Phoenicean Juniper
This juniper was worked on by Luis Vallejo during a demonstration for the Alcobendas Bonsai Association. After this demonstration, the maintenance of the tree was limited solely to watering and fertilising, and its shape was lost. It later came to form part of the collection of the Alcobendas Bonsai Museum, and it was then that I took charge of its restyling and successive maintenance.
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Phoenicean juniper (juniperus phoenicea) before work.
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This was how the tree looked two years after the demonstration. It was healthy but aesthetically very untidy. It looked like a big catapult due to the similarity of the only two branches, both in shape and size.
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In order to correct the defect of the right-hand branch/trunk, both its size and angle were reduced in order to make it look more like a branch than a trunk. In order to achieve this objective the living vein was separated from the dead wood.
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In this photo the recently separated living vein can be seen, protected with both raffia and wire guides to stop it from splitting.
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After the work, with the second trunk converted into a branch and the crown fully wired.
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Two seasons later, April 2000. If correctly pinched the phoenicean juniper can quickly gain in density. The main branches were divided into smaller masses of foliage in order to add complexity to the design.
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The full article is published in issue 75 of Bonsai Actual magazine.
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