Jason's masterpiece - part 2

All major branches are brought into resonable position with guy wires.
This looks like it will be a very impressive bonsai in a few years. The trunk is enormous and appears even bigger with the compact crown. It will be exiting to watch the development.
A RMJ of this size is usually clearly older than 1000 years (one thousand).

Now the tree will be left alone for sevral months. Jason will twist the guy wires at the end of summer to bring the branches down more. It is OK to exaggerate the down movment at this stage. The branches will snap bakck a bit anyway, after the wire is taken off. The tree will have to show lots of healthy new growth over summer. In winter we will be able to start detailed wiring. The juniper should not go into a pot before wiring is done and it has settled. This means it will be in this box until spring of 2009. In late summer of 2009 it should look quite fine already.

Some will wonder how we could dare to start stylng this beast so soon after collecting. One has to know that a tree which is over 1000 yers old cannot be collected like other trees. The only way to keep one alive is to find it in a rock crevice where it can be collected almost without disturbing the rootball. So this is like slip potting for the tree. A bonsai that was slip potted last fall can well be styled in summer of the following year. So this is about the same. If the tree, however, had shown some signs of weakness it would have be left alone for years.