AusBonsai

Hello,

I happily bought 3 thick junipers for my collection recently. They are very overgrown. I intend to cut back at least 60% of the foliage and after one or two months to repot them as well. They seem very healthy, and fit to cope with the actions. The soil seems too dense, and is likely to be depleted. I live in Brisbane, and local temperatures were a chilly 10-23c today. This is relevant to a different project too. Anyway, is it sensible to cut back healthy plants so much, and to root prune (up to 30%)?

Here are photos of one of the 3. I invite you to comment about styling and tip my hand. All I intend to do to this one is hard prune the long branches to produce back budding, and select the leader. Potentially the aim will be a taller specimen of the literati style.

I'll take these to a the local meeting on Saturday and let experienced hands dabble.

This is the 2nd. It has a little more structure, is thinner, retains many whip-like branches and may be a Sargent Juniper. Again, I'll hard cut to promote back buds, and to be re-pot. I reckon this one is less distant to a spiffing result than the others, and suits something other than the towering dragon / standing cobra type, if you know what I mean.

This is the 3rd and final. It is thicker, mostly straight, low thick bar branches. So this will be treated similar to the first. Hard cutting, taller final product, repotting. As the first fits a taller style, this one might be a way for me to learn about taper.

Not bad looking trees mate. Cutting them back hard won’t necessarily promote back budding on a juniper as they don’t backbud like that. They can back bud but not profusely like other trees. Personally I would make a decision on styling and go all in on that, wiring the main trunks and then remove any unwanted foliage to suit the design. Thin out the remaining heavy areas and get it healthy with lots of sun and fertiliser. I would also repot at the same time. But in the same time don’t remove too much folage as it will use that to recover from the butchering. Junipers get very weak if u remove too much folage. 60% removed should be ok. I wouldn’t remove any of the inner branches as they won’t grow back and try develop the most inner shoots or buds u manage to get to become branches later on.

With regards to the roots I wouldn’t bare root but try to leave a nice little root ball. I personally would remove 75% of the roots. Being as u are in Brisbane early to mid August would probably be your best bet.

Thanks Paul, it's timely advice. August seems so far, I'm keen right now! I never cut back so much before so it's good to hear some confirmation about the basic approach. Seems like a lot of roots
to cut, though leaving a root ball fits my browsing.

The one I'm looking at now has so many spaghetti branches, it's really silly.