Juniper Shimpaku

[AndreasM]

I was able to obtain an older Juniper at a deceased estate sale on the weekend allowing me to afford something more developed. I am fairly sure it is a Shimpaku.

my initial goal is to keep it alive over summer. but I expect it will need to be repotted at a time suitable for the tree. From reading up, I think I have missed that opportunity for this year. I saw that early spring might be a good time. Any advice on that is appreciated.

The tree includes a large chunk of separate deadwood, which appears to have suffered/weathered quite a lot, by the colour and condition of it. It does not look like it is part of the tree, but the tree is planted right against it. I have no idea what it looks like under the soil. When I (eventually) repot I will have to consider whether to keep it, and by then learn whether it can be salvaged into a nicer looking piece of wood.

I also like the pot. I don't know if the writing on it is Japanese or Chinese. Looks Japanese to me. If anyone knows what it might say, I would be interested. My translating app picked up something related to spring but failed on most of it.

I am also not sure on the front of the tree. the side with the picture or the side with the writing. May change at repotting time anyway.

[shibui]

I agree that it's some form of Juniper chinensis.
I suspect you have what's known as a phoenix graft where a sapling is planted with some dead wood with the aim they will eventually look like a single entity which gives us all the features of a very old tree without waiting all those years.
Some phoenix grafts are done well so the living and dead parts are so well joined it's hard to tell that they are separate pieces. Others are obviously separate which I think defeats the whole exercise.
Your juniper trunk looks reasonably mature so, if the dead wood is not convincing you can probably get rid of that and concentrate on the tree alone.

I repot junipers any time from late winter through to mid spring. I agree that it's a bit late this year. There are some who also repot in late Summer/ Autumn but I haven't tried that yet.

Can't help with the pot or the writing.

[TimIAm]

The first lot of characters are 春 and 長 but are read right to left, so that is 長春. 長 typically is translated as long, but can also be used to mean a long time. 春 means Spring. But there are some subtleties and connotations that go beyond just "long Spring".

The second set of characters are 生 and another stylised version of 春 (intended to be read right to left, 春生). 生 can mean birth, life, living (and several other meanings), again here there are more connotations that just Spring-living.

It is quite common with Chinese pots to have groups of characters alluding to growth, vigour, plants, flowers and Spring time.

The longer one is 四时皆春 . Meaning is "every season like Spring", meaning continually having favourable conditions.

[AndreasM]

I agree that it's some form of Juniper chinensis.
I suspect you have what's known as a phoenix graft where a sapling is planted with some dead wood with the aim they will eventually look like a single entity which gives us all the features of a very old tree without waiting all those years.
Some phoenix grafts are done well so the living and dead parts are so well joined it's hard to tell that they are separate pieces. Others are obviously separate which I think defeats the whole exercise.
Your juniper trunk looks reasonably mature so, if the dead wood is not convincing you can probably get rid of that and concentrate on the tree alone.

Thank you - I am definitely not finding the deadwood convincing, but looks like I have a couple of seasons to contemplate how I fell about.

I repot junipers any time from late winter through to mid spring. I agree that it's a bit late this year. There are some who also repot in late Summer/ Autumn but I haven't tried that yet.

Thas is good to know - much appreciated. given I have never repotted anything this large, I will definitely wait until the late winter/early spring time. hopefully do the least amount of damage that way and give it its best chance, and as above, to work out what I might want to do about that deadwood.

[AndreasM]

The first lot of characters are 春 and 長 but are read right to left, so that is 長春. 長 typically is translated as long, but can also be used to mean a long time. 春 means Spring. But there are some subtleties and connotations that go beyond just "long Spring".

The second set of characters are 生 and another stylised version of 春 (intended to be read right to left, 春生). 生 can mean birth, life, living (and several other meanings), again here there are more connotations that just Spring-living.

It is quite common with Chinese pots to have groups of characters alluding to growth, vigour, plants, flowers and Spring time.

The longer one is 四时皆春 . Meaning is "every season like Spring", meaning continually having favourable conditions.

Thank you very much. I was hoping that there was someone on here who knew something about the pot or the language. It is a great forum for all of this! I always worry about having writing in other languages when I have no idea what it might mean! (I have definitely seen a few things in my time with German writing on it, or included in music etc, and it is nonsense!)