Chinese Juniper

[mountain troll]

This is what I was told is a Junipernus chinensis, has been neglected as
I inherited this from my Aunt, I am going to repot and do some major pruning this
spring. I would appreciate any advice as I am a a bit of a noob.

[Gerard]

Go slowly with the pruning, I suggest you repot and bring the tree to health. A few weeks after repotting start fertilizing and wait till next winter for a good cutback and restyle.

[mountain troll]

Thanks for your help, it seems pretty healthy, just suffering from a little frost burn/discoloration.
But I will restrict any pruning to tipping any new growth, cheers.

[Dario]

Play around with planting angles using wedges of wood or something to tip the pot up, down, forward, backwards etc. This may give you some future design ideas (upright, cascade, slanting, semi cascade etc).
When you repot it, repot it at an angle/incline that you are happy with for a future design.
If you do repot it in a new position? and as a result there are some exposed roots above the soil level, wrap and cover them in sphagnum moss.
If you can't see/find any future design ideas then just wait until you see something.
Get the juniper nice and healthy first though.
Cheers, Dario.

[MoGanic]

I'd love to do a sketch of this if you allow me to!

[mountain troll]

I think it may have been repotted at an angle in the past judging by the exposed roots, I'll
re-think the angle when I re-pot, thanks for the help.
I would be more than happy if you did a sketch Mo, I'm open to any ideas on designs etc.

[Scott Roxburgh]

Thanks for your help, it seems pretty healthy, just suffering from a little frost burn/discoloration.
But I will restrict any pruning to tipping any new growth, cheers.

I agree, just a bit of discoloration from the cold. BUT tip pruning the new growth, aka pinching, imo is the wrong thing to do.

Check out the following posts:
https://crataegus.com/2012/08/26/how-to-pinch-junipers/
viewtopic.php?f=131&t=8079&p=98214#p90124

[Rory]

This is what I was told is a Junipernus chinensis, has been neglected as
I inherited this from my Aunt, I am going to repot and do some major pruning this
spring. I would appreciate any advice as I am a a bit of a noob.

Best advice is... if you suddenly get trigger happy with your cutting back, take care and do not cut off most of the live foliage, or it may not survive. Especially on a neglected one such as this, you may find that the bonsai you have left, after heavy pruning, is foliage which has died but just hasn't turned yellow and brown yet, and suddenly you are left with a dead bonsai after a few weeks. Basically with conifers, you must have live growth always on the tree, otherwise it wont shoot back.

If you have patience, and you would want to, with this hobby, then just wait a few seasons to see which parts are alive and which parts are dead, then selectively cut back from there, taking care to leave adequate foliage for the tree to survive. In other words, if you cut back, you can cut back to as far as you want, but always leave say a golf ball sized worth of foliage on the branch you want to keep growing (if its a thick branch of say 1cm or so on), then pro rata that advice to your smaller branches. I have never had a problem using this method, but everyone is different. Looking at your material, a different potted angle, damage control and heavy cutting back is eventually needed.

I agree, just a bit of discoloration from the cold. BUT tip pruning the new growth, aka pinching, imo is the wrong thing to do.

Hi Scott,

I am curious, why you say that. I have a few Chinese Junipers, and I can't be bothered pinching, as I am time poor, but I do prefer to just cut back new growth to maintain the foliage close to the trunk on this species. Mine are doing well, but I am just curious what you mean by this. I am always happy to hear other recommendations.

[mountain troll]

Hi Bonsai buddy,
As far as I can tell the foliage is healthy, if i push back the discolored frost affected
parts it is still green underneath with no yellowing or browning off. There are some
signs of new growth that looks good. As far as the pruning, I was more interested in controlling
some of the spindly growth and retain the shape as much as I can without to much stressing
of the poor thing. But I will wait until I get it repotted and it has had a good feed and recovered before any further undertaking, cheers for the advice, much appreciated.
Pete.