sick juniper

[Jake]

I brought this juniper (and pot) at a local nursery for $12 in this condition it had $190 on the price tag.
I have sprayed it with lime sulphur as i thought it was spider mites but it has yet to come good after about 3 weeks or so.
any suggestions on what is wrong? should i not bother with it? im happy with that pot for $12 lol

-Jake

Squamatta juniper day of purchase.JPG

[Gerard]

Cut it back, repot it and keep up the pesticide spray.
Potentially a really nice shohin.

[Jamie]

the tail is definately gone, the tree is in that top section if it is still alive, it is a bit 50/50 right now as that foliage looks quite dull. there was a thread on here recently about a juniper that was dying that actually come back. i will try and find it to give you some ideas.


heres the link

viewtopic.php?f=103&t=3763&hilit=dying+juniper

[Jake]

thanks the help is much appreciated. i gave it a hard prune a few weeks back and a fert. but its looking a fair bit worse then that photo. should i cut tail end off and repot? it looks like it was an awsome tree back in the day. i also picked up some Jabily (elephant tree) stock which i hear is a rare find.

[Jamie]

dont know bout the elephant tree mate

as for cutting off the tail, i would cut it but leave a good stub that could possibly be turned into jin. if you go by the advice given to hugh in that thread you might get lucky like he did, his was looking like a sure goner but came back

so a little shade, and water when needed you might be ok, give it some weak seasol every few days too, it might perk it up

[archie1979]

Hmm I dont know about giving the por thing any fert, I would just feed it every week and mist maybe twice a day. Find a nice morning sunny spot for it and keep ya fingers crossed.
Fert will probably just make it worse.

Archie

[john tapner]

Jake, not a good idea to fertilize a sick tree. I think a good idea would be to check the root ball to see if you have curl grubs. If everything is OK there plant it in a polystyrene box with a good free draining mix, tie it in so the tree cannot move, and stand it in a nice sunny spot and see what Spring brings. If you have a veggie patch that is also a good option that I use all the time. Either option will encourage new root growth and hopefully the tree will recover,

John T

[Jake]

aright im going to plant it in my vegie patch its in a perfect position, sunny most of the day. ill cut it back and keep spraying it with lime sulfur. ill keep everyone updated and see if she survives
cheers for the replys very helpfull

[Gerard]

Do not go overboard with the lime sulphur (especially in the vegie patch) a week or two and any bugs you might have had should be gone.
6 months back I had an almost identical, sick, cascading juniper. Here is a pic from today

prunus bliriana root work 007.jpg

[Makkanan]

Probably not relevant, but I had a couple of sick would-be cascade junipers in a similar state. Had thought mites were a late summer thing (in VIC) but that was winter... Hmmm. Treated for mites anyway, etc. No difference. It turns out that the taller pot allowed for the soil mix to compact too much, actually casuing the fibrous roots to drown. As a first step now I always check the drainage....especially in case the nursery/previous owner used a tight flyscreen mesh. Flyscreen mesh, cascade pots and less-than-open soil..... a bad combo....

[Jake]

i pulled it out of its pot it was ridiculasly root bound. there was fly screen mesh covering the hole aswell and just normal potting mix. i guess the nursery repotted it once and did a shocking job at it. i put it in the ground im going to leave it for a few seasons and see how it go's. they also left wire on it for far to long as it had cut in so deep to a few branches i could bearly get the wire off one branch.
within 3 weeks i watched all of there bonsai and bonsai stock slowly die off. don't know why they even bother poor trees