By This year I used my pygmy cypress as a Christmas tree in the house for a week, decorated with lights and a few balls. It was full and shaped like a typical Christmas tree. However, now that those days have passed by for the year, the tree needed to move back outside. While inside the house it had continued to grow and lengthen branches.
After reviewing some new material on styling the pygmy cypress on an online bonsai class demonstration, I knew this tree had to be transformed and soon. It has a growth patter of constant elongation of a single branch. This causes considerable growth of fine material but not consolidated masses of foliage; this often results in the loss of considerable internal growth. The tree will bud back when exposed to sun so I know I can get some of the material development closer to the trunk again. Branches were cut back to a pair of horizontal buds, eliminating downward buds and reducing the upper growing buds. This can be done because the growth patter is 2 perpendicular and 2 vertical buds. Reducing the foliage in this fashion reveals the trees.
This composition is actually the marriage of 2 Pygmy Cypress trees to a Utah Juniper stump (a Tanuki). I have been working on this tree for many years now and the new cypress trees were container grown saplings. The Utah Juniper has a lot of history and when the tree died I chose to make this creation. The true front of the tree is a little bit more rotation to the right. Now that the branches are exposed, I will begin exploring new styling options to more realistically portray a Pygmy Cypress in nature.
artsofjc 
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.