Small juniper as it was given to me.



This was the juniper a few years ago. All of the growth is off the top. After a really bad summer where the house sitter forgot to water, I almost lost it. The tree leaned over and lost a lot of foliage. Bad picture, but you can see it here.




I didn't want to airlayer, and lose most of the bottom, so I left the tree alone and waited for some backbudding. I was lucky and got some budding, but not a lot. I was frustrated until I remembered that my brother had some success with raffia and wire. I decided to give it a try. We wrapped the trunk in raffia, added wire over it, and helped hold the tree in shape with some guy wires tied to the trunk. Here's what I ended up with.




You can judge height and size from the paint stir stick that we used to hold a wire. It's not a big tree, and I'm not sure how I'll end up styling it. I'm thinking something like this:




It was a great first time with raffia, though, and actually getting the bend was a rush. I'll leave the tree alone until next year, and keep this updated as the tree progresses.

Great Bend (and I should know). It looks great. Sorry about the circumstances that lead to this.

I'm kinda glad that it happened. It forced me to be creative. The juniper is too small to be imposing, so I figured that I could add character with a strong shape. We were actually surprised at how easy it was to bend once the raffia was on. It's definitely worth knowing for large branches.

Nice seeing people being creative

Beautifully wired, nicely done.

It is always nice to see people with good technique. Good luck and keep us updated!

Nice work

It's been two months, and the summer is starting to take off here. Nothing but 100F+ days until August now.

Great news though, because the little guy is filling in a lot! The juniper really appreciated being replanted. I'm not planning on pruning anything just yet. The tree seems strong enough to take it, but the summer is really harsh here. I feel like I need the tree to keep its strength up for the next few months, and I typically keep it to one big operation per year on my trees.





If you think the tree could take a little more, or if you have any ideas on where to go next, please let me know.

Stir sticks began to give out, so I tied the bend down to the pot. As you can see, the little guy has been doing a lot of growing.



Hopefully the bend will hold this spring and most of the wire can come off. If it does, I plan to start setting a structure.