Blaauwii Juniper (Juniperus chinensis 'Blaauwii') by John Biel

See a large image of Grace Wicht's tree. There are quite a few varieties of junipers used for bonsai. Among them is the Blaauwi juniper (Juniperus chinensis 'Blaauwi"), sometimes called the poor man's shimpaku. The correct spelling of this cultivar is somewhat arbitrary, to say the least. Nevertheless, by one spelling or another, it is available in most commercial nurseries in Toronto and surrounding area. They can vary in size from 10 inches up to 40 inches tall and with trunks from 1/2 inch to 4 inches in diameter. Blaauwis are desirable candidates for bonsai for the following reasons: they are readily available, often in plentiful numbers for good selection, and they are reasonably priced they are winter hardy in our area they are forgiving of hard use in initial styling they bud back on old wood they are suitable for almost any bonsai style they possess attractive bonsai features: small foliage and aged bark, for example they respond well to pruning, wiring, carving and transplanting they develop quickly into creditable bonsai - often within 3 years after potting up they are easy to care for and have few pests they are cheaper than shimpaku Blaauwis do have a few faults, though: branches are often quite inflexible, making bending and introducing horizontal movement in them difficult, even on relatively young plants lower branches on older trees are usually heavy and grow at acute angles, nearly parallel to the trunk, which makes them often useless except when they can be utilized as jins trunks are generally straight, so a lot of searching has to be done to find one that has natural movement in it, or one in which movement can be created surface roots roots are not very often prominent, but that is not a feature unique to Blaauwis some people feel the foliage is too coarse and that foliage colour varies too much - from dull green to bluish - for their liking. For that reason they would prefer a shimpaku The photographs will illustrate some of the above points.

Typical raw Blaauwi material. It cost around $20.00 including taxes. This shrubby looking juniper was turned into the single trunk future bonsai you see in the next graphic	Final pruning and most of the wiring on this tree was done at our October 2001 meeting.

Pruning, wiring and branch placement took around 7 hours in total. Most of the time was spent on wiring. The wiring time can be reduced if you forego fine wiring. I don't recommend you do that.

Double Trunk Blauwii	Triple Trunk Blauwii

The other two junipers above took longer to style, certainly close to 9 hours each. It took quite a while to do all the pruning. And wiring all branches, right down to the tiniest, was also time consuming work but an absolute necessity in my opinion. Much time was spent on branch placement. On multi trunk plantings this activity is not an easy or quick task because branch positioning gets progressively more intricate as the number of trunks and branches multiply. The process of branch placement and fine adjustments is a finicky job, but made a lot easier when every little bit of branching is wired. I really enjoy this step. It defines the bonsai. All the trees are about 22 inches tall. For some reason that is just the way things worked out. I'm pretty sure their heights will be adjusted when they get transplanted into bonsai pots, around the middle of May to the beginning of June. From that point on they will be treated as bonsai, not just as a plants in a pot. They will be grown in full sun following a few weeks of high shade care. During the time in the shade, they will be frequently misted with a fogger nozzle to aid them in recovering from the shock of transplanting. Their foliage will be pruned from time to time; it will be pinched throughout the growing season to develop mass and direct growth. Wire will be removed and reapplied as necessary. They will be fertilized biweekly with 20-20-20 or even with the occasional dose of 30-10-10, depending on how much of a push I want to give them in foliage production. And in about three years they should look good enough to join the ranks of the mature Blaauwii owned by Grace Wicht, Bob Wilcox and Reiner Goebel.

Grace Wicht's Literati Juniper	Bob Wilcox's Forest Grouping	Reiner Goebel's Juniper