1999 I bought this tree at a garden centre and it was (mis?) labelled as a 'San Josa' Juniper. It’s some sort of semi-prostrate variety for sure and it could possibly be a San Jose. A week later, I went back for another one but needless to say, they had all been sold and I’ve never seen a similar one since.

I was attracted by the well-formed trunk initially but the branches formed a big wide ”T” with the trunk at the top, some going left & some going right.

The trunk is about 17cm high before it branches and I estimated the tree to be about 8-10 years old when I purchased it for £9.99/ $17.50. The juvenile foliage is extremely spiky but develops into the more familiar scale-like threads quite rapidly.

The picture above is how it looked from about 1998 to 2003 after a severe prune and remains my only experiment with a windswept styling. Looking back, this original attempt is pretty amateurish and shows that I have progressed a bit in my ideas. (I hope!)

Windswept and cascade are probably most beginner’s attempts at styling the first spindly juniper they acquire. The picture also shows my first attempt at jinning a branch.

I lived with that styling for about 5 years until about the time I discovered the internet big time with the various bonsai forums and I realised I wasn’t a lone enthusiast.

Becoming a bit bolder, I tried the cascade style in a cream octagon pot in March 2004 after doing a heavy wiring job on the left side branch and taking, what was for me, the radical step of removing a loopy under branch on the right. Up to that point I’d been convinced that all the branches had to fit into the design somewhere.

I fiddled with the tree throughout 2004-2005 (in weird pots at weird angles) and posted it on another bonsai forum for an opinion. The tree looked worse than ever but I was determined to make the tree work. At very least I had been doing a little work with it every year and had managed to develop a good cascading branch.

 

By late 2005 I’d been persuaded that the right side apex branch would have no place in a final design so I removed it in October 05, jinned the stub and put the tree back in the cream octagon pot.

Growth on the tree had always been good and I had been pinching the foliage regularly over the years (the bonsai books said to, so I did).

There were plenty of branch options on the cascade and the new challenge was how to incorporate the one remaining top branch into the design. So with heavy wiring I moved it to the left to join up with the cascade.

I purchased a more suitable Walsall Ceramics pot in Nov 2005 but was very dissatisfied with the right angle bend formed by the trunk and cascade branch which gave it a very rigid look. The staff in the bonsai outlet thought the angle was great – no doubt hoping to persuade me to buy the pot!

 

After 3 years of being involved in the internet bonsai forums, I had developed a good basic knowledge of digital photography and image manipulation using the associated software. I’d started re-designing my trees by virtually adding or removing branches, changing angles etc and began to play around with options for my juniper.

As a result, I re-potted at a rather rakish angle in April 2006 after sizing it up in a “virt”. This made the jinned trunk more of a focal point and brought the still-problematical single apex branch into a more manageable plane as it was now part of the general “down and to the left” movement of the tree.

By now I was starting to see a definite future for a tree that had started out as an impulse buy 7 or 8 years earlier. However, one thing was holding me back and that was the misconception that with a cascade (kengai) style tree, the tip of the cascade must always curve back toward the pot to finish under the apex and that there must always be some sort of informal upright type apex up top to work with.

The tree had, by now, become somewhat of a celebrity on the Bonsaisite.com discussion forum, breaking into the Top 20 all time viewing figures! My feeling was/is that beginners and improvers were identifying with the tree due to its well documented humble beginnings rather than being confronted and intimidated possibly, by a masterpiece presented out of nowhere.

Advice from all quarters was flooding in - the essence of which was to opt for a more semi-cascade (han kengai) style which would mean re-positioning the apex and cascading branch

I went part way there in May 2006 and used 6mm aluminium wire on most of the branch and apex to move them.

Recently, in August 2006, I finally jinned the end of the cascade branch and wired it to follow the flow of the tree having completely abandoned the idea of curving the tip back to the pot..

 

This is really only the beginnings of what may become a good quality tree in time. It now has form, flow, no awkward angles but needs foliage refinement and a better pot. There are options to go for a very traditional/formal multi-tiered style following the natural planes above or possibly to go for something a bit more informal in keeping with modern bonsai trends.

 

Harry Harrington (bonsai4me.com) created the virtual image above and I have placed the tree in a virtual pot by Erin Pottery (erinpottery.com) originally made for one of my first on-line mentors – Richard Fish. I am considering commissioning something similar.

Almost 10 years to get to this point but I have enjoyed the journey immensely. The reality is that the transition from March 2004 to August 2006 could have been accomplished more or less immediately, but of course you don’t know that when you start and I don’t consider it to be wasted time.

Hopefully those of you with skinny junipers in oversized pots may see a way forward. It pays to be bold.

My thanks go to all those who have helped and encouraged me over the last few years with this tree!