look at every possibility see that line is very dramatic like that so that is a possibility you see why does everything have to go upwards it can go down this so literati can also be a downward pointing branch so that is possible i don’t want it just to be an ordinary wind swept like that i don’t think that is so interesting what do you think like this like this see that bend is interesting like that so that is promising that is a bit of clutter there so if there’s clutter let’s get rid of it i know a lot of people keep asking how is it you can decide so fast what to do so i’m still concentrating on the beauty of that line and that repeats itself that’s also interesting i haven’t decided on that that might go eventually and if we turn it round so that we consider all the different options you always have to see what the different options are now if we look at it this way somehow it is not so interesting i can see straight away that the curve is not emphasized so much so straight away i will say to myself that this is not an interesting side so we come back to this side and this side is the interesting side because of that i know it’s sunk too low in the pot but when it’s spotted you should be able to see the top of that trunk like so coming down like that all like that because we haven’t potted it yet how to fix it oh god it’s a real problem okay no damn thing let me just see yeah that looks interesting so we will apply the less is more principle i’m going to gin this back one may shorten it much more i’m not sure about that one at the back i’m going to wire these branches to make pads you know pad is like the flat of the hand so these are going to be wired flat do some wiring that’s quite a lot of wiring to do so because this is a san jose type of juniper i know at the moment this is all what we call the juvenile that means prickly foliage if the tree is kept pot bound you will get the adult foliage so given time the adult foliage will make it look nicer so we’re wiring these flat can you see like a herringbone that’s what we call the herringbone pattern all pads are like the fishbone see wide at the base spreading out that way just pinning the branches so that i have alternate branches to wire i want to put a thick piece of wire to give a twist to this bit so i better put the thick piece of wire now because if i put it later on it may not be able to bend it so i’m going to start from there link the wire um here we get it now this is single piece i forgot to split it usually most junipers by splitting the trunk it certainly makes it easier to bend why stress it too much hello these are very inflexible branches now wired it i hope this won’t crack because junipers are very prone to cracking and breaking at least this variety does no two junipers are the same this is too close so i got rid of this can make a bit of gin with that remember that although i’ve gone for this solution every tree has different solution i know people will comment oh i would have done it another way well you can do it another way i’m not saying you can’t it’s just that what i do is my choice of option that is not the only choice so as i’m going along i’m just wiring all the pads together okay so you see it’s almost like wiring a pad just like the bones of a fish it’s been arranged that’s the pad flat but that is not the viewing side the veering side really of the tree is going to be something like this so we got to get some movement in here got to be careful not to snap it because i’m very conscious that these blooming branches snap very easily oops already there’s a bit of snap there but it will heal i don’t know whether i need this let me keep it squad nice you it’s just a bit of detail but i don’t want to rush it see repeating the pattern always works always works so i’m repeating this pattern again and that that will be gin i think we can gin the rest of those i don’t think we need these somehow we can put little gins there those will begin this will be jinned and we put it in some form of cascade pot and we’ll pot it up and we’ll show you the end result tall cascade pot and we’re going to put the tree in here like so and you see there’s a lot of root in it although we cut the root ball in half there’s plenty root so because it’s a tall part i’m not going to put it at that angle i want it to come down like that so that would look better like that so i have to tease away enough roots so that it fits that angle so if there is soil there in the root ball i have to keep teasing away we’re lucky we have such a lot of root in there so i know that the tree won’t suffer initially we may have to keep it at a slight edge because there’s not enough root on this side well i don’t have four hands that angle is still not right that is almost like a wind strap although it’s not bad really but i think i want it more cascading down but as i said since it’s only the first potting i don’t want too much root jutting from the top so i got to be careful how much i prop it up i think that is about as much as i will do it for now because too much root will show from the top i need to have enough root at the bottom see just a slight twist makes all the difference that’s something unfortunately you can’t teach you got to feel it later on when we come to repotting it in one or two years time the trunk needs to come more to the center but for the time being i’m keeping it like this so that it can support the tree okay stop it so as you can see it’s like a semi cascade but very much like a literary type semi cascade as i said to you literatis don’t have to be tall and straight they can be cascading trees and this has very much a literary style to it as you know i love literary so this is the end product of the other half i didn’t expect it to come out this way sort of windswept literati call it what you will double cascade or double semi cascade if you wanted to you could just gin this but i prefer to keep it uh i don’t know whether it is better with or without two different three ones yeah it’s completely different isn’t it so i like it like this so we’ll keep it like this so we got two for the price of one and uh we’re very pleased that it turned out this way so there you go [Music] so
