This Juniperus Chinensis, courtesy of Franchi Bonsai, arrived in Italy in the beginning of year 2011.

Before proceeding to do anything I prefer to let the bonsai vegetate freely for the whole season.

In September of the same year, after an abundant growth, the plant is vigorous and very dense. It ‘s time for a work that restores the beauty of this bonsai.

Here is how the bonsai looks like in September 2011 before working on it:

Front/Back

Left Side/Right Side

The wood is cleaned and restored highlighting the movements, the patina….le “wrinkles”.

The vegetation has now filled every space and the foliage is shapeless and too thick.

The first branch looks like a huge pad without the slightest space that shows the structure or details.

We need to make more space!

The first thing to do is to clean up the vegetation. This allows us to study the structure of the tree and select the strongest and most vigorous vegetation. But we must go on with cleaning: this gives the chance to make all the apex replacements necessary to restore movement and taper to the wood of the branches.

A bonsai so mature, very often, has branches too long or with an excessive number of fine branches. A simple replacement of apex allows us to solve these small problems with a single cut of scissors.

The wiring now is intended above all to bring order to the branching by allowing air and light to pass between the branches again.

Here is the juniper at the end of shaping.

Front/ Back

Left Side/Right Side

Some details:

In the following years I decide to re-pot by tilting the tree in its new position. In these years the juniper is regularly pinched and cleaned up: the vegetation that grows downwards is eliminated in order to keep clean the lower profile of each pad. In addition, overly vigorous shoots are shortened.

Over time the juniper shows a beautiful vegetation. While growing the density of the pads, the profiles and spacings are still maintained.

Juniper in two displays in the tokonoma of the Franchi Museum.

Juniper in 2015. The pad is beginning to be too closed and no longer manageable with pinching alone.

And here we are in September 2016 before the new work.

Front/Rear

Left Side/Right Side

After five years of pinching, all the spaces between the branches have closed and the vegetation appears looks messy.

It’s now basically a redo of  the same work done five years earlier: cleaning, pruning, wiring and shaping …. or better, these are the classic operations to be done every time you put hands on a bonsai. Change, however, the type of intervention.

In 2011 it was a matter of a tilt and the front selection, then the wiring and shaping of the most important branching in order to obtain a structure suitable for our project. It is therefore not necessary to repeat all this. Taking what we have already defined in the previous work, we continue to search for more and more refined details. We will therefore abandon the wires of large diameter, and we will carry out the work with thinner wires in order to handle only the most peripheral branches.

Here is the final result

Front

Rear

Left Side/Right Side

Some detail of the branches: 

Every single branch moves outward in search of light. This is a necessary condition for a correct growth and for the “naturalness” of each pad.

Always keep clean the lower profile !

Some details of the wood. A smooth surface on which you can read all the beauty of time!

…and then: GROUP PHOTO! 🙂