Winter…and all my trees are resting. Now is the time to catch up on some wiring and re-visit some junipers I’ve had quite a while. We had a hot summer here in Portland and the junipers really put out a lot of growth; if branches aren’t pruned and foliage thinned out, a juniper can get away on you rather quickly 😉 And even though some of the branches that were wired a couple of times already may have taken a set, it’s nice to have a wire on them to keep the design consistent. The first tree I took on is a Rocky Mountain juniper I collected in 2000 and brought to a bring your own tree workshop with Masahiko Kimura in Dallas in 2002. It has been fully wired twice since then and the last time it had wire on it was two years ago…here is what it looked like a month ago prior to work:
It had become really bushy in the two years I let it rest and was in need of some branch pruning and foliage thinning…about all I did in the way of work on the tree the last two years was to cut back the long shoots at the tips of the branches. And here’s the result after work:
I plan to re-pot it later this spring to something a bit more ornate than the current pot. Next up is a small Rocky Mountain juniper collected from the same time, also let go for a few years and in a bushy state prior to work:
This little tree had been ‘out to pasture’ for three years and needed lots of thinning and pruning before it could be wired and here is the result:
Sorry for the busy background! It was the only sunny spot that day, as the winter sun is so low in the horizon. Coming up is a little common juniper I wired for a client and have no ‘before’ photo to show you, only to say it too was a little on the bushy side:
I’m going to leave you with a shot from the backyard of some birch trees during sunset one evening this winter:
I hope you are staying warm and dry this winter!
brendenstudio 