Juniper styling advice

[Akhi]

Hi this is one of three blue junipers which I brought back with me from Adelaide. A young family were redoing their garden and this was just going to be mulched. Has been in plastic grow pots for about 4-5 years now and had received a severe reduction in late autumn and then was potted into this flat melamine container when I potted my prunus into a bonsai pot.
Need some advice on the style, thinking of this to be a formal upright with some dead wood feature in it's trunk. I get this feeling that there are one too many branches, does anyone else feel that?
The difficulty with this juniper I have found out the hard way is that it quickly jumps to juvenile foliage. This tree currently has a mix of juvenile and adult foliage. But the second is all juvenile foliage.

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Candid comments please not precious about it just a learning tree for me with pines and junipers.
Tha ks in advance

[shibui]

Given that this one has been transplanted recently I would not be doing any major work until it is much healthier. Junipers are one of the species that do not like major work close together.

First up I'm not a big fan of formal upright. I've always found it very difficult to get them looking great.

Having said that,
I agree that there's too many branches. Probably more than 1 too many IMHO
The existing branches all appear to have an initial upward movement then bend down. To me that looks odd. Old conifers have down swept branches but they bend down right from the trunk. V cuts under the collar is one way that base of branches can be realigned.

Also several almost opposite branches that inhibits vertical eye movement through the tree.

You've highlighted some damage on the trunk. Looks like there could be a larger dead section there? Junipers can look good with dead wood as shari on trunk or as jinned branches. I think you'll need to sort out branches first but also consider how any shari will match in with dead section of the trunk. eg the shari may continue up the trunk and take in the right branch just above it?

The tufts of foliage at present don't do the tree any favours. Hopefully they'll look a lot better as the branches recover and fill in a bit. I'd expect the current branch lengths to be shortened and grow out with newer growth to reduce the non taper on all the branches as they are.

[Akhi]

Thanks Neil, so bend branches to look more natural, reduce number of branches, pause any work for now and in the long term also sort out the branch taper. That was very helpful. Any tips on juvenile vs mature foliage other than slow reduction of foliage?

[Lisan]

Great analysis, Neil! Thanks from me too. -- I agree with you about the problem of getting straight vertical trees look good as formal uprights. Both times when I was faced with this problem, I ended up choosing a promising branch as the new apex and shari-ing the trunk above it. Of course that meant starting the bonsai from scratch.
A beaut YouTube show of formal upright bonsai is the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rpcef_Dh7o

Lisa

[shibui]

Any tips on juvenile vs mature foliage other than slow reduction of foliage?

Not a lot. The growth will gradually change back to mature scale foliage as it grows. Some species take longer than others and I don't know this one well enough to offer any guidelines on how long that might take.

If you get really sick of needle foliage it is possible to graft a better variety onto each branch and totally replace the original variety while keeping the trunk. That may be a slightly higher skill level that you're ready for but it worked really well for a couple of junipers I had with great trunks but terrible, prickly foliage and upright growth habit. Now totally shimpaku foliage and looking good but grafting is longer term. Mine took around 10 years including teaching myself to approach graft properly.