Carl Morrow sent us this digitalized revision (and two others, see below) of a juniper that was originally submitted to our ‘Fearless Bonsai Warrior‘ program, by John Romano. This is the second critique of John’s juniper that has been submitted to Bonsai Bark (here’s the other).
Carl’s turn with John’s Juniper
The photos and text in this post were submitted by Carl Morrow. Carl has been here before with his own tree. Now he’s tackling John Romano’s juniper.
“A tree needs to tell a consistent story and when one has an outstanding feature or focal point then the theme created needs to be repeated through other parts of the tree to create a consistent image.
This is a lovely tree that I would happily play with. Deadwood is a very powerful focal point and it is difficult to look anywhere else when there is a stark white area on the tree. In the current form, John’s tree has single piece of deadwood that is not repeated anywhere else. What could have caused just one major branch to die without affecting anything else on the tree? The tip of the jin is firmly pointing downwards while the rest of the (trunk line and foliage) tree has an upward feel. For this reason I find the jin jarring and unnatural. I would do one of two things to solve this.”
Carl’s revision #1 (without the lines) and his explanation
“Cutting off the jin allows attention to fall on the beautiful trunk line and attractive foliage arrangement. I would extend the foliage out to the right a bit to create more balance in this, now gentle, tree. The main branch on the left is becoming visually straight (something that seems to happen often in Juniperus procumbens var nana) and so some work needs to go into creating a stepped feeling that repeats the angle and curves in the trunk. This can be done by bending the branch along with using foliage to create the feeling of steps.”
Carl’s revision #2 with explanation
“My preferred option would be to create more deadwood in the tree that would repeat the motif seen by the existing jin. The shari on the trunk repeats the line created by the jin (although once done, it would be the jin repeating the trunk shari!).
The second branch on the left would be killed off to create another jin that picks up on the line created by the hook part of the existing jin and it also opens out the canopy which is consistent with a tree that is living in harsh conditions that create deadwood, curves and angles in trees.
The little bar branch jins on the main curve of the trunk are sorted out by removing the left hand one. Again the stepped effect needs to be emphasized in the branches. Your eye now sees a number of white areas that have a consistent pattern that contributes to the direction of the tree and so you then have a look at the whole planting rather than just a single area.”
For more on Juniper bonsai check out our Masters’ Series Juniper book.
Carl has too much time on his hands.