This is a spiral trunk shimpaku juniper, which I first attempted to style in September 2011. It has experienced some setbacks but is now well on its way to becoming a nice little shohin
The first picture shows how it looks at the moment immediately after restyling earlier this week (July 2014)
The second picture shows the tree after the first attempt at styling in September 2011. It looked nice but that didn’t last very long. I decided to wait until the following spring before attempting to re-pot it. this was eventually done around early April 2012, when the night time temperatures were still pretty cold
The early re-potting was a mistake which shocked the tree, causing the healthy scale foliage to brown at the tips turn yellow and slowly die back. The next picture was taken in the summer of 2012 about 3 months after the re-pot and clearly shows the development of the damage
The following picture was taken a year later in the early summer of 2013 and shows the first signs of new growth and the start of the recovery
The recovery continued throughout 2013 and by the summer of 2014 the tree was about ready to be restyled. The next three pictures show the tree from different angles before the latest work was carried out
Front
Back
Top
The next picture is a close up of the right side of the tree, which shows the existing jins at the top and the complexity of the twisting trunk. I wanted to create a shari, which linked the jins at the top of the tree and followed the twists in the trunk down to soil level. A close examination of the contours of the trunk and the position of the branches indicated that it would be too risky to attempt this as one continuous cut. So the shari was made in 2 parts, although from most angles it creates the impression of one continuous loop
The next 2 pictures show the tree after wiring and branch positioning. It will take a lot more growth to fill out the image, which will allow me to make the outline more compact, but for the moment I am quite pleased with it.
Robert Nocher Shohin Bonsai 
Nice post and progression.
It is a nice little tree in a cool pot.
What can you tell me about the pot? It looks old.
Hi Timothy
Thanks for your comments. The pot does look old but it’s modern Chinese from Yixing I think. Nice quality and quite inexpensive