Design Ideas and Species ID

[Walther]

Hello all,

I recently obtained a hollywood juniper for very cheap so I couldn't pass up the opportunity for some practice material and I also found a very interesting tree from a Vietnamese nursery. The hollywood juniper had some work done to it already but was essentially abandoned which is why I got for cheap.
I wanted to ask those more experienced than me on what I should do in terms of the general design to go for with the trees and even specific designs that I should try and perhaps help me ID the species of one.

I think its a blue point but I am not sure.
Attached are pictures. I was thinking I should let it really just grow alot and then work on it but i think itd be better to seek the opinions of those more experiences than I.
The one in question is in a nursery pot inside half a jack daniels barrel.

Thank you all

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Vietnamese as in.. In Vietnam?

Anyhow, the barrel one looks like Juniperus virginia var. Grey owl. Common in Europe and the US, not available in Vietnam.

In regards to design, I would wait until fall and then just start systematically wiring the plants. That would be a "trust the process" exercise; halfway through you're going to scratch your head and think what the honk you're doing and why it is so ugly. Spend two more hours and you're going to think "Woah, this is getting somewhere!". Another two hours of positioning and removing what you don't need, and you'll have a design. Yes, you will wire six or seven branches you didn't have to, because they need removal. But it's better to have plenty and cut them off, than to wish you hadn't cut them off in the end.

That, to me at least, is the way of the juniper.

Keep in mind to always work the plant from the outside inwards. Whatever is close to the trunk can get stronger and become your foliage pads. Whatever you removed there, cannot.
Junipers grow from inside towards outside, so if you leave those insides you can make new outsides.
Many people flip that script and then ask why all their junipers turn out looking like cheerleaders with only foliage on the ends of branches. The answer always is "because you made it so".

Good luck!

 

[Walther]

Vietnamese as in.. In Vietnam?

Anyhow, the barrel one looks like Juniperus virginia var. Grey owl. Common in Europe and the US, not available in Vietnam.

In regards to design, I would wait until fall and then just start systematically wiring the plants. That would be a "trust the process" exercise; halfway through you're going to scratch your head and think what the honk you're doing and why it is so ugly. Spend two more hours and you're going to think "Woah, this is getting somewhere!". Another two hours of positioning and removing what you don't need, and you'll have a design. Yes, you will wire six or seven branches you didn't have to, because they need removal. But it's better to have plenty and cut them off, than to wish you hadn't cut them off in the end.

That, to me at least, is the way of the juniper.

Keep in mind to always work the plant from the outside inwards. Whatever is close to the trunk can get stronger and become your foliage pads. Whatever you removed there, cannot.
Junipers grow from inside towards outside, so if you leave those insides you can make new outsides.
Many people flip that script and then ask why all their junipers turn out looking like cheerleaders with only foliage on the ends of branches. The answer always is "because you made it so".

Good luck!

Thank you so much for the response. By vietnamese I meant that the owners and employees and essentially everything including signs etc were all vietnamese so it was difficult to get any information on the species. Thats all.
I had suspected it of being a western juniper shortly after posting but I am glad to get confirmation on what it is and the variety too so thank you so much!
I will report back in the fall and I will follow your advice!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I see, yeah I thought you might be in Vietnam so just making sure ;-)
I don't know the vietnamese climate so you might have had no seasons at all which would make it more difficult to pick the right season for wiring. But late fall, or late winter is best.

If you put a wooden skewer in the soil or a wooden chopstick, you have a good moisture probe to watch your watering. Since they're in somewhat organic looking soil, you might not have to water on a daily basis or even a weekly basis.
To get an idea of how much you should or shouldn't water, that wooden probe will help you out. It beats any other moisture sensor I've ever come across or built myself.

Also in early fall or mid spring, you can repot them if you want into a more bonsai-suited substrate. But try to avoid styling and repotting in the same season, it tends to do them dirty.

EDIT: I want to add that this is a great time to clean up the bark by pulling the flakes off. Especially with the grey owl, the main family of j. virginia is very susceptible to rust disease. If you see a branch going in a straight line with a little tapering off, and it suddenly bulges somewhere as if it's inflated for some reason, take a couple pictures and report back to us. You might need to amputate that area and it's best done rather sooner than later to stop it from expanding.
I've seen some gardening pictures from the US this year with more orange tentacles on their junipers than green foliage.
Cleaning the bark is a pain staking exercise and I try to avoid it as much as possible, but I try to do it each second year. It becomes almost impossible if there's wire on the tree.