Juniper Blaauws Variety….Initial Styling

Posted on October 1, 2019 by John Hanby

This Juniper Chinensis Blaauws Variety was brought to a recent workshop.

As you can see it has put on a lot of growth and is very healthy.

Most of the lower branches have grown too strong leaving the foliage at the ends of the branches with very little taper in the branches themselves.

It would be good to have this existing Shari to the front of the tree.

The tree after some branch pruning in preparation for wiring. Deadwood can be incorporated into the lower branch to give an illusion of taper.

The branch stubs can be shortened and made into jins. In the future the Shari will be extended to link them together.

There are scars to the rear of the tree from previous pruning. We need to let the tree adjust and sort out his live veins so that we can then follow his lead and safely extend the Shari. This picture also reveals the good movement and taper in the upper section of the tree.

And in case you were wondering……this is my pile after the pruning work……where does it all come from???

The tree after the initial styling And wiring

The tree looks a bit ”scraggy” but the tips have been left alone to maintain it’s health and vigour especially after the removal of so much foliage. This is a basic initial styling but already you can relate to the branch structure and where the spaces will form.