I decided that my Juniperus Rigeda or ‘Tosho’ as they call them in Japan, needed a trim today. I had planned to leave it as long as possible after getting advice from Peter Snart. Extension allows the wood to lignify and therefore be capable to hold it’s own weight of foliage. What I wasn’t expecting was the vigorous growth it put out over the last 2 months. This has stiffened the branches in the required places and I decided to plough ahead.

I had read the Tosho 1&2 posts on Peter Tea’s blog last night and found these very interesting. Peter has recently moved his blog over to WordPress. This can be viewed here http://peterteabonsai.wordpress.com/

Here’s my Tosho before trimming.

and this is it after shortening of some shoots. A few have been left long and many of the new buds have remained un-pinched to get the desired growth.