Hi,

I am totally new to the Art of Bonsai.
After some 15-20 hours of scrolling the web and watching youtube the last couple of months, I bought my first raw material - a Juniper Nana from a florist yesterday and started to work on it. The tree is around 15-20cm high from the main roots to the top. It had very much dense growth.

I have some questions regarding this i hope some of you can answer, but some explanation of my work first.


Here is an explanation to what you see in the pictures attatched.

#1: The way the tree looked when i got it.
#2: The way the tree looked when i got it.
#3: The designated front side of the tree after i finished "styling" it.
#4: View from the top.
#5: View from underneath the front to see the wiring work.
#6: The apex from the back side of the tree

What i did after i got the tree:
First i removed it from the "plastic-pot" and exposed the trunk down to what i think is the main roots.
I also decided what side i wanted to front of the tree to be.

Then i started removing dead foliage and removed some of the branches which i thought would improve my wanted design of the tree. I found this part difficult as the tree was very dense as you can see in picture #1 and #2. As the tree is what i consider to be fairly young (?), the density of the branches and the foliage made the natural direction of the thin branches difficult to determine, and therefore difficult to know which to know which branches to remove - to get my wanted design.

After the sort of initial clean up, i removed foliage from the lower, and not so dense part of the branches, wanting to expose the trunk better, and at the same time trying to make the kind of highlighted pad-look, and not just a dense bush.

After this i started the wiring process. I bought some plastic-coated 0,8mm, 1mm, 2mm, and 4mm wire on the hardware store. 4mm was the biggest i could find in my hometown. (I found a norwegian Bonsai webshop with wire up to 6mm, but i couldn't wait for the mail).
The trunk of the tree was very hard to bend with my wire at hand, so i made two - which i realize - incredibly ugly guide wires anchored to the plastic pot as you can see in picture #3 and #5. As i don't own a Bonsai pot at the moment which i could wire from the bottom, this became my sollution.

So.. in the mid section of my tree, the trunk parted like a "Y-intersection" with two very simular "branches", so for a rookie like me it was hard to determine what was the trunk, and what was the branch in this intersection. I guide-wired the one i considered to be the trunk, and i didn't wire the trunk in beforehand, so it cracked. Both the trunk and this branch (or visa versa) in the Y-intersection was pointing downwards to the left in the back (relative to picture #3), so this was the reason why i wanted change it to a more upwards S-shaped position.

After it cracked, i used the other part of the Y-intersection as the trunk (I am not sure which one was the trunk). I will get back to this later in the post.

After the wiring process i put the branches in my wanted position and pruned away some foliage underneath the "pads".

The "end product" is picture #3. I am quite happy with the look, but as the branch I explained above and i didnt know for sure which branches to remove, i think the tree looks a bit thin, and i think some branches and foliage in the backside would improve the look.

So finally - to my questions:

1. In Nana Juniper raw material, how do you determine which branches to remove? I find this a dilemma - when i havent wired and positioned the branches yet, i find it hard to know what to remove and what not to remove.

2. I want my pads to be more independent and highlighted than it is per now I would also want them to look flatter, sort of like small islands which i have seen in some pictures. How do go forward to do this?

3. Is it ok to use plastic coated wire as long as it does its job?

4. What time of the year is it preferable to repot this sort of tree?

5. Are my chances gone or are the possibilites to sort of develop more branches from the trunk where i already removed them and backwards to make a more complete look? This goes for the front of the tree as i would have preferred some branches there too. Is it possible to grow branches from areas where its already cut?

6. The branch who cracked was about 1cm thick and has left a litte wound in the trunk. Should this be treated somehow for the health of the tree?

7. I cut back the apex of the tree to make more of a triangular shape. the cut you can see in picture #6. Is there foliage enough around this to develop a nice pad on the top?

I surely hope you can reply to this! Thank you in advance:)

Welcome to the forum. Stop reading now if you do not like harsh feedback..

The first thing you need to learn is patience. You wanted to get started and did not have the few days patience for wire to arrive? The wire you have used is very hard and damages the tree easily. There is a reason why steel wire is not used in bonsai.

Regrowing branches were you cut them off is virtually impossible.

First ask for styling ideas/make a plan, then start working a tree.

Thank you for Your reply leatherback!
I want honest replies, so it is no problem for me if they're harsh.
I can agree to some level with you that i'm impatient.
What i mentioned in my post regarding the wire, is that its plastic coated. I've read that copper and aluminum wire is the prefered wire.
I then considered if the wire was plastic coated, then it wouldn't damage the tree. Are you answering no to my question number 3, or did you answer as if the wire was not plastic coated?


Edit: on my Picture of the apex, you can see on the very top here my wire is cut. As you can see the plastic coating is fairly thick which after what i considered would be comfortable for the tree. But i dont know?

It is still steel, and not annealed copper or aluminium wire.

Leatherback has good advice. I will add that you can cut branches off but you can't cut them on. Look at the tree a long time before deciding to cut something off. By long time I mean a couple of months. Once you have learned styling you can decide quicker but in the meantime take your time.

The leaves are about to fall off here and I will spend the winter deciding what to cut and bend, then in February or March go to work.

leatherback I am a bonsai newbie, but i understand that steel is not annealed copper, nor aluminium wire:) I will take your advice and order those kind of wires, and i will also take your advice on perhaps being more patient on my next bonsai (I bought 2 Juniperus Procumbens, as my expectations was not high on my first ever bonsai).

What i DON'T understand is; The wire I have at present is coated pretty thick with soft plastic, and the surface of it seems alot gentler than i imagine the even uncoated copper wire is. So why would it damage the tree?

Is it because the tree will react to steel as an alloy, or corrotion (will not be an issue as its coated as far as i can tell) or do you say this because of the hardness of steel compared to copper/aluminum? I've read that the use of galvanized steel wire would wash zink in the soil during watering/rain, and then damage the tree, and also corrotion would damage the tree, but i don't see the problem with this when the wire is coated in plastic? Where am i wrong here, and why? I can also add that the wire i bought was intended for trees, not bonsai specific though.


@Ivan man: Thank you for the advice. I also feel i learned alot from my mistakes on the present tree, It's definately something else to have the tree between your hands, rather than watching bonsai masters on youtube:)


Another question i have that i forgot in my post:


How long do i keep the wire on a Juniperus Procumbens? I've looked for the answer, but all i can find is "that it depends on which sort of tree). So how long approximately for Juniperus Procumbens?

The copper and alu wire for bonsai is A LOT softer than steel. The pressure the steel wire puts on the back is a lot higher

masjstovel wrote:

leatherback I am a bonsai newbie, but i understand that steel is not annealed copper, nor aluminium wire:) I will take your advice and order those kind of wires, and i will also take your advice on perhaps being more patient on my next bonsai (I bought 2 Juniperus Procumbens, as my expectations was not high on my first ever bonsai).

What i DON'T understand is; The wire I have at present is coated pretty thick with soft plastic, and the surface of it seems alot gentler than i imagine the even uncoated copper wire is. So why would it damage the tree?

Is it because the tree will react to steel as an alloy, or corrotion (will not be an issue as its coated as far as i can tell) or do you say this because of the hardness of steel compared to copper/aluminum? I've read that the use of galvanized steel wire would wash zink in the soil during watering/rain, and then damage the tree, and also corrotion would damage the tree, but i don't see the problem with this when the wire is coated in plastic? Where am i wrong here, and why? I can also add that the wire i bought was intended for trees, not bonsai specific though.


@Ivan man: Thank you for the advice. I also feel i learned alot from my mistakes on the present tree, It's definately something else to have the tree between your hands, rather than watching bonsai masters on youtube:)


Another question i have that i forgot in my post:


How long do i keep the wire on a Juniperus Procumbens? I've looked for the answer, but all i can find is "that it depends on which sort of tree). So how long approximately for Juniperus Procumbens?

What leatherback tried to tell is all the plastic coated wire is steel, it does not matter if it will corroded or not, but the strength of the material. Compared to annealed copper or aluminum wire, steel require greater strength to bend, what we afraid here is the trunks or branch will wounded as you will add more pressure when twisting the steel around the branch/trunk.

The other thing is, due to the strength of the steel, it will cut into the bark when trunk grows, as copper and aluminum will expand a little due to their flexibility so you have more time to observe the growth and the wire condition.

Label said the plastic covered wire is for tree, it just a wire used to fix a whole plant to pole or stabilizer or fixing a grafting to the branch. Bonsai wire used for styling a fragile parts.

Blackwood wrote:

The other thing is, due to the strength of the steel, it will cut into the bark when trunk grows, as copper and aluminum will expand a little due to their flexibility so you have more time to observe the growth and the wire condition.

This is absolutely not what I said, and is also not true. In both cases the bark will grow around the wire at the same rate. The danmage is done when wiring, with the added pressure needed to bend it. As I posted before.

leatherback wrote:

Blackwood wrote:

The other thing is, due to the strength of the steel, it will cut into the bark when trunk grows, as copper and aluminum will expand a little due to their flexibility so you have more time to observe the growth and the wire condition.

This is absolutely not what I said, and is also not true. In both cases the bark will grow around the wire at the same rate. The danmage is done when wiring, with the added pressure needed to bend it. As I posted before.

I got the facts now. Thanks!