Hello All!
This is the first tree that I have posted. It arrived today. I like the literati feel to it. The red glazed pot drives me crazy, but it was re-potted this year and I guess I need to leave it in for a year. I would like to keep it small, or make it shorter. There is a spiral up towards the top of the trunk that I don't really like very much. Some of the Jin doesn't make much sense to me. I am ok with the thinness of the trunk.

I am more of a pine person and have quite a few, and am just starting on my pine journey. But I really don't know much about or understand Junipers. I don't really know what to do with the foliage from a longer term perspective. I purchased Boon's Pine DVDs, and learned much. I plan on getting his Juniper DVD as well.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi OnW,

This is an interesting tree to me. I feel like the canopy has a good start, but there could definitely be some more asymmetry added to it by letting either the first right or first left branch grow longer. As it is now, it has a "nice" look but bunjin/literati style is a very dramatic and drastic feeling.

Another thing that makes this tree challenging is that, in the lower trunk, there are relatively long straight sections broken by very dramatic twists and turns.

As far as a front, I like the second picture in your first post. In the first picture, the first jin curls over and across the the trunk, interrupting the trunkline. The second picture with that jin in back seems to have a little more harmony of design to me. Totally not an expert here, so I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say. As far as taking care of this guy, I tend to be a little more conservative with my shimpaku's because they grow so darn slowly! Let it grow for now, maybe thinning some foliage here and there, but wait to do any major work until you get a feel for how this tree grows in your particular environment.

Jason

I think they're ok if you use the second picture as the front, but they're not stellar. If you got rid of the two lower jins (in second photo, going to the left) I would definitely want the first left branch of foliage to sweep down to about the same height as the big backwards C-curve. That might be the goal anyway, regardless of the jins. It will help to balance out the rightward movement of the tree as a whole.