DAY ONE
After my large die off of most of my small trees and well over half of my large trees, I told myself "Self, no more large trees, they are just too big to handle." I decided that I would do the workshops on Shohin and concentrate my energies towards developing the best Shohin I can make. So, the decision was made, and I had every intention of keeping that decision, till I got back from Europe. I had a couple dollars left over from the trip and decided to make a trip out to Ed Clarks. The rendezvous had just happened while I was in Europe, and I didn't get to make this one. I looked at all the videos about the event and paid special attention to the rising stars competition. I looked at the junipers used in that competition and felt that they must have come from Ed, still I did not know for sure. I asked around, and most said that they felt that they had. I looked at the material and wondered what I would do if I had such a chance as to make a tree from scratch with a large piece of material. So, this is the monster I chose. It's in a twenty-gallon nursery container and the trunk is about 3.5 inches across. From the top of the container is about 3.5 feet in height.
While out at Ed's, he showed me this cool pair of branch pruners. Battery operated, and powerful as all get out. They will cut a 1.25 inch branch with a pull of the trigger. It will also take your finger off even faster.
So, the first business was thinning. This took several hours of pondering, cutting back branches that I knew I wouldn't need, but what to keep with respect to jins. A juniper without deadwood is well.... just a juniper. The view below is my chosen front, though at the time I did not know it yet.
This is the back.
This big branch in the middle of the tree had to come off. For my front, it wasn't going to work in the composition.
Still thinning and still working with what would be the back.
I start thinking about the apex and how I will handle that. The trunk moves up from the base and for all intents and purposes remains fairly thick up to within the top third of the tree. It is here that a large branch that is part of a wye that splits off from the main trunk. I have to pick one or the other because I do not, repeat "do not" come from the camp that a tree can have multiple apexes. I have seen a few that work but for the most part they always seem to look like someone could not make a decision or did not have enough confidence in their ability to pick one or the other.
I cut these supports from PVC and ABS pipe. I can wire the trunk to the support tight and not worry about the wire making a constriction and causing a swelling in that area due to possibly being tied for two or more years.
Still the back of the tree and I try different places for the support to go to tie it off to the trunk. Most of the bottom of the trunk has been cleaned up at this point with major branch choices made and where they will go.
At this point the tree is looked at with fresh eyes and new things start to develop. Somehow the trunk looks better from the other side with more thinning.
Now we start working on the other side. More thinning and more branch selections.
Dead center two thirds the way up, is the other half of that wye that I had to contend with. It is reduced a lot and thinned by jinning and thread pulling the wood.
So now the support is wired to the trunk, and the apex will be pulled into position with some clamps.
The top of the tree is thinned at this time, and all the branches are prepared with 3.5 and 3 mm wire. Many are bent into shape.
The bottom of the trunk has larger dead branches at the bottom that had been cut back by Ed years ago. I jinned them and thinned them to get a better view at the bottom.
So, this was the end of day one. All the branches have wire except just a few at the very top of the canopy, I was tired and just ready to go in for the day
DAY TWO
Now all the branches get detail wire. I just feel that if you're going to wire a tree, wire it, ALL OF IT.
I have a thin piece of Styrofoam that I use for backdrops but forgot to use it on the before shot.
I remembered on the after shot and it is easy to see how much better the foliage looks when all of it is wired.
Here is an ugly branch end that at this point I have to keep just to keep the branch alive till the foliage start to grow correctly and I can cut it back.
The same branch end after wire. It looks so much cleaner and organized with proper wire.
The tree all detailed and wired and cleaned up. I cut the can down to work on the Jin's at the bottom of the trunk. I decided to cut the Shari between two Jin's on the trunk. It takes the better part of three years for the water pipes to start to develop on each side of a Shari. The foliage on the top third is so much better than the bottom two thirds. Of course, this is due to the fact that most of the bottom foliage was shaded out from the huge canopy that obscured most of the trunk. A couple of years will be needed to get the bottom portion caught up with top but, lots of water and fertilizer should help that along.
BEFORE AND AFTER
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