European Boxwood Shohin Bonsai on the way

This little guy is going to be styled in the classic 'broom' style.  As you can see it's already naturally close.  Still needs wiring, but as usual I want to see what branches survive the brutal initial cut-back before I get into wiring.  Also I will better be able to determine the stronger branches, and what to keep or not keep.

Initial Picture before any work done.  Strong little tree!

Much reduction and defoilation so that I could better see what I was working with.  Boxwoods rebound quickly, so this little tree should blossom back quickly with a little shade, water, and attention!

Little Laceleaf Maple trees for my Girls

Last year I'd put 2 tiny Privet into small pots for my 2 little girls - unfortunately their trees were among my losses from our vicious winter (and my poor 1st attempt at winterizing my trees).  So, I replaced them with a few saplings from a large number of seedlings I planted last year.  I thought these to be 'lace leaf' maple trees, but I'm now not too sure; The bark on mature trees peels like paper bark, revealing rich oranges and browns beneath.  The leaves closely resemble a Trident Maple.  I will work on the correct species.  The seeds were collected from a local park with lace leaf trees that were loaded with ripe seeds in season last Autumn.

I'm using seashell material on 2 of the pots.   We recently were on a family beach trip to The Outer Banks in North Carolina.  While there, I thought that this light airy shell material might do well for soil for some bonsai! This is shell material gathered with the tides; any beach you can goto, if you dig a few inches down you reach this 'shell' layer that is crumpled, and quite fine.  We'll see how they do compared to a more 'regular' pea stone w/ bark mixture (The shell plants also have some organic material mixed in underneath the top shell cover).

Juniper Shohin Bonsai in the works

Another nursery Juniper found it's way home a few weeks ago.  I'm really getting into the Junipers - I'm 2000 miles away from infamous California species, I'll have to see what grows naturally in the Appalachians here and try to piece together a yamadori trip  (I've spotted some nice Junipers on top of Stone Mountain, so there must be a few species that could be found in these parts or a little further north in the App. Mtns. I'd imagine).

Pretty standard Nursery plant!  Albiet it was extremely healthy and putting out a good amount of 'adult' needles.  Luckily I thought to grab a picture before I removed too much.

Closer look at the trunk after some more branches are removed.  When I purchased the nursery plant I looked deep in the heart of the tree to see what was there, and saw a decently beginning upright trunk.  Almost all my Junipers I have are trained as Cascade (follows the plants normal growing characteristics), this one will be different.

I didn't work on this tree for 2 weeks after I got close to the trunk; I had surgery, and it took awhile before I was able to sit upright for any length of time and tackle a tree.  So when I got back to it, you can see I lost a lower branch that got Jinned instead, and some trims on top had turned brown already.  Either the jinned branch, or the one opposite from it will be eventually removed, I'm thinking the left branch to give the tree some balance.  (It looks like all the branches are from the left side, some balance and hopeful new growth will provide places for the tree to go).

Future work will involve working the green growth pads some (pinching, wiring), just letting it get used to having so much removed already, before I decide what else to do.