by Mark Bynum
Initial Styling of Shohin Juniper:
For the last 5 years the club has purchased 1 gallon nursery stock of procumbens juniper to sell at the Japanese Festivals as a fundraiser project. At the 4th Thursday meeting in January, we would begin styling and repot the junipers into 6″ rectangular pots. This is quite a bit of reduction in root size, from 1 gallon nursery pots to 6″x 4″ bonsai pots, but the little trees never seem to suffer much and we have only lost 3 that I know of from over 200 junipers that we have bought.
When this venture into styling and selling juniper bonsai began, the philosophy for styling was to clip off all the excess foliage down to a reasonable bonsai shape using little to no wire. My idea was to give the buyers a starter bonsai that had a Fort Worth Bonsai Society sticker on it, so that people would come to a meeting and seek help for the next steps to be taken on their new bonsai. While our first goal of this project was to raise funds, the second goal was to gain membership.
After our experience in 10 or so Japanese Festivals selling shohin junipers, perhaps slightly revised tactics will benefit the club and members to a larger degree. We have left our juniper bonsai a little rough in the initial styling to allow for immediate “improvement” by the new owner. Very few people come to the meetings and seek help on improving their newly purchased junipers. We already give them a “Care Sheet” at the time of purchase that has all of the club’s information on it. I cannot think of a way to improve this situation except to talk the club up more at the time of sale.
Now we need to address raising funds, our first goal. If we raise the degree of initial styling up a notch, we should be able to sell our junipers for a few more dollars each. In the past some of the junipers were poorly trimmed and therefore could not be sold. We have held these back and I re-styled and lightly wired them to grow into a better bonsai starter to sell the next year. I have gained a lot of bonsai experience over the last 5 years by working on these 200 small junipers plus my own and have seen the results. Practice, practice, practice is the key to mastering any art and here is an opportunity for you. At this meeting, you can practice on several club junipers at no risk. I will be giving a very basic program on the first steps of taking a procumbens juniper from nursery stock to starter shohin bonsai. This portion of the program will only last 10-20 minutes. I have a handout and will bring juniper examples. Let’s make our little junipers a little better.
The main part of the program is to style club junipers and repot into bonsai pots. We will only have 30 to do this year, but with added styling time, we figure that two meetings will be needed to complete the task; therefore, we have reserved the same meeting room for the 4th Thursday, January 26, as well. The club will provide the junipers, pots, bonsai soil, some wire, and a watering station. You need to bring your tools and some wire. Juniper Caretakers are needed till the Japanese Festival!
Program Summary:
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Styling Junipers for Club Fundraiser
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Short presentation on initial styling
(Optional, you may listen or go straight to styling)
