This is not a juniper variety we see often these days, Foemina. It was really popular back in John Naka’s day, in fact his brilliant “Goshin”—part of the National Bonsai Collection—is made of Foemina.

This Foemina was intended as part of a forest but after accumulating several trees, it felt more like a stand-alone than part of a forest. This photo essay shares the styling of it.

Foemina Juniper before work.

After pruning, to remove and shorten branches and create the rough structure of the piece.

The wired and styled tree. The following are some closeups and the other three sides.

Root flare. Some carving is evident. Three live veins go into the ground here.

A close-up of the crown.

The right side.

The left side.

The back.

Again the chosen front. We felt this had the best mix of nebari, deadwood features, movement in the top, and split live vein features (some are hard to see here as I didn’t clean up the live veins). The upright junipers of the Sierras have similar branch and crown structures and served as inspiration for this one.