Classroom Corner – Roy’s Tesco Juniper

I generally go to Roy’s to work on his trees which are too big to get in the car and bring to class. I have been known to help students by pruning their trees to fit their cars but this is not always in theirs or their trees best interests!!!

Such was the case last August when amongst other things I was asked to work on a rather large formal Juniper.

A few years earlier Roy had been given permission to remove the tree from Tesco’s car park and when you look at the state of the poor thing in the first picture you can understand why they were probably glad to see the back of it. Apparently it had been whacked by snow ploughs and god only knows what else!

You can see quite clearly that Roy has done an amazingly good job in transplanting the tree from it’s somewhat precarious location into the confines of a substantial bonsai pot. The tree was in extremely good health and was growing well. I had done some selective pruning on an earlier visit in April.

It was now a case of applying some fairly hefty wire on to most of the major branches and then using guy wires to help pull most of these branches down. Some fine branches were also wired to help shape the beginnings of an apex.

After this initial styling session it is fairly obvious that the tree has great potential. In due course a shari can be introduced to the front of the trunk to add character and greatly improve it’s appearance.

I am happy to have done my bit to help this tree on his way and look forward to helping Roy do a little bit more in due course……because with this tree more than any other I can assure you that….”every little helps!”