Wires_Guy_wires
Imperial Masterpiece
I've been dealing with a lot of nursery stock in the past years. Junipers especially, when they get huge cut backs, tend to produce a bunch of juvenile foliage.
They do this to stop grazing and increase photosynthetic surface, to recover faster from any damage and to prevent further damage.
All good, that's the nature of the beast! But it's ugly.
I've experimented a little and set a branch on fire on purpose. It produced some jet flames from the escaping oils and gasses, so watch your fingers if you try this.
To much of my surprise, the following growth was not at all juvenile but rather a continuation of the adult scale foliage.
I tried it on more junipers, and it seems that the burning of shoot tips does not cause the plant to revert to juvenile needle foliage.
But my space is limited and so is my stock. I did not make any pictures because I did think it was just a lucky outcome. But it happened a couple more times, and again I didn't take pictures. Sorry for that.
So my question to you is: would you help me out in collecting more data, and sacrifice one of your extending shoots (one that you would normally prune) by lighting it on fire instead of pruning it with a scissor and then tell me what happened?
Again, watch out for the jet flames and please don't hurt yourself. Keep a bucket of water close by, you don't want the whole plant to catch fire. Wet it beforehand maybe; all you'd want is to boil the internals, that can be done when wet.
Of course, after the shoot tip has died, I snap it off, because burnt foliage is ugly too. But if this happens to stop reverting the foliage in your stock too, we might be looking at a fun pruning technique.
I'm finding mixed messages about junipers and their smoke, please don't inhale it.
Thanks for any reports!
They do this to stop grazing and increase photosynthetic surface, to recover faster from any damage and to prevent further damage.
All good, that's the nature of the beast! But it's ugly.
I've experimented a little and set a branch on fire on purpose. It produced some jet flames from the escaping oils and gasses, so watch your fingers if you try this.
To much of my surprise, the following growth was not at all juvenile but rather a continuation of the adult scale foliage.
I tried it on more junipers, and it seems that the burning of shoot tips does not cause the plant to revert to juvenile needle foliage.
But my space is limited and so is my stock. I did not make any pictures because I did think it was just a lucky outcome. But it happened a couple more times, and again I didn't take pictures. Sorry for that.
So my question to you is: would you help me out in collecting more data, and sacrifice one of your extending shoots (one that you would normally prune) by lighting it on fire instead of pruning it with a scissor and then tell me what happened?
Again, watch out for the jet flames and please don't hurt yourself. Keep a bucket of water close by, you don't want the whole plant to catch fire. Wet it beforehand maybe; all you'd want is to boil the internals, that can be done when wet.
Of course, after the shoot tip has died, I snap it off, because burnt foliage is ugly too. But if this happens to stop reverting the foliage in your stock too, we might be looking at a fun pruning technique.
I'm finding mixed messages about junipers and their smoke, please don't inhale it.
Thanks for any reports!
I try to avoid these. I have one spanish sabina, so not the gardencentre version. It was unfortunately a bit pricey and has taken me 4 years to get to good health. No experimenting there. 
