A few mates came over last night to play with trees. There was plenty of variation, from raw material to Forests, and fine tweeking.

Michael, as promised brought this Juniper that I discussed HERE on the blog. It isn’t a Common Juniper as we thought, but a Squamata variety with a short needle. We all had a good chat about the options for potting angle etc. A few things worried me. Michael said that it has suffered a bit this year and some of the foliage on the lower branch was weak. I also wanted to confirm the limits of the live vein before we went any further. A few places looked like it could have retreated since the carving work. I wanted to confirm if this was a cause of the weakness shown during the year.

 Here you can see an area that I felt may be no longer alive.

 On a brighter note, I felt there was a better front on the tree by adjusting the angle. The foliage also looked to be making a come back with new strong buds appearing.

We used a makita with a wire brush to define the limits of the live vein and it soon became apparent that there was one live vein which started at the back of the tree and extended to the apex. To ensure that we could see where the vein starts from the bottom we had to consider the back being the new front. This actually turns out to be a far better option for the tree.

The area marked in yellow below is still alive but I think this will also die back this year leaving one narrow vein from base to apex.

This is the proposed new front.

As you can see above and here, the shari now extended to the top jin. In this pic you can also see the split in the trunk created by Michael to get the initial bend in the trunk.

Michael has done his own comprehensive post about this tree on his own blog. This is the virtual that he has come up with. I feel that the top jin needs shortened and there’s plenty more refinement required on the dedwood

I feel that with the proper after care, this tree should continue to improve in health and has the potential to be a very nice juniper indeed.