Juniper styling advice please

[Andrew Legg]

Looks like a Procumbens nana to me, and my experience of these is that they are slow to thicken. I also find that they thicken differently to other trees. What I would do here is plant it into a big pot or into the garden and then make sure you trim back the top hard and let the bottom grow out heavily. This is the only way you may get decent taper. It may take 5 years. I find that with procumbens one gets thick points and therefore reverse taper on the trunks at the point where there are branches. This is particularly so when there are multiple branches coming out close to eachother. So watch out for this at the top of the tree and cut back pretty hard on that foliage up there.

I'd prune as shown in the pic below, keep that bottom branch for sacrifice, but pinch it back to get energy into the second branch up. Foliar feed the second branch as well to get it going a bit stronger.

[Samegyed]

Thx Andrew sounds like good advise. What fertilizer do you recommend for foliar feeding?

[Andrew Legg]

Thx Andrew sounds like good advise. What fertilizer do you recommend for foliar feeding?

No problem. Just pop down to your local nursery and ask them what they have. I live in South Africa, so the brands are probably different. The point withthe foliar feeding is to target only that branch to try to strengthen it relative to the others. You need to get those low branches looking strong and healthy if you are ever going to build trunk thickness low down.

[Samegyed]

Cheers mate, that makes sense. Thx for the time you spent on the "vert." A picture tells a thousand words, greatly appreciated. I'm about to go and put it in a big pot now and start pruning.

[Samegyed]

VelvetSicklid, Here's some close ups of the moss. The moss was collected from the Brisbane river bank.

[Taffy]

Mate, if I can add to the good advice already offered - in particular by Andrew. Below is a virt that could easily fit in with the design of your tree as it is now.

This virt wasn't done by me, it was done by a very good friend (I'm not that good at doing them) - but hopefully it might give you more ideas on styling your tree.

Oh and forget about the mulcher (bad advice)! Every tree has potential.

aus v juni1.jpg

[Samegyed]

Thx Taffy, that looks great. It shows the potential very well. Please thank your friend for doing the virtual too, it's given me a good goal to work towards.

[Psymo]

Nice vit Taffy

[Andrew Legg]

Nice virt to Taffy's friend.

First thing to do would be to try and get vigour into the tree lower down to try to get some trunk taper. It is always good to have an end goal in mind, which is why the virt posted by Taffy is so good. Don't lose sight of the path to getting there though.

Have a read about energy distribution and balancing in trees to understand why I suggest the path I do. Just as you can ballance energy in trees, you can also focus it. What you need to achieve is a focussing of growth energy in the lower part of the tree to thicken it up. Junipers are a bit different to deciduous trees in that their foliage 'sucks' energy and hence growth up into the branches. Defoliating a branch completely will quite possibly kill it (unlike in deciduous trees) Parts of the tree that have the most foliage will therefore attract most of the growth. This is why I suggest pruning back the top and pinching out that lowest branch. Pinching the top will help to direct energy lower down on the tree, but you need that energy to go to the underdevelopped branches and not be completely sucked up by the currently dominant lowest branch. Also be sure to understand the difference between pinching and pruning, and note that this is not something you will do once only, but that you will need to continue to focus the growth into the bits that you want it in. Depending on nthe growth rate of the plant, this could mean pinching out the top and that bottomw branch weekly or every two weeks to give the weaker branches time to catch up. Targetted foliar feeding of the weak branches on a 3 to 4 weekly basis will also help.

Cheers, and good luck!

[Psymo]

Taffy's crew word up

[Samegyed]

Very informative Andrew thank you kindly for all your advise. 3 days ago I was scratching my head when I looked at this tree, now I know exactly what my plan is. I've learn more in the last few days then I have in the year and a half I've been "bonsaiing"
I love this forum. Cheers

[Samegyed]

After some fine scotch whiskey, to take the edge of the first week back at work after holidays, this is my juniper after some hard pruning and pinching.

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Andrew, I've considered what you've said about energy direction/balance, and how it affects junipers. If I am to leave this branch un-pruned or pinched, will it in affect suck most of the energy to itself (being the branch with the most foliage on it now). And will this cause the trunk to thicken at this point more than the base of the trunk?

[Mitchell]

Samegyed, after viewing current proceedings, I still (and perhaps, I should have made opinion more clear at the time) feel you had a presentable tree worth viewing.

it still remains, you have just given it a serious chop on the original design. This may indeed serve us well, as now we can work on ramification as branches return. I can see your original image working given some nice branch work. Keep up the work as you shall surely receive as very nice tree in the future.

[Andrew F]

VelvetSicklid, Here's some close ups of the moss. The moss was collected from the Brisbane river bank.

Wow that moss is so luscious and green, what ferts do you dose with????

[Samegyed]

Hi all,
Well it's been a year and a half since i re-potted and hacked my juniper back. So I thought I'd post some pics of how it's growing.
My plan for this tree was to thicken the trunk at the base to eliminate the reverse taper. I've been following the advise Andrew gave me last year and it seems to be working. The second photo shows that now the base of the trunk is thicker then the top.The middle section is still slightly thicker then the base, however I'm hoping if i continue pinching growth hard on the branches in this area, the base should catch up.

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It's great to see that the constant selective pinching i've done is working towards the goal i have for this tree.

Cheers,
Sam