We Spent 6 Years Turning a $200 Nursery Juniper Into a Refined Bonsai

In this video I'll show you the progression of this tree over six years time. In that six years we repotted it twice, pruned it several times, wired it up to become the tree that you're looking at today. And here is how we did it. This plant is a juniper. It's about 20 years old. It's got a nice thick trunk. It's been in this small container for many years already. And as you can see there's a lot of long shoots. So the tree is healthy and ready to be styled today. But since it's fall right now I don't want to touch the roots too much. So the root mass will remain intact. The first step now is pruning. And then once we're done with the pruning some branches will be wired. Before we prune anything we carefully study the tree and its branches. This branch has grown too thick and will be removed. We will use younger branches instead because these can still be bent and shaped. To make the tree appear a bit older we are removing the bark of these pruned branches. On some places on the trunk there are too many branches. So we will remove a few of these. We also remove dangling growth to prepare the tree for wiring. Before we start wiring we also remove the long shoots using a twig shear. All right we have almost finished pruning the tree. As you can see it's much more open now. And you can see the trunk line which is quite elegant. The apex will be formed with these branches. And there's only one maybe one or two branches left to be pruned. All right that was the last branch that I wanted to prune. This is what we took off in total which is quite a lot. But the tree was very healthy when we started with it. And it's definitely able to cope with around 30 to 40 percent of the foliage removed. The next step is wiring. Before we apply the wire we remove dangling growth and small branches that are growing downwards. This basic cleaning of the branches will make it much easier to wire the tree. Try to select pairs of branches that are more or less of the same thickness. And wire these with one piece of wire. Start with wiring the main branches and slowly work your way up the tree. Smaller and thinner branches need a thinner wire as well. Okay we are about halfway the wiring. Working our way up the tree. And by now I've come to realize that this branch is rather thick. And can also be replaced with, for example, bringing this down a little bit and using this one. So we'll remove this one and then continue the wiring. All right we have finished pruning and wiring the tree. And like I mentioned in the introduction we'll do a mild repotting now. That means that we won't touch the roots too much. So the root mass will remain intact. So the next step is to work the roots a little bit, not too much. Prepare the pot and then put the tree in the container. Next we prepare the pot by covering the drainage holes with a mesh. We also attach two long wires which will be used to anchor the tree to the pot firmly. This tree was growing in a partly organic soil mixture. In the future we'll slowly replace the old soil with a new inorganic soil mixture. We also prune some of the old roots which can be distinguished by the dark almost black color. The soil mixture we use is a blend of akadama, lava rock and pumice. You can read more about bonsai soil on our website bonsaiempire.com We add a layer of soil before placing the tree into the pot. Place the tree slightly off-center in the pot and make sure to plant it at the right angle. Using the two long wires we firmly attach the tree to the pot. All right we have finished styling this tree, pruned and wired it and just repotted it. As I already mentioned we didn't want to touch the base of the root mass so we only added some new soil around it and maybe in two or three years from now on the next repotting we'll also work a little bit more in towards the old soil. The only thing we have to do now is watering. All right we last styled the tree exactly one year ago, put on the wire, pruned it and also put it in a pot so we did a lot at the same time. So the tree responded by growing quite heavily, mostly around the apex so the lower parts have not grown that much. The wire that we put on I had to take away about six months after we put it on just because the branches are growing thicker and I don't want the wire to damage those branches. So I took the wire out in the early summer and right now it's fall and the tree is ready to be styled again. I think that's all for well basically the cleaning and pruning of the tree. So we removed all the growth that was growing downward, all the crutch growth and now the tree is ready to be wired. Keep track of your Bonsai collection with our Bonsai Care app. It offers smart reminders, detailed care calendars and you can track the progression of your trees over time. It is a free download in the app stores. We have wired mostly the the bottom branches so we'll continue wiring just a little bit more and then we are done for today. Okay we finished wiring the tree. We ended up wiring a bit more than I anticipated so it's not completely detail wired but most of the main branches are set in position now. The next few months we don't do anything other than fertilize a little bit and then after winter in early spring start fertilization again and then wait until summer until all these shoots start elongating a bit more and then we prune those back. And I do that mostly in the apex of the tree but also the lower branches and what the pruning in late spring will do is create more back budding. By pruning the outsides of these branches new shoots will start growing closer to the interior of the tree. The wire that we put on will have to be taken off in several months from now so during winter the tree doesn't grow that fast but in spring the wire will probably start biting into the branches and that's the right moment to take the wire off again. Late spring is here and so now is the time to prune back that new strong growth. By doing this we redistribute growth throughout the tree and we also force back budding. Today it's looking good, it's very healthy, strong growth. It's fall right now so it's a good time to work on a tree like this. Wiring is an option but I don't think it's required. I think the tree will really look better by just pruning and plucking the undersides of the pads etc. There is one branch and I'll show you on the back side. This is the front of the tree that you were just looking at and the back side is right here. So this branch for example, it isn't really nice and there's two parts on the sides that could take over so by taking away this branch I think the tree will look a bit better as well. You can also see it from the front it's just a bit of an awkward branch so no hesitation I can easily prune that away. As a tree develops over time you will always have the need to remove some branches so that's standard. Also because branches thicken up sometimes at some point you need to cut back and use a younger branch to redevelop a pad because otherwise patches get too large and too full. So what I'll do next is getting all these long shoots that grow outside of my desired shape and just prune them back. I want to clean all the undersides of the foliage. So if you take for example this pad it's actually not bad but there's a few of those foliage that's just growing down so I just want to pluck that away and clean the undersides of the pad. So by doing that it really shows like all the foliage is growing upwards which looks nice and by cleaning those undersides and also pruning a bit here you also create a bit more layers in the tree. All these layers they are here like I can just bring my hand through it but you don't see it visually anymore because everything is grown so thick. By removing the undersides here and also removing a bit of that new growth your eye also travels through the tree and it becomes a more three-dimensional design again as I want it. So basic maintenance really it's just simple. Sometimes you have to remove a few bigger branches but in this case it's removing all that growth from summer and I'm removing the undersides and if you go through the entire tree and do that and I'll bring you in close up you'll see that the end result is a much more refined tree than the bush that it became now by just letting it grow so much. So long shoot, pruning it back. For example this branch is really growing very strong so for sure I want to shorten that. That way I just work through the entire tree. First scissoring that new growth and then the next step is cleaning the undersides of the pads again. A quick mention, we have our own bonsai shop where we handpick the bonsai trees tools and pots that we personally use and recommend. We now ship across Europe so check the link in the description. Right now you can see through the tree again you can see all those pads with much more definition. So I really like how this turned out. So on the back side we pruned one branch, where was it? Right here underneath and so this is now a bit awkward so we'll need a bit of wire just to create a new pad here. I don't want to wire the rest of the tree. It would make the tree look a little bit better but basically I enjoy it without wire at this moment. So the next step is just wiring these three branches set them in position and then I'll show you the end shot. So it's early spring right now and I need to repot the tree. The repotting is just basic maintenance. We'll keep the same pot as well and don't change the angle or anything. And since it's spring as well I don't want to structurally prune the tree because I would do that later in the year but maintenance pruning is totally fine. So I will clean the undersides of these branches prune back the strong growth and also redistribute growth from the apex which grew much stronger. The trees are competing with the sunlight so this section always grows much faster than the lower branches. So by pruning this a bit more we also distribute growth to the lower branch as well. But let's first repot the tree. So with the roots circling around here you can see that it really needs repotting. So just in time. Six years ago when this juniper first came to me I knew it had something special. The raw material was already there. A trunk with real character. Movement that you just can't create from scratch. We slowly drew out what was hiding inside. Each season building on the last. What I love most about this tree today are the pads. Clean, defined and sitting exactly where they belong. If I'm honest there are still things I'd like to tighten up. Refinement is never truly finished. That's the nature of bonsai. But looking at where the tree stood six years ago and where it stands today I'm proud of what we have achieved so far. Because with a 26 year old juniper we're really only just getting started.