repotting - day 2

Following on from yesterday we carried on this morning with the bonsai work.

Main job of the day was to repot the juniper I took to a Mark Noelanders workshop last year. It was a leaning / slanting tree that I was never totally convinced by - hence taking it to the workshop.

It was the first time I'd worked with Mark and it was the right choice as I'd looked at the tree for too long to see a different style but he instantly wanted it far more upright and tilted forward. We did the usual and put the pot on wedges to do a first styling and, upon getting home I kept the tree propped up at the preferred angle until re-potting time was here.

This tree has a funny history really - selected in Japan by Danny Use of Ginko Bonsai Center it arrived potted like this.........................

The tree was sold to Newstead Bonsai Center in the Uk and restyled like this....................

 This is the 2010 Newstead show

I bought it like this...........................

and did a rather un-adventurous styling  like this - I did re-pot to tilt the tree forward so we could see more trunk width and a nicer view of the deadwood / live vein. This was the design we took the tree to the Welsh National bonsai show with. 

After this I let the tree grow, Peter Warren gave it a good thin out one day and I just spent a couple of years learning how to stop it flowering (and also what makes the tree flower - bad for junipers if you want to refine them with nice neat foliage) 

Today was repotting time..................it meant the root ball was going to change a lot - half of it would be removed at least ...if not it would be mounded up in an ugly lump sticking out of the soil and I hate seeing a bonsai that has had the angle changed look like this. It is a waste of the next few years as you are leaving all the wrong roots on the tree - better to be confident, get as many as possible into the pot at the correct level and cut the rest off - and it is a juniper - they grow so easily from cuttings so loosing half the roots wont make the slightest difference - (you could loose a lot more and the tree would recover ok) 

I had a nice old pot Tokoname sat here empty too

At the back a lot of root tips were cut off and exposed to the air so I covered these with a little fresh sphagnum moss to stop the rest of the tree losing moisture from the cuts

And now the tree can settle until Autumn - the foliage was only rough styled as it was a one day session with lots of socialising but its all in roughtly the right places until the next wiring and styling is due

I smile when I see the tree much closer to where it was when it left Japan all those years ago ! Funny old game this bonsai lark