I began to work on this juniper chinensis var. Kaizuka owned by the company “Franchi Bonsai” in 2012, one year after its arrival.

The trunk of this bonsai is quite peculiar as it descends straight down and, after two bends, one of which is very sharp , goes up close and parallel to the descending part. The branches are basically situated only at the end of the trunk and the presence of old shari give some movement to the more cylindrical and straight areas.

The vegetation is not of the most valuable. The Kaizuka variety has, by nature, a long and not very turgid scale and also turns quickly to needle.

Here is the bonsai in March 2012 before being working on it for the first time

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Right side / Left side

The first phase is the cleaning of the foliage, where all weak and hanging vegetation is eliminated. Then follows the cleaning of the bark and perfecting the shari.

Once all this has been done, all that is left to do is to proceed to pruning by selecting the useful branches for the project. Although there is already a well defined structure of branches, it is necessary to thin out both the number and the density.

Cleaning the vegetation:

Bark cleaning, application of Jin liquid and formation pruning:

The choice of the front takes into account above all the movement of the trunk trying to highlight its movement as much as possible.

In the shaping I tried to keep large spaces between the branches taking into account that since the vegetation of this variety is much longer, the spacings will fill faster than other varieties.

The final result after the first shaping.

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Right side / Left side

Close up of the “elbow”

One year after shaping the vegetation has grown strong and tidy. As expected, the large spaces created during the shaping phase have been reduced by the growth of the foliage.

For the following years the maintenance was done with periodic pinching and apex replacement.

In 2016 the tree is now messy again and therefore all that remains is to proceed with a new shaping that restores order to the foliage.

Front / Back

Right side / Left side

The vegetation, growing, has now hidden the “elbow”! All that remains is to eliminate the branches that have covered one of the focal points of this bonsai.

Since this curve is a characteristic of this plant there is no point in hiding it. Here, in this case, it is preferable to prune the branch.

At the end of shaping.

Some details of the juniper.

In March 2017 the wire was removed.

In August 2017, one year after shaping, the foliage has grown abundant and vigorous. The vegetation completely scaled has stretched upwards closing, they are in appearance, all the spacing.

In these cases it is sufficient to clean the vegetation to obtain a defined, soft and natural result.

Using the fingertips you must eliminate all the excessive growth downwards and horizontally, leaving only the vegetation that goes upwards.

In this way you get well defined lower profiles but above all you get softness in the foliage that gives maturity and naturalness to the tree.

The final result

The details of the foliage also highlight the thin black spaces that are recreated between the pads with the cleaning. From a fairly closed foliage you can obtain small but sufficient empty spaces in the foliage.