The tree was purchased in January 2003 whilst the members of the ABC group were on a visit to a Bonsai nursery in South East England.
The tree had only just arrived from Japan and had originally come from a nursery in Nagoya .
The tree had good trunk movement and taper and good branch/foliage placement to hopefully produce a good bonsai.
Unfortunately the tree had to stay at the nursery until later in the year as it was still under quarantine.

In September 2003 the tree was taken to our ABC group meeting, when we had Lee Verhorevoort working with us on our trees for the day.
Prior to the workshop the tree had been prepared by cleaning out all the existing dead foliage and any foliage that was growing from branch fork junctions etc. Also all the major branches had been wired ready for manipulation and design placement.
It was at this stage that it had become evident that an existing large branch, highlighted in the photo's, would have to be removed.

The existing branch to be removed was the central branch of tree that all emanated from around the same point on the trunk.

This junction would only thicken and cause future problems and there was more than enough foliage on the other two branches to manipulate into position to fill any visual gaps, so the offending branch was removed.