Shimpaku

Junipers and maples at Nomoto Chinshou-en

April 11, 2014 by Jonas Dupuich

Although Daisaku Nomoto is well known for his pine work, he’s also a big fan of junipers and deciduous varieties. Walking through his nursery was a great opportunity to see trees that were well developed next to trees still in the project phase.

Large shimpaku

Shimpaku

Shimpaku with great deadwood

Shimpaku

The tree below was one of my favorite project trees in the garden. I’d be very curious to see it after further refinement.

Project juniper

Trunk detail

A number of the smallest junipers in the garden were fairly well developed. They were also green as they were protected from the cold in a greenhouse for the winter. The outdoor junipers had all taken on the usual brown cast that wears off in Spring.

Shimpaku

A tree grown by one of Nomoto’s customers – what’s with the pot?

Shimpaku growing in a wire mesh basket set in a clay pot

A Japanese maple in development

Young Kiyohime maples

Trident maple

Mr. Kita's junipers

October 30, 2012 by Jonas Dupuich

On our way to visit Ishii’s nursery last fall, Akio Kondo took Boon, Peter and myself to visit one of his customers – Mr. Kita. Kita has a small, but impressive, bonsai collection. Trees like the juniper below.

Large shimpaku

Impressive, yes, but was this the front? The other side, too, has great features.

The other side

Here are some more shots of the same tree – any ideas about the front?

Great jin

And shari

I believe the second photo is the current front, but it’s clear that the tree has plenty of interest points.

What was amazing about Kita’s garden was the number of trees of comparable quality. On a nearby bench I noticed one of the first great junipers I saw on my 1999 visit to Japan – a Kokufu Prize winner. If you have the book from the 73rd Kokufu exhibit, check out page 21 – the tree looks quite different now. It had been unhealthy ahead of that exhibit but has since regained much of its health.

Kokufu Prize winning shimpaku

With very few exceptions, the trees in Kita’s garden were in great shape – visiting was like touring a small bonsai museum. Here are a few of the other junipers in the garden – I’ll share some of Kita’s other trees on Friday.

Boon and shimpaku

Shimpaku

Shimpaku cuttings

May 8, 2012 by Jonas Dupuich

A few months back I grabbed an armful of juniper branches from the green recycling bin at a Bay Island Bonsai workshop. I’d found both kishu and itoigawa shimapku branches and figured I could use them to make cuttings for grafting roots or branches. Although I’d made cuttings many times before, I wasn’t sure about what soil worked best to facilitate rooting or how long to leave new cuttings in the greenhouse before bringing them outside. An experiment was in order.

I tested three different soil mixes outside and in a greenhouse. Despite poor experimental design and uneven care after the cuttings were made, I was surprised to find fairly consistent results. I planted the cuttings in “houseplant soil” (an all-purpose soil mix rich in organic ingredients), perlite, and a mix of perlite and sand. The perlite yielded better results than the houseplant mix, and the sand and perlite mixture yielded better results than perlite alone. Overall, the cuttings I left outside fared better than those left in the greenhouse, but I suspect that’s mostly because the cuttings I left in the greenhouse were watered erratically. Here are some photos of the cuttings after a few months.

“Houseplant soil” (greenhouse) :: perlite (greenhouse)

“Houseplant soil” (greenhouse) :: “Houseplant soil” (outside)

Perlite and sand (greenhouse) :: “Houseplant soil” (outside)

The cuttings planted in perlite and sand fared equally well indoors and out. I wasn’t too surprised by this as Boon Manakitivipart and others recommended this mix and it offers a good balance of drainage and moisture retention. It’s also a sterile mix, unlike the “houseplant” mix I used. Why did I try the houseplant mix? Mostly out of curiosity. And why did I use cell packs instead of larger containers? Simply to save the time of wiring screens into more pots. I’ll repot all of the viable cuttings into bonsai soil this coming winter.

Last year’s cuttings

I shared this story less to encourage the use of perlite and sand than to encourage any amount of research on the topic. Many people are experts at this – are you one of them? If anyone knows of good resources about making cuttings, feel free to share. I used rooting hormone for all of the cuttings and made clean, slanted cuts with a grafting knife. I also planted all of the cuttings at an angle. Are there better approaches to preparing and planting the cuttings? I experimented with small, medium, and large sized cuttings and found that all lived, but there may be good reasons to start larger or smaller cuttings. Any suggestions?

Displaying a shimpaku juniper

January 17, 2012 by Jonas Dupuich

Bay Island Bonsai held their 13th Annual Exhibit this past weekend at the Lakeside Garden Center in Oakland, CA. The exhibit featured a well developed shimpaku juniper.

Shimpaku juniper

Before reading any further, which way do you think the tree points – to the left or to the right?

When setting up exhibits, we often start by identifying trees that point left or right and put these at the ends of each row where they can point toward the center. Cascade and semi-cascade bonsai often end up at the ends of rows as they are strongly directional trees. With the exception of formal upright bonsai, most trees tend to point or lean a bit to the left or the right. When trees point to the left, we tend to place accent or companion plants to the right in the attempt to create balanced compositions.

The apex of the shimpaku pictured above points strongly to the left, as does the first branch on that side of the tree. My inclination was to display the tree on the right and place an accent plant on the left. Daisaku Nomoto, a bonsai professional visiting from Miyazaki, Japan, however, wanted the tree placed on the left. I winced at the suggestion, and appealed to Boon. Boon seconded Nomoto’s opinion. While we stood there discussing the matter, the tree’s owner set the tree on the right. This made sense to me and I liked the resulting display.

Displayed on the right with accent and scroll

At the end of the day, I found myself very curious about the direction of the tree. Maybe if the trunk or branches were arranged differently I could see what Boon and Nomoto saw. The next morning I asked Boon and Nomoto for an explanation. Simply put, they typically find the movement in the lower part of the trunk to be the most important element in the determination of direction. What about the apex or the key branch? Not important, Nomoto replied. It really is all about the lower part of the trunk. Tilting the tree a bit to the right would increase the movement of the lower part of the trunk and move the apex to the right. Growing out the lowest branch on the right could further this movement.

What does the tree look like displayed on the left?

As displayed on the left

Turns out the tree looks good on the left too.

Armed with new knowledge, I found a new way to look at bonsai. Like the Ponderosa pine below, for instance. Surely it points to the right?

Ponderosa pine

No such luck. Nomoto insisted the tree points to the left, just as the owner had displayed it.

Shimpaku bonsai on sale at Green Club

October 11, 2011 by Jonas Dupuich

Close by the Kokufu bonsai exhibit is the Green Club, home to a massive bonsai vendor area set up to accompany the event. Inside, some spectacular trees are for sale, including the shimpaku below.

What makes for good shimpaku bonsai? In addition to age, character, and beauty – general qualities that apply to all bonsai varieties – I’d say movement. Turning, twisting, even writhing formations of entangled live and dead wood characterize good shimpaku bonsai. Some of the better trees for sale at the Green Club this past winter have awesome movement.

Shimpaku juniper

Some of the trees for sale are quite refined, others are less so. And even though each of the these trees could easily be shown at most of the exhibits I’ve attended, all will benefit from further refinement.

Another awesome shimpaku

No matter how good the wood, bonsai really stand out when the branches exhibit the same age as the trunk. And the better the branch placement, the less likely we are to be distracted by imbalances that can draw our attention away from trees’ best features.

A graceful shimpaku

There’s also some room for fun when styling shimpaku. As the variety that best lends itself to abstract designs, shimpaku make great candidates for creative designs. I’ll admit it – I would not have thought to keep the lowest branch on the tree so far below the rest of the foliage.

Shimpaku with low branch

And I don’t know that I could have come up with such a well-balanced design for the shimpaku below.

Tall shimpaku bonsai

Of all of the trees pictured here, the following shimpaku reminds me the most of trees I’ve seen in California. Not unlike some California junipers, this tree has one main twist around the trunk and good deadwood.

Shimpaku with a twist

Finally, the shaggiest shimpaku of the lot. Less refined trees have been showing up more and more in Japanese exhibits as a trend towards more natural looking trees seems to be gaining traction. I would love the opportunity to decide how much work to do on a tree like this to best show off its unusual trunk.

Fun Shimpaku bonsai

Shimpaku

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