Collected Juniper

[Scott Roxburgh]

I have never collected a juniper this big so take this with a grain of salt, but remember that junipers strength lie in their foliage not there roots. So if you remove too much foliage it may recover slower.

[Jag01]

I have never collected a juniper this big so take this with a grain of salt, but remember that junipers strength lie in their foliage not there roots. So if you remove too much foliage it may recover slower.

Scott / all,

I am not being argumentative, however I could not disagree more. Irrespective of the type of tree we are talking about, anytime we artificially create a situation where you have an excess of foliage to be supported by insufficient roots you are going to place the tree at risk. This is why we (collective bonsai practitioners) are extremely careful when re-potting and root pruning so as not to remove too much rootage and stress the tree. Conifers can be particularly unforgiving when it comes to the supply of water and nutrients to support foliage, if you root prune a conifer too hard foliage will turn brown very quickly, branches will die back as the tree struggles to survive. During the dig many of the fine feeder roots of this tree will have been damaged or lost completely and the tree will struggle to take up moisture and nutrients, placing too much demand on damaged roots to do so in order to support a mass of foliage is a recipee for disaster.

I agree, you cannot remove all foliage from a juniper, doing is certainly a recipee for death of the tree, however providing you leave some green viable foliage on branches/sub branches/branchlets, you will not lose the branch, providing you do not Over Water the tree at during this time of recovery.

In answer to a following post "How much foliage could you safely remove? I have heard of general rules like not removing more then a third off a juniper at a time"

I balance the amount of foliage removed by how much root mass is removed! I realise this does give us an impirical figure to work with, however there are very few things is growing Bonsai which are "black and white". I will say it has been my experience that proving some foliage is left on branches/sub branches/branchlets then the tree will recover. To me the secret becomes matching the watering to the demands placed on the roots by the foliage. I have posted a before and after shot of a juniper of mine. If I was to give a number I would say that I removed approximately 85% of the foliage of this tree during pruning last year, I did not lose a single branch in recovery and the tree has rewarded me with an impressive flush of new growth this year.

I will try and post of pic later of the tree as it is today.

cheers,

Jeff

[Bonsaitrees (Craig)]

I have never collected a juniper this big so take this with a grain of salt, but remember that junipers strength lie in their foliage not there roots. So if you remove too much foliage it may recover slower.

I balance the amount of foliage removed by how much root mass is removed!

If your talking established juniper stock maybe .
If your talking Collected Junipers then it's a whole different game. The majority of professional tree collectors in the US and UK do not remove Juniper foliage when collecting .Keep in a Shadey spot which gets good filtered light till good signs of new growth are seen.

Good luck

[Scott Roxburgh]

...If this doesn't survive then I'll give up collecting tree's .Cant see any issues with this approach...

...No reason this will NOT be a total sucess...

Each to there own, but if anyone wants to see how to collect large junipers ask these two!

[rodm]

well done, thats very inspirational only for it being too hot ,I feel like going out and digging something up.Congrats to your little helper what a big effort. It will interesting to see the progress.

[Josh]

Good effort on the Dig Josh,

I envy you finding material like that, it looks to me you have an excellent starting point for a future Masterpiece.

If I may offer some advice to assist in recovery, given you have said you have some very hot weather on the way, personally I would reduce as much of the foliage as possible. I do not mean remove branches that may be needed in future designs. At this point I would keep every branch that has foliage in order to give as much design flexibility as possible. I would however spend a good deal of time selectively trimming each sub branch and branchlet back to the first foliage (closet to the trunk). This will reduce respiration loses on the tree and you can therefore also reduce the amount of watering required which will reduce the possibility of root rot.

It has been my experience in the past that trees which have an imbalance between root mass and foliage mass in favour of exess roots will recover quicker, the reduce foliage mass will also let more light into the internal structure of the tree , this coupled with the imablance of root mass may even promote some back budding.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

cheers,

Jeff

Thanks for the comments Jeff, "masterpiece..it might have to be styled by someone else to get to that point but a good starting place though. The pictures are a little deceiving. There appears to be a lot of foliage when in fact most a re a single foliage pad at the end of a branch. I would have removed around 70-80% of the foliage already. Some of the lower branches had no foliage anywhere close to the trunk and were removed totally. Every branch has had some foliage removed from it, most branches had "layers of pads and I removed them back to the first pad.

How much foliage could you safely remove? I have heard of general rules like not removing more then a third off a juniper at a time. This is a great post by the way, well documented, impressive tree and some serious effort going into the dig. I look forward to more photos in the future!

Thanks Mount Nasura, That is generally the "rule" I think most go by. I tend to look at the root ball once its out of the ground and see how many feeder roots it has compared to big chunky roots. These do need foliage to maintain sap flow so I am very conscious of that. Thanks

I have never collected a juniper this big so take this with a grain of salt, but remember that junipers strength lie in their foliage not there roots. So if you remove too much foliage it may recover slower.

Thanks Scott, Appreciate the comment. That is my take on it.

I have never collected a juniper this big so take this with a grain of salt, but remember that junipers strength lie in their foliage not there roots. So if you remove too much foliage it may recover slower.

Scott / all,

I am not being argumentative, however I could not disagree more. Irrespective of the type of tree we are talking about, anytime we artificially create a situation where you have an excess of foliage to be supported by insufficient roots you are going to place the tree at risk. This is why we (collective bonsai practitioners) are extremely careful when re-potting and root pruning so as not to remove too much rootage and stress the tree. Conifers can be particularly unforgiving when it comes to the supply of water and nutrients to support foliage, if you root prune a conifer too hard foliage will turn brown very quickly, branches will die back as the tree struggles to survive. During the dig many of the fine feeder roots of this tree will have been damaged or lost completely and the tree will struggle to take up moisture and nutrients, placing too much demand on damaged roots to do so in order to support a mass of foliage is a recipee for disaster.

I agree, you cannot remove all foliage from a juniper, doing is certainly a recipee for death of the tree, however providing you leave some green viable foliage on branches/sub branches/branchlets, you will not lose the branch, providing you do not Over Water the tree at during this time of recovery.

In answer to a following post "How much foliage could you safely remove? I have heard of general rules like not removing more then a third off a juniper at a time"

I balance the amount of foliage removed by how much root mass is removed! I realise this does give us an impirical figure to work with, however there are very few things is growing Bonsai which are "black and white". I will say it has been my experience that proving some foliage is left on branches/sub branches/branchlets then the tree will recover. To me the secret becomes matching the watering to the demands placed on the roots by the foliage. I have posted a before and after shot of a juniper of mine. If I was to give a number I would say that I removed approximately 85% of the foliage of this tree during pruning last year, I did not lose a single branch in recovery and the tree has rewarded me with an impressive flush of new growth this year.

I will try and post of pic later of the tree as it is today.

cheers,

Jeff

Hi Jeff. I do and don't agree with the highlighted comment. Every tree needs to be looked at in it's own species. I agree if there are insufficient roots but that is the discussion here, what is insufficient roots to support the foliage I have left though. I have collected trees and cut back to nothing but a stump, others have been left with full foliage.
So many different factors need to be taken into account when a tree is collected, not just it's type. Time of year collected, difficulty in collecting, time out of the ground, aftercare once collected.
Highlighted in green-I believe I have done this with this tree so far. There is a decent root ball with fine roots as the roots weren't deep and I dug under it rather than pull it out so there was minimal disturbance. Probably the most care I've ever taken with a dig (unlike one of the other trees I dug there in hard clay and eventually broke the last root off with half the base )
This tree was kept well watered and foliage sprayed while collecting. Once home it soaked in seasol then was potted up, again kept moist. The hot weather coming isn't to much of an issue as I have shade cover to protect it and it will be foliage sprayed regularly each day over the next few weeks. I find foliage spraying helps to stop dehydration of the foliage. It is in a well sheltered area with morning sun, dapple light and late afternoon sun.

I have never collected a juniper this big so take this with a grain of salt, but remember that junipers strength lie in their foliage not there roots. So if you remove too much foliage it may recover slower.

I balance the amount of foliage removed by how much root mass is removed!

If your talking established juniper stock maybe .
If your talking Collected Junipers then it's a whole different game. The majority of professional tree collectors in the US and UK do not remove Juniper foliage when collecting .Keep in a Shadey spot which gets good filtered light till good signs of new growth are seen.

Good luck

Interesting they don't remove any foliage at all. Climate plays a big part in how a tree is collected.

...If this doesn't survive then I'll give up collecting tree's .Cant see any issues with this approach...

...No reason this will NOT be a total sucess...

Each to there own, but if anyone wants to see how to collect large junipers ask these two!

well done, that's very inspirational only for it being too hot ,I feel like going out and digging something up.Congrats to your little helper what a big effort. It will interesting to see the progress.

Thanks Rodm,
I just keep my eyes open and look for people working on their gardens or houses being demolished and ask if I can dig the trees out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Jaz (my little helper) did an awesome job and worked as hard as I did. Sorry but you going to have to wait a while to see this progress as it will now sit and recover.

Thank you to every for your comments and discussion on the collecting and the foliage removal. The big thing to remember is everyone has a method that works for them and maybe not for others but ALWAYS worth sharing our experiences here so we can all learn. I collected some Buxus on a 40 plus degree day in the middle of summer and didn't think they would survive. I was advise not to remove move foliage at all as it will stress the tree and just foliage mist them. I did it and out of 9 trees collected 7 lived. The 2 that died were basically gone from the start as they had no roots. I've collected other trees and taken them back to just a couple of buds. Even if it is just a stump I still spray the trunk each day.
Last year I collected several corky bark oak. Most shot straight away but the big one lost all it's leaves and started dying back. I kept misting the trunk every day or two and after 9 months it has shot with buds right up the trunk ground to top. I've never collected something this big or nice so it is a fast learning curve for me so appreciate all the comments. If (when) it lives it will be exciting. If it doesn't live, I'll review what I did and see if there is something needing changing (like get more friends to help with the dig )

I will update it's progress here as time goes by so stay tuned........

Thanks
Josh

[Webos]

G'day josh.. I've dug a few and I would strongly recommend against removing any more foliage. I think you have done an excellent job of lifting it. Large Junipers that I have dug all seem to look after themselves. They will kill off the foliage they can't support, leaving only the foliage they can feed. Looking at the forecast this coming week, I would definitely keep it shaded until these high 30's are gone. Flood the pot once a day. Forget about it until spring 2014... That's when you'll know how well it's survived. If it has recovered well, that's when I would start cutting back a little to expose the inner branches to light and heat. I wouldn't start proper bonsai work until 2015.

Scott Roxburgh is correct, junipers tend to use their foliage like a pump. If you take too much off, the tree will not invest energy into that branch and just kill it off. On the other hand, junipers readily shoot roots like nothin else. I would agree with jag if he were talking about most other genus, but not juniperus.

Adam

[Josh]

Thanks Adam. Appreciate the comments. The remaining foliage will stay and see how it goes. It's going have shaded protection when needed as I have a large umbrella I can place over it when needed. This will allow me to leave off on the cooler days or later evenings when the temp drops a bit.

Cheers
Josh

[Andrew F]

Thats quiet an effort and decent sized tree, look forward to the updates of it bouncing back from collection

Great work Josh.

[Josh]

Well the week or two of 40-45 plus degrees we had straight after collecting took it's toll and it didn't make it I don't think there was anything particular that I did wrong, just collected before the worst possible heat wave we had for the year so just bad luck I think.

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So now onto the next project turning it into a tanuki. I have never done a tanuki before so any advise given would be great. There are two options.

64.JPG

Or I create two trees

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68.JPG

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Comments welcome, encouraged.....any ideas.

Josh

[bodhidharma]

Well what a shame it did not make it. I would use the whole tree for tanuki and i did that article in the shohin comp on Tanuki so have a read of that and i will help in any way i can.

[Isitangus]

That's a killer piece of deadwood and a shame it didn't survive-it would've been epic. Use for tanuki as bodhi suggested, if it's too big for one for you, cut it into 2 or 3-or sell it!!!!

[rodm]

Damn, bugger, blast etc. It's sad, I suppose a least you get the experience of doing a tanuki
Cheers Rod

[Josh]

Well what a shame it did not make it. I would use the whole tree for tanuki and i did that article in the shohin comp on Tanuki so have a read of that and i will help in any way i can.

Thanks Bochi, really appreciate any help you can offer. I'll have a read of your article and go from there. I was disappointed to loose it but have learnt a lot from the collection so not a total waste. It will also make a nice tanuki stump so another learning opportunity. I will continue this thread and update here and no doubt will have lots of questions along the way. Thanks

That's a killer piece of deadwood and a shame it didn't survive-it would've been epic. Use for tanuki as bodhi suggested, if it's too big for one for you, cut it into 2 or 3-or sell it!!!!

Yeah it had some real potential to be something special and still does I guess, just not what I first thought. There's no such thing as to big in my world Isitangus

Damn, bugger, blast etc. It's sad, I suppose a least you get the experience of doing a tanuki
Cheers Rod

Yeah that was my reaction Rod...well something like that anyway. Someone said to me the other day " you must be really upset you wasted all that time digging it". My reaction, not wasted at all, just a different opportunity to what I thought. All good really.

Stay tuned for more updates.
Josh.

[PeterH]

Hi Josh,

Its a pity it died. Must of been a good workout for you. I dug one of these from my neighbors front yard in 2008 and it took the usual 2 hours. It went into a half wine barrel and has been neglected ever since.


Good luck with this project.

Regards,

Peter