Breaking New Ground San Jose Juniper Re Born Part 2
This is part two of that san jose project which was started by the italian master sandro senieri and this is the picture if you remember from the first part this is the picture he drew of what the tree was supposed to be so this is the photograph of the tree taken on the 11th of july 2008 which is nearly 12 and a half years ago so this is how he left the tree and you can still see the parts of the tree there that gin there and these branches there let me tell you the story of this tree because twelve and a half years has elapsed a lot has happened in that time first of all this tree nearly died after he worked on it and my feeling is that because it was so severely stressed by all that carving it virtually crumbled away and i was absolutely horrified that this tree would die so in about six months time what i did was to take the tree out and put it in a basket of moss so it’s been growing in this basket of moss for the last 12 and a half years and you can see how strongly it has recovered these are all side branches which have grown up remember that because the tree nearly died it had to be resuscitated and i just let everything go because it’s no good trying to save one branch and not save another branch i had to let everything grow if you look at that picture again look at this picture here again these branches here at the top all died they all died and these little side branches like this one this was a side branch this died i’m just pulling it out there you are it died that was no good so and then there were some other branches which also died this is almost hanging on okay so the side branch is dyed and because the side branches died the only part that was living was the bottom portion there so this bottom portion is this and all that top died so i have regrown the tree completely so now this is almost a piece of raw material let’s look at the tree closely and explore the tree and see what is happening now this was the original front and because i grew the tree so vigorously you’ve got all this foliage and new branches which is hiding the trunk i can restore it by cutting this off and just making this the new tree and still use this as the front and as you know me by now my philosophy in life is that for every problem there is more than one solution so this was the front i don’t have to use this with front i can use this at the back if i use the back i can show all this dramatic wood effect this double hair pin and make the tree like this so that is one possibility and i don’t have to have it at this angle i can try all sorts of different angles to the tree if i can just prop it up a little bit i will show you what i mean i will just bring some bits of wood and prop it up i can prop it up slightly now let me do a proper job okay let’s tilt it like this and see what the effect is like i can tilt it slightly like that and make the tree like this with a head like this and then i can still get this effect so this is using the former back of the tree to show all these dramatic branches that is my preferred solution that is my preferred solution but before we do anything else let’s clean the tree up a bit because in the 12 and a half years this tree has suffered a lot and i think it’s time we did a bit of tidying up unfortunately people who are in the know will know that on the demonstration circuit at a lot of these large conventions and demonstrations what is often worked on by the great masters don’t always survive maybe because the tree has been worked on too hard also sometimes the demonstrations are done to demonstrate a principle and the health of the tree somehow is not the primary aim that may be so but it’s a shame that a tree would die because of that now these are all bits that were carved out and didn’t survive so now i’m going to take out a reinforcing if you remember that original first part video i showed he put these reinforcing bars in here to get the bends and he also put the rubber tire over the whole branch and then bent it with copper wire i removed that ages ago because i thought that this that was strangling the tree so in order to save the tree i took that out quite a few years ago and there’s still more dead but this is the rest of the tree which is well alive so the new cambium has grown so this is what has happened after 12 and a half years that double hairpin bend has become like this a lot of dead i’m going to remove i should point out that whatever is done at one point in time will never last forever especially with the tree because the tree is forever changing it’s forever growing so what may have been done say in this case 12 and a half years ago it wouldn’t be fair to expect that it will stay the same forever and a day which in this case clearly did not happen because this tree was stressed so much it nearly died so we’ve got to now make the best of this and change it so i expect that in another 12 and a half years whoever owns this tree may do something else with it so this is what one needs to accept that change is inevitable as they say the only certain thing in life is change look at the beautiful effects just from taking out dead wood there’s no carving here look at that little bit of guru there it’s all natural so the more i look at this tree what was the back is now turning out to be my preferred front and i think you will agree that this is more interesting now than the other side if we now turn the tree to show you this was the original front even if i were to chop all these branches off and show it i don’t think it’s as dramatic as the other side so i have a very major decision and choice to make see there’s a lot of crumbly old wood look at it see a lot of this carving has not survived there’s a lot of dead wood here gins and cherries so this is what’s happened to the former front of the tree you can have a close look so i have a very major decision to make whether to keep using this the original front which was like that or change the front completely that means what was formerly the back i may now decide to use as the new front there you go so this is becoming a new tree but the history is very interesting and because i have recorded the history from photographs and shown it to you in part one you can now appreciate that this is the new raw material which is going to form part two and this tree is now going to take on a new lease of life and i’m going to take over at this stage at this point and make a new tree from it so you can already see the lovely live wood this live vein so this i think is certainly more dramatic i did some wiring to some of these young branches but i may need to re-wire it so i’m just going to take some of this old wire off i think these young branches at one stage i thought i would wire a little bit but it’s not major wiring by any means so it’s certainly growing very strongly and i did put another piece of wire here to take this up okay so i have more or less made up my mind made the choice and i’m going to now use this as my new front and create a new bonsai using this a lot of the old wood has rotted away it’s hardly survived but my moss tricks save the tree as you can see it’s growing in moss i’ll take it out in a minute but it’s been growing in moss for the last 12 and a half years so peter chan’s moisturic saved this tree this tree would have certainly died had not not done this so there you are i’m going to now exploit that i may keep this as the gin this wood is quite hard and use this and i’m going to perhaps give it a slight bend i think i will work on the tree with a slight angle like this it’s not excessive and what i will do i will probably do this right i have now taken off some of the old wires and as i said i wanted to show all these dramatic twists and turns of the single branch that was bent into like a double hairpin first bend here second bender and then there was a bend going back up but i think that bit may have died and i used a side branch to regrow as the top so i’m going to use this top to make the new leader but rather than to put a heavy piece of wire on it i’m just going to tie it to the trunk for now because that will set it that will be less stressful than wiring the whole tree and maybe within a year it should set so this is what i’m planning to do and then why the little bit at the top so if i do that there’s not a lot of work involved we will just do a little bit of wiring of the side branches more or less what this gentleman originally intended and we’ll see what happens from there so i’m going to wire these little bits again as we say it’s not rocket science so i’ll only show you a little bit of it so that’s what i’m going to do i’m going to just wire these branches flat like making pads on this branch and we will see where we get i’m not going to show you all of it because it may take up far too much time so this is what i’m going to wire okay i’ve now done some wiring and i’ve wired these little side branches here flat and i’ve taken the leader bent it over to make a head or a crown a few more let me just show you uh what i’ve been doing i’ll just wire a few more that need wiring just to complete the process i’m fairly confident that the tree will continue to do well now because it looks very lush and green and i’m not worried that the tree will die about 12 years ago that means about six months after working on it this tree nearly died as i said now i’ve done so much and this is a relatively thin leader this leading chute here and it’s about as thick as my thumb so i’ve created a crown now what will i do with this i don’t want the tree to look too sparse so i will probably keep this one may keep this one as well there are lots of branches which is good i don’t want too many mind you if i keep all these it’ll help to thicken this and there’s a branch going to the back i’ll tell you what i’m going to do with those that’s also coming out i don’t want the tree to look too sparse i want to make it look fairly uh luxuriant and healthy so i’m going to keep some of these i’m also keep some of the ones in the front so let me show you what i’ll do with the front here so i’m going to keep it nice and lush so that virtually is all i needed to do and i’ve restored that tree uh i will pot it up in a pot maybe a micro pot but i’m going to keep the back so the next shot will be us putting it in a micropot okay now if you tilt it to the side we have a look at the roots you can see how healthy the roots are look at all those lovely roots so i’m pretty sure and that’s the sphagnum moss you see what’s magnum moss does okay so now we’re going to test it in that plastic pot after all this tree is still in training so let’s put it in and let’s see how it sits we may remove some soil okay we can tease some of the roots from cheese on the moss and we’ll just put it in some sauce okay okay we’re gonna pot this up okay we’re going to do a proper repot so i will stop the video for a while decided not to use that plastic trading pot because it was too narrow it was squashing the roots too much so i’ve decided to use a proper tokoname unglazed pot so i’m going to use first of all a sugar layer mind you this is not the final repot this is only to make the tree grow well it’s not the final repotting and then because the tree has been growing quite well in the moss i’m still going to put some moss but i might just introduce some akadama soil in it or some grit in it so let’s see how it goes so that is the original root ball there’s some very strong roots there okay right we can take it back to the bench and then we will just add a little bit of salt to it okay so we’re keeping the original sphagnum moss medium and we’re just going to introduce a little bit of akadama at the side it may help and we just poured it in with a chopstick right we’ve now put some akadama into the sphagnum moss so that’s firm the tree up and i’m now going to tie the tree so that makes it secure but before i do that i’m just going to scrape away some more of the old wood i think there’s some rotten wood as well can you see this unfortunately over the last 12 and a half or 13 years much of this wood has rotted away and no amount of lime sulfur i think will save it but if i take away too much i may end up with no trunk at all so i’ve got to be very careful what i do but since it’s rotten it’s not going to do anything a lot of rotten wood oh so yes that’s a lot of old rotten wood so the only live part is this which is not a tanooki many people would think that it’s a tanooki but no it’s genuine this is a trouble with trees that have driftwoods sometimes it’s very hard to tell anyone could assume that they just planted a small tree here but as you can see from the old photographs it was part of the original tree that was carved out okay so i’ve done that now i’m going to tie the tree in just to secure it nicely so it doesn’t get pulled out tight another way oh nice to hear the sound of the planes ugh so in just a few minutes really we have transformed the tree and what was the front i’ll tell you why i’m keeping these branches at the back this was the intended front and this should have been the tree i’m keeping this strong just to make the rest of the trees strong because the more activity i leave on the tree i will generate more roots so i will probably just tip these shoots a little bit that’s all i’m going to do but i’m going to keep this part strong and encourage that to grow i keep an eye on the vigor of this but this is just to make the entire tree healthy and strong and at some stage i will decide how much of this to remove i will probably use the back just to give density to the composition and what was originally the back of the tree has now become the front of the tree and this was the tree on the 11th of july 2008 and today is the 23rd of january 2021 almost 13 years after so this is what bonsai is about there is a time element involved and part of the pleasure and joy of doing bonsai is to enjoy the time that it takes to make so this tree will take on a new persona and a new life and i will show you the progress of this tree as it goes along so i hope you enjoyed this video in two parts and i will keep you informed of the progress of the tree there you go [Music] you
