hello,
i tryed to remove the outer bark from my jp to see more contrast between the (white) deadwood and the brown/red life vein. as you can see it is uneven and i also got a bit deep. is there an expert who can tell me if it is "ok" or do i kill the tree?
how can it be done properly that it looks like one of those "premium" trees?

thomas.wieland@ymail.com wrote:

hello,
i tryed to remove the outer bark from my jp to see more contrast between the (white) deadwood and the brown/red life vein. as you can see it is uneven and i also got a bit deep. is there an expert who can tell me if it is "ok" or do i kill the tree?
how can it be done properly that it looks like one of those "premium" trees?

How did you know it was dead wood? Or did you just strip the bark? Seems to me you misunderstood the term 'deadwood'.
You cannot simply do that - I mean, you can strip the flaky brown bark to reveal the red bark under it, but you cannot simply strip all bark as you may interrupt the sap flow to a branch. that branch will be affected and may die.

However, seems the damage is not too big. I do not expect problems.

if you want to create shari, you need to know where to create it. Typically, this would be the area under a dead brach. That's how I did it with my tree (the one on in my avatar).

i tried to strip the bark and obviously i may have gone too far on some small areas. here is what i did. i bougth this juniper from a privat person. the tree hasn't been cleaned for years as it seems. there was moss and the already existing (!) deadwood parts (shari on the trunk, jin on the branches) have also been green - i would say "wheatered". i rememberd the technique shown by bjorn in some of his bonsai art japan videos. i started to remove the flaky bark (green because of the moss) with a carpet cutter and revealed the area underneath. it was brown, not red. i worked on the bottom trunk before and there still have been some parts of purple (!) colour. so i decided to scalp them. the first result seemed to be good - brown wood and a nice contrast to the deadwood. but it is impossible to do that without going too deep on some areas. the layers are too thin.
after my post yesterday i decided to go back to the sand paper and put a little bit more preasure on it by thinking: the sand paper will do the same job as the cutter by removing the purple layer and reveal the brown wood. and so it did, slowlier but cleaner. (new picture with the deadwood and the front view)

i may have found my way now. it will definitely take some time to cleand the tree with sand paper and especially the areas in the foliage are hard to reach. what is your technique? i wired it around a pencil… ^^

of course i don't want to kill my tree and i immediatly stopped after recognicing that my technique with the cutter does some damage to the "life vein". so my question is: what will happen now? does the tree heal those areas like the human skin (scab and building a new/second skin)? should i put wound healing paste on it?

thomas.wieland@ymail.com wrote:

i may have found my way now. it will definitely take some time to cleand the tree with sand paper and especially the areas in the foliage are hard to reach. what is your technique?

When cleaning the bark without removing it, I use a spray bottle and an old toothbrush. I spray water while I brush, keeping the trunk wet, and the water that flushes down takes the algae with it.

When removing old bark:
This I only have done once on my juniper. The old bark on a Squamata becomes brown and flaky and doesn't look as nice as the more reddish bark under it.
I would never do this to my Virginiana though, as it has nice thick plated bark. I used my nails and a scalpel, trying to find existing tears in the old bark, carefully lifting it and pulling it off.

When I clean deadwood:
I use a dremel for carving, the same toothbrush and water or a wirebrush for maintenance.

does the tree heal those areas like the human skin (scab and building a new/second skin)? should i put wound healing paste on it?

A tree does not heal like human skin. Actually, it doesn't heal wounds at all. It will compartmentalize the area. If the area is not too large, the tree may grow new tissue over it, but the wound will stay there, under it, and will never disappear.

About healing paste opinions will vary. I personally don't use it and see no ill effects of not using it.
I never tell people at my club though, they would strongly disagree.

The shari on the photo doesn't look bad at all. Haven't seen the tree itself, so no idea if it looks good on the tree
You can improve it more by carving it. The live tissue will continue to grow, increasing the effect of dead wood and making it look better.