AusBonsai

From what I have read, junipers take about ten years to grow one metre. Does this mean you would have to wait about ten years to put on 10mm of trunk width?

Squamata or Chinensis?

Max wrote:Squamata or Chinensis?

Not any specific species, just junipers generally.

I am certainly not a juniper man but from everything I've ever read or heard about them they are very slow to thicken. I would imagine that virtually all the ones exhibited in shows are collected yamadori, and the rest that have good size to them would have been ground grown for many many years.

Squamata is faster than Chinensis

Max wrote:Squamata is faster than Chinensis

Any idea what the grow rate is for squamatas?

Different juniper species grow at different rates also local conditions will have a big impact on how fast they will grow as well.
I can add 10mm to trunk diameter on shimpaku in 3-4 years and shoots will extend 40-50 cm in a single year with good growing conditions but that dos not mean 4m in 10 years simply because they don't seem to grow that tall.

shibui wrote:I can add 10mm to trunk diameter on shimpaku in 3-4 years and shoots will extend 40-50 cm in a single year

Is that in the ground?

Either in the ground or in pots. They don’t seem to grow much faster in the grow beds for some reason

is it because their timber is so dense?

Needle Juniper (J. communis or rigida - one or the other) grows faster for me than other Junis, particularly in the ground, and grows easily from cuttings. Prickly and nasty, but tough as. When you dig it from the ground, you can bare-root it and put it into pure pumice or grit to get rid of the nasty persistent clod of compressing soil at the base of the tree.

Should be grown more, in my opinion.

Gavin