The Recent Nine Years of a California Juniper
  by Ernie Kuo 

As a bonsai enthusiast I also like to collect bonsai books and magazines to study how the well known trees change with time. My observation is, some trees improve with time and some do not. Some trees reach a zenith and then they begin to decline in their beauty until they are restyled again. Some trees even go to bonsai heaven.

Until recent years I did not keep a detail photographic record of my bonsai. So it was quite a surprise for me to see one of my California juniper printed backwards in an Italian bonsai book (1), and how differently it looked when that picture was taken. It was probably reproduced from a slide taken at one of the shows in Southern California in 1987. Digging into my old photographs I found a 6X7 slide taken probably in 1989 (photograph 1) and a 35mm slide taken in April of 1994 (photograph 2). The style of the tree had changed substantially. In the following paragraph I will attempt to give a brief history of the tree.

This California juniper was purchased in 1985 from a bonsai friend who collected it from the Horse Canyon area in the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, California.What caught my eye at the time of purchase was the natural shari on the right side of the tree and the movement of the life-line on the left. The shari on the right was shortened to the present length and the tree was planted in the present pot in the spring of 1986. The front was chosen to emphasize the apparent taper of the tree.

After the tree was planted, many bonsai friends who came through my backyard found the yet-unstyled tree very interesting and therefore offered their opinions as to the front they would choose. At least eight different fronts were suggested by about twenty different people. The confusion caused by the different opinions made me stay with the front I originally chose.

Styling of the tree did not start right away because the sparse foliage sprouted from only three elevations on the trunk. The tree was studied and restudied over the course of a year. Somehow, I felt the foliage started too high on the trunk. So, finally, one moon-lit evening, after downing a beer, I gathered enough courage to eliminate all the foliage originating from the highest elevation of the trunk. A new apex was subsequently developed from a small branch starting from a lower position on the trunk.

Between the years of 1986 and 1991, the tree was trained mainly by pinching and pruning, setting only the main branches with wires. The progress was slow. Nevertheless, the tree was shown several times in some of the major shows in the Southern California area between 1987 and 1990.

Since July of 1991, the tree was restyled using the method of Mr. Masahiko Kimura. Stated very simply, all old and short foliage were removed, the branches were brought down, the foliage was fanned-out and the tips of the foliage were brought up by detail wiring. Using this method, the tree acquired an entirely different look.

California juniper, height 31" photographed in 1989, 1994 and 1999.

1. Bonsai, by Carlo Genotti, Giovanni De Vecchi Editore, Milano, page 74.