Straggly Junpers

[KineticBonsai]

Hi all,
Just after some advice. I bought 6 Junipers (Blue Rug and Sabina) in 140mm pots recently, but they were very neglected, lanky and generally sparse, crappy foliage(Got them very cheap). Putting them into a bigger pot was my first step, they were quite root bound. I cleaned all the dead stuff out of them and anything that was spindly or unproductive and they cleaned up ok. They have plenty of little juvenile shoots sprouting from various points along the main branches etc so Im thinking they will come back ok.
My question is, Should I cut them back harder to the main brainches (about pencil thickness) in order to get them to thicken up and put on as much new growth as possible or maybe just pinch back the existing sparse spindly foliage and slowly bring them back that way?
Thanks in advance

[Daluke]

Don’t touch the tree. Water, feed and full sun. Let the tree get vigour and then come back in a year and make an assessment. Junipers don’t respond to cutting back hard to encourage denser growth.

[Max]

consider "Tanuki" for the spindly one, the rains are coming, so finding washed up material is always a chance

[Keep Calm and Ramify]

KB,
I may be able to help you visually through a few progression pics of a shimpaku juniper that I have been "patiently" growing on for around the last 12 years. The tree was originally purchased from the now closed Rochester bonsai nursery around 2005-ish?. The date on tag said 1989.

maybe just pinch back the existing sparse spindly foliage and slowly bring them back that way?

I wanted to try & retain as much existing branching as possible so started just lightly pinching what foliage it had. The below pics are dated to show how long the results have taken. The tree was never planted in the ground - only increased pot sizes.

Don’t touch the tree. Water, feed and full sun. Let the tree get vigour and then come back in a year and make an assessment. Junipers don’t respond to cutting back hard to encourage denser growth.

Restraining from any premature styling or overzealous wiring - its been 12 years of ONLY feeding, letting grow, & light pinching of extending ends. I feel after 12 years of growing, this young 28 year old tree, is only now ready for it's first serious attack of wiring & refinement /styling (however I could probably still wait a little bit longer......)

Hope this is of some help to you - Keep calm!

[Akhi]

Very informative KCR


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[KineticBonsai]

Hmmm.. ok looks like Im in it for the long haul
Thanks for the pics.
That is pretty much what im dealing with but probably even lankier lankier. Oh well, ill just keep feeding and pinching and potting on. They would make a good windswept specimen though

[melbrackstone]

You've hit the nail on the head KCAR....lol! This is a fabulous visual diary of how to be patient. Congrats!!