Tree-like Juniper Styling
Often we style a juniper as an abstract form. Many species are, after all, shrubs, and have no clear form. And then, deadwood features often go off into sculpural wonderlands quite unrelated to trees, other than being made of wood. This Rocky Mountain Juniper, Juniperus scopulorum, was collected by Steve Varland of Backcountry Bonsai. When […]
Rocky Mountain Juniper: Alternative Methods
The styling of any yamadori juniper assumes the bending of old wood, and only in unusual circumstances can one avoid this. The tree featured here, collected by Randy Knight, was one such outlier. During the early years after collection some young shoots grew inside and near the trunk. I spoke with my client about an alternative […]
A Juniper Orchid (to go with our Pine Orchid…)
Some of you might remember a quirky Shore Pine that we put on a post in 2017, calling it the first Pine Orchid in the yard. Yesterday this juniper was styled, and it hangs on the neighboring post that supports the shade cloth structure (thank you Bobby Curttright). The juniper is a bit of a Frankenstein: […]
Front Renewed…A Rocky Mountain Juniper Gets a Makeover-
This tree has some history in the garden. We nicknamed it ‘The Fish’ to distinguish it from junipers in the garden that resemble other animals. Last week we changed it to a new front, which had been raised as an option for some years now, and we finally took the bait… The original front of […]
New Projects From Backcountry Bonsai-
A preview of some conifer yamadori trees in queue for styling in the next couple of years at Crataegus Bonsai. Trees are courtesy of Backcountry Bonsai, the collecting duo of Steve Varland and Dan Wiederrecht. These six trees are Rocky Mountain junipers and Ponderosa pines, although Steve and Dan also collect Limber pine, Lodgepole pine, […]
Juniper Live Veins and How They Move…
…or get smaller, to be more accurate. When we style a juniper, very often the live vein changes in size. It’s normally an adjustment to foliage loss, or branch loss, or even root loss, all which happen in the early years of initial work on a juniper. Most commonly, the sides of the vein will […]
Return of ‘The Fish’…
…which could either be a salmon returning up a river, or simply a bad movie title…? It’s neither. The Fish is yet another convenient, somewhat silly, ‘name’ for a Rocky Mountain Juniper that was featured here over a year ago when it was first styled. We did a three-part, real-time posting of it back then: […]
Rocky Mountain Juniper Repotting…
…but not recently! We did this repotting at the end of March, 2014, and like the last couple of posts, I’m playing catch up with things that we did long ago… The styling of this juniper was featured in a 2012 post: http://crataegus.com/2012/09/04/special-rocky-mountain-juniper-styling/ Enjoy the photos!
Big Juniper Project: ‘The Fish’: Part III: Finis!
This post is the third (and last!) of our three-day adventure with a Rocky Mountain Juniper. I’ve never done a day-to-day string of posts like this. Did you like it? If so I’ll try it again around the bend. Well. Bobby and I don’t smell like rotten eggs today, thankfully. After today’s styling the juniper […]
Big Juniper Project: ‘The Fish’: Part II
This post is the second about our work this week on a Rocky Mountain Juniper. Today both Bobby and I smell like lime sulfur, which, to the uninitiated, smells strongly of rotten eggs. We had splatters of this solution all over us. Thankfully I have no plans tonight. I was worried about getting a good […]
