couple rug juniper questions

[BK6]

• 10 minutes ago

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• #10

I picked up four rug style junipers. all in good health. Im in ohio, its warm now but has been cold. When would be the best time of year to do:

initial repot into a better training container?

best time to wire and clean them up?

it seems so hard to find the answer because everyone has different situations. These trees will not see a greenhouse, will be oitside all winter, south east ohio.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

The “right“ answer is this: You can clean up old foliage and lightly prune now. Wire in the spring, repot after wiring. If you wire now, big bends with cracking are likely to die in very cold temperatures so they would need protection from temps much below the upper 20s.

However, these sound like practice trees, and rug junipers have coarse and limp foliage which isn’t the best for bonsai. If that’s the case and you want to work them over now, prune and wire now, protect from hard freezes this winter, and repot what is still alive in March-April when foliage tips start to show signs of growing.

 

[sorce]

Summer.

Sorce

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Summer.

Sorce

not

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

However, these sound like practice trees, and rug junipers have coarse and limp foliage which isn’t the best for bonsai. If that’s the case and you want to work them over now, prune and wire now, protect from hard freezes this winter, and repot what is still alive in March-April when foliage tips start to show signs of growing.

Agreed, if they are practice trees.. Best to get those itchy fingers to stop itching and take not of what you can and can't do in your climate.
Treat each one differently and document what happens.

If the purples happen when it's cold, you know you've pushed it. The purples?! You might ask. But you'll know it when you see it. When that happens, take extra notes on the progression. They might turn back green in spring, but it's always wise to know what it was that made those branches live, and if they don't turn green: what it was that made them dead.