I just did the same. It was a fun project

classic Nigel, love it!

And ppl buy them and display on Facebook bonsai groups as finished bonsai with captions like even tho it's winter I'm putting moss spores so it'll moss up nicely in a month or two and I don't need to style at all since it's already a bonsai .meanwhile the tree looks like a whip wired into a question mark .

The funniest part is if you take that $50 and buy a couple of landscaping trees that are juveniles, with a little work, you are often closer to a respectable bonsai and you get a few for the same price. Only new bonsai enthusiasts think bonsai is about a completed tree rather than the long journey towards perfection.

That's why I buy in regular shops, not bonsai shops

@@IgnacioAtenas The whole concept of Bonsai is to create and follow rules that are meant for guide lines. Anyone can go out an buy a "Bonsai" but its the creation from ones one mind and hands that set people apart.

@@musicointempero2256 Funny thing is you can buy a respectable sized tree in a large pot for about £20. You get the advantage then of a thicker trunk and you can take lots of cuttings. £50 is too much for a juvenile that's not well developed. Mind you, I'd pay £50 or much much more if it's well developed and the person clearly has taken care and knows what they're doing

Yes I love the blue tint of the junipers. Very pretty

you and I both

@@MaybeBonsai you’re buying! 😉

Pretty sure nigel knows what he's doing lol

@@DOOMBASSIST4 'Pretty sure' i said in my comment that he knows this 'lol'. An that it was for others such as new comers to bonsai, even if I hadn't said it outright in my comment I would of thought that was obvious 'lol'

Nah you were trying to flex :)

@@DOOMBASSIST4 yea cos talking about how different plants store energy is a flex... It was info I didn't know when I first started and is pretty helpful.

Thankyou I cut Mt first 2 juniper back hard so hopefully they'll survive

Some juniper's mature foliage stay quite spikey depending on the variety. for instance, Blue Star juniper will never develop that soft mature foliage. It will take very long for it to develop for things like Procumbens, and Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus Virginiana). There's also varieties that will grow mature foliage very easily like Juniperus Chinensis, and San Jose Junipers that produce mature foliage very easily compared to others. There are a lot of factors that go into it, but it's mainly about the ratio of foliage to roots, which is something you should wait until you get to a point closer to the refinement stage, after you have already developed it to the design you had in mind for the tree. Also, pruning off the tips of the branches is good for encouraging back budding, which can be very useful, depending on what you want the tree to do. He definitely did the right thing in my opinion as far as pruning off that much foliage. You don't want the tree wasting it's resources on branches you aren't going to keep (other than letting sacrificial branches grow to help make the tree thicker.)

@@yung_bonsai I 100% agree that Nigel did a great job with the initial styling! As you said, there is a fine equilibrium between the roots and the foliage when it comes to junipers. I've listened to Bjorn's podcast, Bonsai Network, and he cited a study about the balance of root hormones and growth hormones (that helps the foliage direct itself towards the light, regulate a bunch of things etc.) . His conclusion was that you should definitely not hedge prune your juniper to shape. And also, junipers have an evolutionary response to big amounts of foliage gone missing at once. It is believed that the juvenile foliage is a form of self-preservation against wild animals. Disclaimer: I am a noobie when it comes to horticulture but I try to learn from where I can.

Good to know. But too late as ive just chopped the hell out of a juni last week.. oops. Maybe ill bury it in my garden for a year and let it go wild.

I have recently posted the second pruning!!!!

It's doing well, I'm taking it slow on the styling, trying not to reduce it too much at once.

@@snowbumenzo thank you