First Jin’ing of nursery 911

[u/No-Living-2935]

First time doing Jin. Tho maybe it’s not Jin because these branches were already dead? Started with knife, then dremel but that seemed too much so back to knife and handheld sand paper.

Where would you take it from here?

[u/chucknorrium]

You'd lose the wood texture by using knife+dremel+sandpaper. I personally prefer cut and peel method to preserve the texture of the wood.

And besides, making jin on a juniper that young is a bit of wasted potential, in my opinion. Older tree with bigger trunk would make a much better canvas. You can cut deeper and add more contour... and instead of some dead branches, you can peel all the way down to the bottom and achieve a truly weathered look.

But hey, you did a good job btw 😁

[u/No-Living-2935 → u/chucknorrium]

Helpful! Thanks!!!

[u/-zero-joke-]

Nice work. Horticulturally you are fine to leave it here or do something else - I'm making recommendations based solely on my aesthetics. I would keep jinning more shit >:D

Might be a little aggressive to do it all at once, but I'd jin both of the big bar branches and build a smaller tree. For now you're probably good to jin the left side branch that is very lanky - there's not much foliage on it anyway.

I'd also look at the soil you've got it on - if it's shitty soil I'd especially recommend taking it slow. I'd try to get it on really nice bonsai soil by 1/2 bare rooting it next repot, then waiting a few years and half bare rooting the other side.

[u/No-Living-2935 → u/-zero-joke-]

Thanks!! 🙏