Today I repotted and pruned a juniper (procumbens nana) that I bought at Mahoney’s Garden Center on a whim. It was and still is very dense and low and I have yet to decide what to do with it for the final form, I will almost certainly make it a cascade style and turn part of it into jin, perhaps the opposite side from whichever side ends up being the main cascade.

Here are some photos of tools used and soils and rocks used, although I did end up using a bit of Bonsai West’s bonsai mix in there as well. I didn’t realize we had any left, and they aren’t open til tomorrow and I wanted to get a jump on doing this as it is getting later into spring and the weather will be mild for the rest of the week.

bonsai tools

bags of soil and rocks

This is a photo of the original material in the pot it came in. It’s very short and bushy.

a shrubby juniper in a pot on a stand

Here it is out of the pot and then with some of the under-foliage trimmed so that I could see the trunk and main branches.

shrubby juniper in a hand

juniper with trimmed roots

underside of juniper

juniper with trimmed roots alternate view

And here it is from a few sides with the some of the crossing branches pruned, and some of the less-healthy looking branches and with a bit of the foliage thinned.

juniper repotted in black pot

second view of repotted juniper

third view of repotted juniper

From here I might wire the cascades but mostly I’m just going to try to keep it alive.