Juniper Bonsai Styling | Bonsai-U

What's up everybody? Welcome back to this week's episode of Bonsai U. This time around we're going to be taking a look at this spectacular juniper bonsai here. Now I know a lot of you guys are probably thinking I've seen you do demos on junipers many many times. Why are we talking about junipers again? Well with this particular tree I want to take you through the process of what it's like to design pads on a tree that's this far along in its development. This tree is highly refined or at least it will be when we get done. It's got a lot of branching on it. It's been a bonsai for decades and decades and decades so there's a lot of branches to work with on this tree and I want to take you through sort of my aesthetic approach to designing pads on a bonsai like this. So without further ado I'm going to bring the camera in a little bit closer and we're going to look at the characteristics of the trunk on this tree, try to get an idea of what the front of the tree should be, what the angle should be, and then we're going to talk about actually wiring and setting those branches in place. All right so first things first here let's figure out what the front and the proper angle of the tree should be. Now no matter what I'm working with whether that be you know broadly evergreen, deciduous, or coniferous material like this what I'm looking to do ideally is show off the features and hide the flaws. So some of the features obviously are going to be you know interesting movement in the trunk, interesting striations in the deadwood for example, if you're dealing with like a maple for example you're going to want to find the front that's got the nicest flare to the base, the best looking nimbari, all of those characteristics we want to show off to the viewer. Now flaws on the tree would be things like parallel lines, perpendicular lines, 90 degree angles, inverse taper, all sorts of different things. So it's not that necessarily those are always bad sometimes incorporating the flaws and even showing off the flaws can make the tree look more interesting but as a general rule of thumb I look for those particular types of flaws and I look to again either eliminate them or hide them. When you're dealing with broadleaf material particularly deciduous material it becomes very difficult to hide those flaws you really need to correct those flaws. Obviously those plants are going to lose their leaves in the winter and you're going to see all of those flaws. With coniferous material on the other hand particularly trees like this that retain their foliage all year round we can actually manipulate the foliage into place to hide flaws. So first and foremost let's look at the front of this tree right here as it's potted. Just based on the planting angle I'm going to turn it to the side here you can see that the tree kind of leans forward just a little bit. We'll flip it to the other side here as well so you can see it kind of leans forward. That's usually an indicator that this would be the proposed front to the tree. Now if you look down here at the base it does have a nice kind of wide base at the bottom here you know it's relatively interesting. I don't know if it's necessarily the most interesting part of the tree. Now in addition to the base of the tree I want to move a little further up into the trunk and see if there are any features or flaws that would either cause us to want to continue to use this as the front or maybe find another front. So if we open up the center of the tree right here you can see there is a parallel section of the trunk that runs right through the middle here it's totally parallel to the ground. Now obviously we can tilt the tree one direction or another to get that slightly off from parallel but to me that's just a glaringly obvious problem a glaring flaw in the middle of the tree right there. There's not a whole lot of deadwood from this side you see mostly live vein which is not really that interesting necessarily. Although if you look at the base of the tree obviously the live vein you can see enter into the soil which is ideal. I'm sure most of you guys know the reason why that's the case why you would want to see the live vein enter the soil and that is obviously because if you can't see it sometimes you can hide the fact that the tree is a tanuki or a phoenix graft if you can't see the live vein from the front. So we always want to be able to see that live vein enter into the soil at the base if possible. Now let's flip the tree to the other side and see if there might be a better front to the plant. So let's rotate it around here this is the exact opposite side of the plant here. Now I think probably in the video you guys can tell almost instantly that this seems to be maybe a more interesting option for the front. Look at the base down here we've got crazy deadwood going on down here there's really interesting movement through here and actually if we rotate it just a little bit beyond straight on you can start to see the interesting characteristics in the live vein. As a matter of fact you can see two live veins from this potential front here we've got this one here we've got this little bitty guy right here and actually you can see a third live vein a little bit higher up on the trunk here which is that big guy from the other side. Now in my opinion you know these characteristics down here are quite interesting I think they're a little more interesting than the trunk on the other side or the base on the other side but let's move a little further up into the trunk and see if that same internal parallel flaw is as obvious from this side. So if we open up the branching in this area here you can see it's still that parallel line to there but there's much more deadwood visible from this side and the deadwood is much more interesting from this side than from the other side. So to me overall this would be a much more interesting front I think to show off on the tree. Now the problem is again that the tree was planted leaning the opposite direction so we're going to have to rotate this tree put some boards underneath and lean that apex a little bit further forward. So I'm going to set that up so we can see exactly what that looks like and then we'll talk about branch design from there. Okay so I think this is going to be the proper angle for the tree. I've actually just jammed a two by four under the back two feet here to lift the tree a little bit further forward bring that apex more towards the front. Now the next step is to start pruning branches that we don't need and then we'll start the wiring process. So again you know we still have that flaw kind of in the middle of the tree right here with this being parallel to the ground. I tried leaning the tree a few different ways to see if could get that slightly off parallel but it ended up taking away or distracting or detracting from other portions of the tree by doing that and the angle just didn't look right. So in this case we're going to incorporate that flaw that's there but we are going to try to hide it a little bit with some branching some strategically placed branching like this guy right here. So the other thing I want to consider as we're starting to prune and set branches is are there other areas of the tree that we want to show off and I do actually think that there's one major thing that we do want to try to show off and that's this elbow that's sticking out of the top up here. This is a really unique interesting characteristic. As a matter of fact this tree was likely growing way up higher and then it was cranked down at some point into this position because you can see that the deadwood has cracked right here in exactly the spot I would expect it to if it were pulled down by hand by a previous bonsai professional likely in Japan. So I want to make sure that we show that off as much as possible. Some of that's going to be pruning branches away. A portion of this is going to be actually crushing the apex down a little bit to make that elbow really stand out and then we're going to have to be very strategic as to exactly where the front of the tree is. One to two degrees difference rotation one direction or the other will show that off it'll hide it it'll show off other areas of the tree or hide other areas of the tree so we need to keep that in mind as we're setting branches and actually finalizing the design of the tree. So I'm going to bring the camera in a little bit closer again we're going to take a look at how to prune the first directional branch here how to wire that and then how to set that and then we'll apply that to the rest of the tree. Okay so let's take a look at our directional branch first here and how to prune it and wire it. So if you notice on the inside here this branch was actually pruned properly over the decades and decades that it's been maintained as a bonsai. So we've got alternating branching secondary and tertiary branching further back in back in this area it's all set up nicely back here for wiring so we really don't have to prune major branches back in this area. Now if we get further out towards the end obviously this is just a giant congested mess and that's what we need to take a look at. You know how we prune these trees will dictate how much wire we actually have to put on the branch so I'm going to try to think strategically about what we're cutting off what we're removing here what we're pruning back so that we can put the least amount of wire on this branch to get the best effect out of it. So first things first when I'm dealing with a branch like this I like to go through and remove all of the undersides of all of these smaller branches out here. You can actually do this by hand technically I wouldn't consider this pinching because I'm actually removing the foliage back to the hardwood shoot underneath but this is going to give us a really nice kind of clean look. I'm not going to worry about touching the upper side of the branch quite yet we'll worry about that once we start wiring and setting the branches then we can prune this back into shape but I'm looking to prune the undersides of the branch back. As I'm going through here as well I'm taking my finger and kind of looping it underneath the branches to see if that's going to give us a nice effect when we actually put the wire on here. If I feel like it's too heavy or I'm jamming too much foliage up I might remove a little bit more on the underside. So again we're going to do that along the bottom side of the whole branch here but we're also going to do it internally with some of this foliage that's coming from the backside and overlapping here. I want to go ahead and clean the undersides of all of this as well. Now if you notice as you're pulling that you know some of it's a little too stiff to pull off you can always use your scissors and cut that back as well. That's not a problem at all. I think one of the things that people leave out when they're preparing a juniper for wiring is that they don't clean this internal foliage as well. They just assume okay if I clean the underside here we wire it place it it's going to look nice and full but the problem is if you don't clean the undersides of the interior foliage as well it's going to look actually jumbled and really messy plus you're not going to get enough light to the interior and you could potentially see dieback particularly in the growing season when the tree is really transpiring the following year. So I definitely recommend that you do this type of cleanup across the entire pad and internally within the pad as well. Now if you come across crotch growth so say for example if in this area where the branch splits we had crotch growth coming out of here I would typically remove that growth from here. Obviously we don't have it in this case but I'm just pointing this out as a potential example. So I would typically remove something like that if it were emerging from the crotch here. The only time I would leave crotch growth is if the branch was very long and leggy and all you had for internal growth was the crotch growth. You may want to leave that crotch growth and eventually cut off the overly elongated branching to push that back. Okay so this is what the tree should look like after it's thinned out and I know it probably doesn't look much different from before we started pruning on it but there's so much foliage on this plant that removing tons of it still makes it look like it's very full. So I actually probably cut off I'd say a good 15% of the foliage maybe even 20% of the foliage but again it still looks super full because it's such a heavy foliage and there's so many branches on the tree. Now the next step here is to actually go through and remove some of the larger branches that I don't think we need in the design. Now you might be asking yourself why did you spend all that time thinning out branches that you're going to be cutting off anyway? Well with a plant like this when you've got the tree so far along in its refinement you know every branch really matters when you're thinking about actually placing it and putting it in a position where it's going to be ready for exhibition. I want to have more branches available to me than less so I wanted to go through and thin it out to see the structure of the branches to start with and then it's easier to make decisions about removing larger branches. If I'm working with a tree that's maybe earlier in development for example or if I'm doing kind of an initial styling on a tree typically I'll know which branches I need to keep which ones I want to get rid of right from the get-go. I'll go ahead and remove those wire everything and place it but again with a tree like this it's so far along in refinement you want to thin it out see the structure and then make those major decisions about what to cut off. So for starters here let's take a look at this section of the tree kind of this first row of branches or level of branches through here and decide what we want to cut off. So again as I mentioned before this is going to be our directional branch on the right side of the tree. I want this branch to be the lowest branch on the tree I want it to be the fullest and heaviest and largest branch on the tree and I want it to be on a different plane than everything on the left side of the plant over here and I want that to be the case so it indicates that the tree is actually moving to the right. Now to counterbalance this and offset this we need to make sure that the on the left side of the tree is a little bit smaller, closer, tighter to the trunk, maybe a little bit higher as well than this branch here so that your eye really is drawn in the direction of this rightward moving directional branch. So as you can see here all of this is on basically one horizontal plane at this point. Now my first inclination was to just go ahead and eliminate this whole branch over here and that really gives us a nice kind of asymmetrical look to the tree. Well the problem is the live vein that's feeding this branch is incredibly important and it's the live vein that actually starts down here at the base this one right in the front here runs all the way up the tree actually comes up and around out onto the elbow out here back down on itself and then it feeds this branch right here. As a matter of fact it's feeding this branch and the one just above it right here. If I were to come through and cut off all of this foliage right here that is a good I would say you know this foliage and this foliage right here this is all that's attached to that live vein. If I cut just this lower branch off right here that's taking off a good 60 to 70 percent of the foliage that's attached to that live vein. We might run the risk of actually killing that entire live vein all the way down to the base of the tree and subsequently killing this branch off which means you know we would lose that really interesting elbow sort of live vein up at the top there. So in order to keep that alive you know to make sure that it stays healthy and that it doesn't die off we need to actually keep a decent amount of foliage down here. So again I've thinned this out tremendously as a matter of fact I actually thin this out a little heavier than I did other portions of the tree to see if we could keep a majority of that foliage but it still feels too heavy. So what I want to do is actually go through here and remove some of this underside foliage down here some of these larger thicker branches and push this back to a little bit smaller pad. I feel comfortable removing you know all total off of this or at least what's left on here removing another probably 30 percent of the foliage off of this branch and I think we'll be absolutely a-okay in terms of the health of this branch you know staying healthy keeping this branch alive keeping that live vein alive all the way down to the base of the tree. So you got to be extra careful when you're working with junipers particularly old guys like this that have already established the live veins on them whatever foliage is attached to that that live vein you've got to be extra careful not to cut too much of that off to kill that live vein off so just keep that in mind it's very important to trace that live vein either back from the branches or from the roots of the tree up to the foliage. So let's bring the camera in closer we'll take a look at exactly what we're going to cut off here. Okay so I want you guys to take a look here we've got a lot going on in this area but let's start with the lowest branch on here first so if I raise all this foliage up you can see we actually have one branch that's attached on the underside down here that's this guy that's coming all the way out to the side this obviously we can get rid of that's the lowest branch on here it's adding a lot to the weight of this branch as well and where it emanates off of our main primary branch here is a little bit strange coming off the underside so we can go ahead and remove that. Now all of these branches that I'm going to cut off I'm going to leave a stub to create a small gin. I just think it looks a little bit more natural you know it's a little bit long for now but we'll make it a nice kind of small gin a little bit further back once we cut the remaining foliage off here. All right now out of what we've got left here I'm going to open this up a little bit as well so you can see in here we've got the first bifurcation is actually up here so it's this branch that splits we've got this one that splits just a little bit further down on our primary branch there so we're definitely going to keep both of those. We can't just cut all of this off though and use this that's not enough foliage to keep this alive. Let's come out to the next bifurcation here that'd be this guy and this guy so that's giving us a little bit more foliage out here to work with if we were to keep that decent but it's still not enough I think to keep it healthy. So let's come one step further out here this is the next bifurcation down in this area. I actually think what we could do here is incorporate this piece of foliage down here this branch into the foliage above we can keep all of this right here and eliminate what we have below it. That's going to end up taking off including that first branch we took off of there I guess about 35% of the foliage maybe 40% so a little bit more than I initially thought we would take off but I still think that this is going to be enough leftover to keep this branch nice and healthy. So again we're going to leave a long stub on here actually several stubs on here to turn into a gin and again we may shorten this back later to make it more interesting but for right now I want to leave it nice and long. Okay so let's move more towards the middle of the tree and look at what we can take off. Now I mentioned earlier of course that we're looking to kind of hide this flaw you know this kind of parallel line in the middle of the tree here but of course all this foliage that we have right here does that but it's a little bit too full in my opinion. We're going to be thinning out the apex quite a bit more as well and crushing that down or dropping it down significantly which means we're going to be able to drop foliage in the middle further down as well so it's not really that necessary to have so much foliage right here in the middle. We can actually drop branches from above down to fill space. We can bring this in a little bit further here so I don't actually think that we need this giant branch coming across the front of the trunk right here. Yes it does block that area right now but we have other things that we can replace it with. Another thing to consider too is that this branch is just very strange. It's got this kind of weird loop-de-loop look to it. It was probably good when it was a little bit smaller and pushed further in towards the interior of the tree. It probably looked nice at that point but this is true with all trees you're going to work with. They elongate over time so you're going to have to eliminate branches that have become too long and leggy. It's just part of the process of keeping these trees nice and compact and generally the same size in perpetuity. So I think what we're going to do here is actually remove this branch and again we're going to leave a little bit of a gem right here. Okay obviously at this stage the tree is still a bit unbalanced in terms of the density of the foliage but we're going to set that aside for now. We're going to kind of hold off on pruning anymore and I actually want to start working on wiring the directional branch down here. Wiring and setting this is going to dictate how heavy we make the rest of the tree. So again you know I haven't cut any of these elongating shoots back up here because you know maybe we want to drop one of those down and have it elongate to fill a space in for example. So we're going to leave again all of that to the end but I'm gonna bring the camera in again close and we're going to start detail wiring up our first directional branch and I'm going to show you exactly how to set pads on a highly refined very old tree just like this. Okay so I've gone ahead and wired out the first branch here but what I did is I left the tips undone so I haven't actually taken the wire out to the very ends. You know just wiring up a branch like this the kind of basic structure back in here it's pretty straightforward as to how to apply that wire but once we get out to the very tips of the branches here to that final tuft of foliage how should we be ending the wire. So that's what I want to show you guys here this is going to give you a better idea as to how to actually set the branches once you get that wire wrapped around the tips. It makes a world of difference how we actually end this wire at the end of the branches. So if you notice here we've got a tuft of foliage right here we've got the new terminal shoot that's emerging out of the top of this. So if we allow these long terminal shoots to continue to elongate over the course of the growing season they're going to get stronger and stronger and this stuff down below here is going to get weaker over time. So what I actually want to do is use this wire to loop and catch some of this weaker foliage lift it up and then we're going to remove the terminal shoot that's coming up off the top. So this wire right here is a size 16 it's a little bit heavy for so far out on the end of the branch but that's just how it worked out in this case. So what we're going to do is loop it around at the end here and I'm actually going to loop and catch the foliage like this. Now I don't want to smash the foliage together I just want it to loop and I want that foliage to sit on that loop. If you smash it together it looks bad it just doesn't look nice and soft it looks very congested if you do it that way. So we do want to loop and catch just like this and then we're going to come through and actually cut back this terminal shoot. All right we've actually got a secondary shoot right here that's a little bit long as well. So it gives us a nice tuft of foliage out here at the end. Now we'll do the same thing over here on this one we've got the heavier terminal shoot here we've got the softer growth down below I want to utilize that softer growth instead of removing that. Now if we just remove all of this softer growth down here at the bottom we do still have that strong terminal shoot but that doesn't give us much foliage to work with whereas if we keep the softer foliage loop and catch that we keep all of that and we get to keep a majority of that terminal shoot as well so it's a lot fuller looking. So again I'm going to weave the wire in between the foliage here I'm going to come out to the end loop and catch cut this back a little bit and then we're going to shorten up this terminal shoot here. Now I want you to notice I'm not cutting through the foliage I'm cutting in between the individual pieces of foliage back to the terminal shoot itself or back to the semi hardwood shoot that way we're not damaging all the remaining tips on here. I want all of these to remain intact with all the growth hormone intact there so it'll continue to grow and fill in. So here's another example on this same branch here you can see we've got a lot of internal foliage here that's kind of sitting on the upward side of the branch and then down here we've got a smaller kind of thinner weaker shoot that's coming off the bottom but it splits right back in here. Well it's not necessary to wire every single one of these little pieces up here you know it is a lot of foliage volume wise but we don't need to put wire on each of those because it's already kind of sitting in the right spot. What I do want to do though is put wire on the underside here of the weaker shoot just like on the other ones right so we're taking this out we're going to loop again underneath at the end catch you know remove some of the foliage off the bottom here as well and then when we actually position this instead of worrying about all of this foliage sitting down here I'm going to rotate this a little bit in this direction so that this on the end here ends up sitting kind of on top and blending in with the two pieces that we just set prior to this. So if you notice here this is giving us the volume to the pad this small tuft that was on the bottom right here is now connecting with the underside of the pad here to give us continuity and that gives us a really nice full look. So the next step here again is just to prune this back so it kind of tapers from the end going back up towards the interior gets a little bit fuller so again we're going to come through and remove some of the terminal shoots here on each of these we're looking to create kind of a consistent even density across the entire tree to give us a nice balanced look and again the further back in we go on the branch the more volume I want it to have so that's why I'm leaving these a little bit taller here. So another thing that I want you guys to think about when you're setting the first branch is at least for me anyway it's easiest to start with the underside of the branch closest to the trunk so that's why I set this first tuft to start with here and then I'm working my way out and around towards the exterior. For the first directional branch I just find it much easier to get a good position for the branch if I start with that first interior tuft and then work my way around the back. So I'm going to continue this pad around here we're going to continue the same process of taking the wire out looping it around the end of the branch here catching that foliage cutting it cleaning it and then positioning it here. I want you guys to kind of follow along and watch how the pad kind of transforms into a very voluminous but also highly refined looking pad in a very short amount of time just with the proper pruning and positioning of the branches. Again like I mentioned before you know I'm pulling the foliage off the bottom of the branches by hand so it may look like I'm pinching but technically I wouldn't consider this pinching per se because again I am removing that foliage all the way back to the hardwood shoot underneath so we're still leaving all of the tips intact. Alright so that gives us a really nice kind of clean look through here now we need to address all of this internal foliage here that's sticking up too much it's giving us kind of a messy look it doesn't look like a a nice kind of full continuous pad here. So the way that we correct for that what I'm going to do here is take this big tuft of foliage that we have here I've got one piece or one end of this wired out to the side got it right there now what we're going to do is actually push this more towards the interior and down and then we're going to overlay this foliage back onto the interior here so that's going to give us continuity with this branch right here kind of working towards the interior and then also that volume towards the center of the branch. Alright so we've laid that to the interior now of course this feels way too heavy right now relative to the underside of the branch so we do need to thin that out a little bit so I am going to go through here and again cut some of these elongating terminal shoots back to the proper length. Alright so that gives us a nice soft kind of even density across the entire branch there and then what we can do here is take the next tuft of foliage it's kind of sticking out and we can fill this gap that we created by moving this branch that was originally here down off to the side and to the interior. So again this is why it's really key to clean up the interior branches on the underside as well because we are going to be laying these down so it's going to give it a much softer less congested look if we clean those up beforehand. Okay so just like that and then again we're going to shorten the terminal shoots on both of these just a little bit. Alright now you'll notice over here we still have these two tufts of foliage here that are kind of sticking out of the pad as well these are the terminal shoots that were coming out of the top of or are coming out of the top of our lateral branches down here that we've already set. So again these we're just going to cut those back actually relatively heavily here and that gives us a really nice top to this pad. Now the last step here with this pad is that we've got a couple more internal branches back up in here so again I'm going to lay those guys down and forward to fill this gap here where this branch was originally that we dropped down now we've got a gap there so we'll take this foliage again we'll sort of whip it around a little bit and when I say whip it around I want you guys to keep in mind that we're not looking to crisscross and weave and overlap too much we're just taking some stuff from the rear bringing it forward just a little bit to fill space. Just start spaghetting stuff around it it looks very contrived and becomes very obvious. Alright so basically like that and again if any areas feel a little bit heavy which to me this area feels slightly heavy we can cut back the terminal shoot. So that's kind of just a simple basic setup for building a branch now again the density that we're trying to create here I want it to be even across the entire tree so when we start setting pads in different areas further up on the plant they need to have the same density as this branch down here I don't want super full branches up top and you know really sparse thin branches down below or vice versa we need that density to be even across the tree to help balance the energy across the plant as well. Okay now that we've got the first directional branch tentatively set in position here we can start to build that kind of stair step internal branch a little bit further in towards the interior of the tree here. So this will be quite simple we have this mass of foliage right here that we can drop down to do that. Now earlier in this tutorial obviously we talked about you know building this stair step and typically what I'll do if I have enough foliage on the first branch itself is I'll actually break up that level so this would be two levels here but because this first directional branch is actually relatively small on this tree and it's actually quite high up it's higher up than I want it to be on the plant we can't really do that so we're going to use that next secondary branch a little bit further up towards the interior to create that stair step look. Now I should have mentioned earlier that it's not always necessary to stair step up into the interior of the tree sometimes these can be flipped around from each other and that gives a really cool effect as well so don't think that this is kind of paint by numbers and you have to do it exactly this way but in this case it works out as we discussed earlier in the tutorial. Alright so the interior here is pretty much set where it needs to be we'll kind of adjust this a little bit here and prune it up as we go but same concept as the first branch we're looking to get a little bit of lift on here but essentially we want all of this to kind of be consistent in terms of the spacing and density across this entire area here. Now what we'll do is drop some of this growth down over here and get a little bit of an overlap over our first directional branch here but we have to be careful that this branch doesn't either stick beyond this branch or align perfectly vertically through here I do want it to be a little bit further towards the interior so again it kind of has that stair step appearance to it. So what we'll have to do to make that happen is a little bit of spaghetti and overlap here to push the length of this branch back to make it fit exactly where I want it to go. Just like the first branch will overlap some of that growth coming from the interior to give us that three-dimensional look along the z-axis here so this branch here looks just as full as the first directional branch down below. Alright now we'll go back through and cut off some of these terminal shoots here just like the first branch and that should balance this area out nicely here. This is also starting to break up the internal parallel line we talked about earlier that's kind of the flaw through here so once we set some of these branches above into position it'll make a little bit more sense but that is starting to break up some of that line there. Okay so from this zoomed out position here you can see that we now have that stair step appearance here and I've connected this around the side with some of the foliage from the back here so it's got some continuity from front to back. Now the next branch I want to set up here is this counterbalance branch on the left side of the tree. Now just like we talked about earlier we want everything on the left side of the tree to be on a different horizontal plane than everything on the right side of the tree. So we have a few options with this branch we could lift it way up and make it higher than this branch so kind of up in this area here or we could drop it down in between these two or we could really sag it down below the lowest branch. I think in the case of this tree just the natural kind of position that this branch falls into where it sits right now and then also where the deadwood is located here on the left side of the tree all these kind of cool features here I think it's going to make the most sense to set it between these two branches on that horizontal plane. So it'll be a very subtle difference from the left side to the right side but there will be a difference there. So always keep that in mind everything needs to be on a different horizontal plane and also end on a different vertical plane. So just to clarify that point we wouldn't want a branch like this to end at the same point as the lower branch below it. This one's pushed in a little bit further towards the interior so again it doesn't end on the same vertical plane here. So again always keep that in mind when you're setting branches on any tree that you're working with. All right so you can see it's a subtle difference obviously between the height of this branch this one and this one. This guy on the left side is sitting between these two when you view it from the proper angle. Now the next set of branches we're going to set are these guys in the center right here. Again we're looking to kind of block this area right through here. Now we've started that process by positioning this branch kind of overlapping around the outside edge of the curve here. This one I'm not actually going to drop it down into this area to fully block this. We're essentially just going to set it right here but it is going to break up this straight line that's kind of going back in towards the tree and not necessarily create a picture frame around this but hopefully draw your eye to some of the other more interesting areas here by kind of framing those areas rather than necessarily covering this up directly here. So sometimes again we cover things sometimes we're able to draw your eye in a certain direction but in any case it's all slight visual trickery basically pulling your eye towards interesting parts and detracting or distracting you from those less interesting aspects of the tree. Okay so I went ahead and wired the next section of the front of the tree which was this area right here and I set it up in a way to make a picture frame around another interesting piece of deadwood which is this kind of curved piece right in the middle of the tree here. So when I set this branch here when I move further up towards the top of the tree the size of the pad the actual horizontal plane that the pad consists of I end up breaking that up more and more so those pads are smaller and smaller as we get closer to the apex and then again just like the lower branches down here where we're sort of building a full kind of rounded look on the z-axis there we'll do the same thing with the apex. So in other words the apex will be nice and full and rounded but it will have smaller pads broken up within the interior and this is what's going to give us a nice kind of consistent look with the lower portion of the tree without creating a helmet look. But you know I wanted you guys to take a look at this right here and see exactly how many pads I've broken this into. It's actually three separate pads but they all kind of blend together into one along that z-axis on the top so volume wise they look like one concise consistent pad but they are in fact three separate layers built into one sort of general foliar mass. All right another thing I want to point out to you guys here at this stage is the back of the tree. I don't know if any of you guys out there lift weights you know a lot of guys in the gym or ladies in the gym they'll work on the pretty muscles you know the biceps the shoulders you know maybe the triceps a little bit too but you never really hear about people working on their back properly. Well it's just like working with bone tight you got to make sure that the back of the tree looks as good as the front of the tree and that you're getting a consistent look across the entire plant. So as you can see here the lower the pad the fuller it is the higher we move up on the tree the more broken up that pad becomes and when we view this tree from the front view here and from the proper angle you should be able to see all of those pads in the back but you should see the negative space that you desire as well. So at the end of this episode I'm going to do some close-up shots of the tree and show you exactly where those back branches are sitting when you view the tree from the proper angle at the front. You don't want to see too much of the underside of the branch kind of drooping down you don't want to see it lifted too much it needs to be in the right position and it needs to create that depth and that stoppage of your eye going too far beyond the back of the tree. All right so this brings us to the most difficult part of the tree and that is the apex. I'm sure if any of you guys out there have tried to build or design a rounded apex with a tree like this you'll know exactly what I'm talking about it is very difficult to do. So what I want to do here is explain a little bit as I go but for the most part I just want to show you the process of building an apex. So this next section is going to be a little bit stretched out not a lot of talking maybe we'll lay some nice soft soothing music over it so you guys can kind of follow along as I build it. I will sort of chime in every once in a while and explain kind of what I've done as we go but again for the most part just sit back relax watch how I build this and then attempt to try it on your trees after we finish this demonstration. This is to me probably the best way to learn how to build an apex watch rinse and repeat essentially. So without further ado I'm going to bring the camera in a little closer and show you how I build a rounded apex on an old well-developed tree like this. All right so I've gone ahead and wired everything up here at the top. I find doing that first makes it a lot easier as you're setting the apex you don't have to go in and fix you know whatever cowlick is sticking up that you didn't wire to begin with. So I've already applied wire to everything here I've also set a couple of branches a little further up in the tree. This to me this area from about here up is where we're going to start building the apex. So this is basically the bottom layer of the apex here. Now like I said before we're going to be breaking this up as we get further up into the apex into smaller and smaller pads but all together it's going to fill out into one rounded top. So I'm going to start on the right side of the tree here build the next layer here and then we're going to work our way into the apex. I want you to notice as I go along here too that I'm trying to crush or drop the apex down as much as possible. That's to give the tree a weightier heavier look and that's also to make this elbow sort of feature on the left side of the tree really stick out that much more. Now something here I want you to notice we're not making a line that runs all the way across on the same horizontal plane. I've lifted this up just slightly higher than this and that's a theme we're going to repeat as we work our way further up towards the top. All right so again we're just going layer by layer here and I'm working again on the right side of the tree to start with here and kind of working my way around towards the front. As we get further up into the apex we'll be able to twist and manipulate things maybe fold things from the back over the front a little bit more kind of spaghetti type work than I would do with the lower branches on the tree but that's absolutely a-okay and we may even end up with a little bit of a bald spot in the back but again that's not a problem either. As long as we do it in a strategic way you know over time we can fill that bald space back in. But any of these branches that are sticking out too far here if they're way too long maybe we'll cut them off even though they've already been wired or we can snake them back in to shrink the length of those so they fit in the right proper position. All right so from the side we've created a big gap here now we'll take this stuff from above drop that down spaghetti it back in to push it a little bit further in so again we're getting that kind of tapered rounded look up to the top of the tree here. Now one thing I should have mentioned earlier is that you can take juniper foliage and flip it 180 degrees so if a majority of the foliage is on the bottom you can flip that so it sits on the top or if it's oriented one direction or the other say you know straight up and down basically you can flip it so that most of the foliage is on the top to give you that nice kind of rounded look. That's not going to damage or be detrimental to the branch. Okay now that we've got this kind of tentatively set here let's work around to the left side of the tree and repeat that same process over here. All right so you can still see there's a lot of really heavy areas up in this portion of the tree here so again we're just thinning that out to create kind of an even density from the top to the bottom of the tree. I don't want this to be any heavier than the lower branches if anything I want the top to be a little bit more thinned out than the lower branches because this is an apically dominant tree here so the apex is naturally going to be stronger. So the less foliage we have at the top the more we have at the bottom the better energy balance we can create within the tree. Now one thing you'll notice at the top here too is I'm starting to spin the branches as we get further up so I'm not just dropping them straight down and then laying stuff from the back. This branch here that was too far out towards the front I pushed it off to the side that now leaves a big gap here so we can take these branches and fill that space in. This allows us to take branches that are extra long up here and actually snake them around and get them into that sort of compact rounded formation. So my tendency is to leave the back unstyled for the most part to begin with here and focus mostly on the tree from the front that way we're not ending up with a big mass of foliage back here and then nothing to fill the space in the front. Again I don't mind having a little bit of a bald spot in the back we definitely don't want to have that on the front side. So this is back viewing the tree essentially from the front here now we're going to set the final remaining branches here and see what we end up with. All right so we're slowly getting there we've just got this last little tuft of foliage here to set and then I'm going to go back through and kind of refine some of the foliage that we've already set through here prune up the undersides a little bit more and then you know prune back any elongating tips that are sticking out beyond the desired profile of the apex. But I do want you guys to notice just how much we've compressed the apex down you know just how much I'm actually spinning things around as we go but again looking to build a consistent density across the entire top. So let's set the final few branches here I'll refine it and then we'll do a little bit of a final talk here. Okay so here is the final product or at least the iteration for this particular episode of Bonsai U. Now I just want to point out a few things about the tree here so the first directional branch in my opinion is a little bit too high up on the tree I'd like to see it dropped over time as the foliage extends outward it'll be possible to do that. As it sits right now though this is the lowest I can get this branch just because it butts up against some of the deadwood on the interior here and again because it's too short. Another thing you guys might notice in the video is that it looks a little bit overly full and congested right in the center of the tree here. In person it looks completely different so in the video it may look like things are a little bit too covered up or too full in the center of the tree but again in person you can actually see a lot of variation and a lot of differentiation amongst the branches. And I thought about actually cutting off some of those branches in the middle here thinning this out a little bit more but all of these branches are very important in terms of blocking some of the less important or less interesting aspects of the tree. Again that sort of parallel horizontal line across the center as well as this straight line that shoots back up to the left through the middle of the tree it's very very straight through there so having this foliage strategically placed in those areas does help visually block and break up those portions of the tree. Now another thing I want you to notice is of course that we brought the apex down significantly on the tree so that made this elbow section over here on the far left of the plant stick out significantly more as well. I've also positioned the tree in exactly the spot that I think shows off the lines of the base of the trunk and that elbow to the best degree. If we shift it a little bit one way or another you start to see flaws in the base of the tree maybe you see the elbow a little bit more but things that we don't want to show off at the base of the tree start to appear and vice versa if we rotate the tree the other direction. So you know bonsai is all about the fine details every little detail counts and again a one or two degree shift in either direction can totally change the look of the tree. Now the final thing I want to say about this tree is that we're doing all of this work in the winter which is totally fine there's not any heavy bending that's been done to this tree so really you can do this type of work to your junipers any time of the year. It's when you start getting into things like massive heavy bends where you have to use raphia or split branches that you're going to want to do that at a different time of the year namely in the fall and in future episodes of bonsai you we're going to cover all of those techniques in detail. And then the very last thing here is that you know because we are in the winter here this tree will go back out on the bench but if the temperatures drop below about 25 degrees fahrenheit we'll put this tree on the ground just to keep the temperatures a little bit warmer in the pot and if we get below say about 20 degrees fahrenheit we may actually put this in our cold frame here. So this coming week it looks like we're going to be getting down to about 16 degrees fahrenheit so we'll probably end up putting it in the cold frame the night before the temperatures drop that low. Okay I know this was a really long episode I hope you guys picked up a lot of good tips though throughout it you know even if you're new to bonsai there's a lot of concepts in here that will be applicable to more basic material that you may be working on in your personal collection and if you're a little bit more advanced in bonsai hopefully this information kind of filled some gaps that may have been lacking in your bonsai knowledge thus far. So I want to thank you guys so much for checking out this episode if you have questions in your mind that you want to go ahead and submit you can submit them in the box down below and we'll cover those in next week's live Q&A or you can wait until next week's live Q&A and send them to me directly at that point. So in either case I look forward to interacting with you guys next week in the live Q&A and until then take care.