Looks like an old yamadori California juniper with its heavy twisted trunk.
All the bonsai shown here were lifted from the Bonsai Blog of Mike Page. They are all rather unique and they all stray from the trees we usually feature, but to my eye at least, they all stray in more or less in one direction. There is a method to Mike’s madness.
This Japanese black pine by Mike won the Yoshimura Award for the Finest Classical Bonsai at the 1st U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition (way back in 2008).
The luminous grass, the unique pot and the calligraphic tree pushed way back in one corner bring to mind an unconventional ikebana or maybe Keshiki.
Is this a yamadori Sierra juniper (aka Western juniper)? Sierra junipers and California junipers are very close cousins and difficult to tell apart (in some photos at least). The bark may be a little different, but the feature that most separates them is the foliage: California juniper’s is heavier and more blunt.
Eccentric is good word for this old juniper. Is it a Sierra?
This one is a Hollywood juniper (Juniperus chinensis ‘Torulosa’). Mike Page lives in San Francisco, where you can find thousands of these amazing gnarly old landscape trees. In some neighborhoods it seems like there’s one in every yard. Still, you seldom see them used for bonsai.
You can enjoy more of Mike’s unique bonsai here.
There is good reason you don’t see many Hollywood Juniper bonsai. I have about 6 old ‘Torulosa’ trees in my yard. When you trim the foliage you mostly get juvenile foliage in return and it can take years to get back the mature foliage. D.
Thanks Donald,
That sheds some light. I guess even if you were very patient and waited for the mature foliage to come back they would have lost their shape then and you’d have to trim again and be right back where you started. Or, maybe not?